"SOVA" spoke at the OSCE conference against turning anti-extremist norms into a law against blasphemy

On October 7, 2008, during the annual conference on the human dimension of the OSCE in Warsaw, a discussion was held on "What measures can we take to respond to violations of freedom of religion or belief" organized by the Forum 18 news service.

The discussion was moderated by Malcolm Evans, Member of the OSCE Expert Council on Religious Freedom. Professor Hans-Heinrich Vogel spoke about the work of the Venice Commission, the expert body of the Council of Europe. Felice Gaer, Chairman of the American Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), on USCIRF monitoring (for example, USCIRF is very concerned about the situation in Russia, but does not put it on a par with such countries in the OSCE region as Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan). Otmar Ohring, who represented the organization "Missio", spoke about the situation of religious minorities in Turkey, and Ninel Fokina - about the growing restrictions on religious freedom in Kazakhstan.

A SOVA spokesman, A. Verkhovsky, spoke about the growing tendency in Russia to use anti-extremist legislation as a tool to prosecute critics of certain religious views and even outright blasphemy. Examples were cases of pressure on Muslim groups (for example, the case of Imam Said Baiburin, the persecution of Said Nursi's followers, the case about the article about Navruz), but also Jehovah's Witnesses and Baptists, as well as non-religious organizations at all (the case about the exhibition "Forbidden art 2006", pressure on the TV channel "2x2"). It is sad that religious leaders often support such actions of the authorities, and sometimes even initiate them (as in the case of the campaign against the priest Daniil Sysoev or the same 2x2 TV channel).

The same issue was the subject of a brief presentation at the plenary meeting that day.

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