The administrator of the Theravada.ru website is trying to challenge in court the ban on distributing the Tripitaka sutra and its commentary in Russia

A Buddhist monk, the administrator of the Theravada website, is trying to challenge Roskomnadzor's ban on distributing the Tripitaka sutra and its commentary in Russia through the courts.

On December 18, 2015, it became known that the Buddhist monk Pannyaavudho Topper bhikkhu, the administrator of the Theravada website, is trying to challenge the decision of Roskomnadzor to ban the dissemination of the Pali Canon sutra and commentary to it in Russia, allegedly containing “propaganda of suicide.” Pannyaavudho Topper bhikkhu sent a corresponding statement to the Tagansky District Court of Moscow.

Recall that Roskomnadzor ordered the administration of the Buddhist site "Theravada.ru" to remove several sutras of the Pali Canon, since they "contain suicide propaganda", at the end of September 2015.

“ Pannyaavudho Topper bhikkhu decided to thoroughly prepare and go to court, pay attention to this absurd situation and achieve recognition of the decisions of Rospotrebnadzor and Roskomnadzor as illegal. The information that has fallen under the ban is not some kind of late and free commentary. Moreover, the Buddhist monk is sure that without it, the entire text of the sutta may be misunderstood and cannot be separated from the text and banned. After all, we are talking about the main collection of sacred texts of southern Buddhism. While this comment is considered forbidden, I, of course, cannot voice it, but believe me, there is no description of the method of suicide. This is just a philosophical phrase of an authoritative scientist of the 5th century , ”the Theravadin lawyer comments on the appeal to the court.

The monk, according to him, wrote an explanatory letter - and then the sutra was recognized as permissible, but commentary on it is still prohibited.

In his statement, Pannyaavudho Topper bhikkhu refers to amendments to the law "On Countering Extremist Activities", which does not allow the prohibition of the sacred texts of world religions.

And although we are convinced that the sacred texts of the religions of the world, like any ancient texts, should be evaluated by specialists based on the historical context, it must be admitted that the reference to the law "On countering extremist activity" in this case - when it comes to the prohibition of texts - is not for extremism is meaningless.

Sources

• In Moscow, a monk appealed against the ban on comments on the sacred text of Buddhism // RAPSI. 2015. December 18.