Lev Simkin - about a turn on the 25-year “path to freedom of conscience”

On June 3, 2015, NG-Religions published a comment Doctor of Law, Lawyer Lev Simkin to the last one at the end of May conference dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the first (and last) Soviet law on freedom conscience.

The law adopted in 1990, for all its shortcomings, provided important democratic advances in the state-confessional relationships. Despite the changes that have taken place in the relations of the state with religious organizations over the next 25 years, the foundations laid down in that law were preserved, enshrined in the Constitution and confirmed in the next version of the law. Now However, according to the author of the article, they began to be questioned as religious organizations, as well as officials and representatives of the scientific community.

The conference participants, according to L. Simkin, “talked about freedom of conscience as such with a certain apprehension. After all, this idea, as you know, foreign origin . Professor Marina Mchedlova referred to survey data according to which the number of people who consider freedom of conscience something important for themselves, halved. Member of the Public Chamber Iosif Diskin proposed to share freedom "from what" and freedom "for what" - in Russia, in his opinion, only the second is important, necessary "to create a moral foundation for civil society" .

Meanwhile, L. Simkin notes, “in Europe the right to freedom conscience arose as "freedom from" - from the influence of the Catholic Church and from persecution of heretics, and for quite a long time it has been considered one of the natural human rights" . The participants of the conference “expressed concern, no matter how freedom of conscience interferes with our “identity”, “return to the roots” . Moreover, “in this concern, representatives of the Church and Muslims, oddly enough, do not yielded Buddhists and Jews .

The author recalls that “in general, freedom of conscience is a little about something else. And, in particular, about the recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights freedom to change one's religion. And not at all about the connection of ethnic origin with religion . " He refers to the practice of the Russian Empire, “when the exit from Orthodoxy was criminally punishable . Today's discrimination against adherents of "non-traditional" religious organizations, L. Simkin is sure, is a continuation of the same policy, and not at all a consequence of the insufficient education of modern officials, as say representatives of Protestant churches. Sources

• "The law is good..." // NG-Religions. 2015. June 3.