"Youth Human Rights Group" protests against the construction of an Orthodox church at the expense of the Petrozavodsk budget

The head of the Karelian regional branch of the interregional youth public charitable organization "Youth Human Rights Group (MPG)" sent an open letter to the mayor of Petrozavodsk V.N.

The author of the letter recalls that "according to the Constitution, the Russian Federation is a secular state, all religions in our country are equal in rights." Despite this, local deputies had previously succeeded in preventing the mayor's office of Petrozavodsk from allowing Muslims to build a mosque in the center of the city, while the community did not demand the allocation of budgetary funds, but only claimed a land plot. "On what basis do you consider it possible to build an Orthodox Church at the expense of the townspeople, among whom there are people of a different faith, as well as atheists? Why do you not take into account their interests, as well as the above circumstances?", asks M. Yefimov.

The head of the human rights organization also notes that urban planning in Petrozavodsk, "alas, does not shine with originality. Houses of wretched, as they joke," barrack "architecture fill everything around. Both outside and inside the spectacle of once built garages for people, multi-storey change houses,

oppresses". In this regard, the author of the letter suggests that the mayor pay attention to the housing problem, and not to temple building.

The letter also focuses on "such a negative anti-democratic trend as the creeping clericalization and militarization of all aspects of public life", which is expressed, in particular, in the teaching of the course "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" in schools and the militarization of "Fundamentals of Life Safety".

"A monstrous chimera is being created before our eyes: in a multinational, multi-confessional country, the authorities are trying to form a nationally oriented society! We stand on the positions of a secular, demilitarized, democratic state in which such initiatives are inappropriate," the appeal says.

An open letter from the head of the Karelian regional branch of the interregional youth public charitable organization "Youth Human Rights Group (MPG)" to the mayor of Petrozavodsk VN Maslyakov .