A meeting of adherents of the spiritual practice “Falun Gong” was suppressed in the Moscow region

In the Naro-Fominsk district of the Moscow region, a meeting of adherents of the spiritual practice "Falun Gong" was suppressed. This was reported on September 24 by L! FE.ru.

Protocols were drawn up against the organizers of the meeting under Art. 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (propaganda and public demonstration of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols), since the Buddhist swastika is used in the symbols of Falun Gong adherents. In addition, protocols were drawn up for two foreign citizens under Art. 18.8 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (violation by a foreign citizen or stateless person of the rules of entry into the Russian Federation and the regime of stay (residence) in the Russian Federation), the publication reports with reference to an unnamed law enforcement officer. One of them is a citizen of Lithuania, the second is a citizen of the United States and, according to L! FE.ru is the curator of the "Russian branch" of Falun Gong.

According to experts from the SOVA Information and Analytical Center, the Russian authorities unreasonably put up various obstacles to the spread of this Chinese spiritual practice. Most often, Falun Gong adherents are fined for distributing materials banned as extremist. In June 2015, it became known that " the criminal case against Falun Gong adherent Shamil Garayev was transferred to court for posting the book Falun Dafa on the website falundafa.udm.ru in 2012: law enforcement officers considered that the content of the book was identical to the content of the banned book by Li Hongzhi Zhuan Falun" and stated that it contained propaganda of the superiority of Li Hongzhi's ideas and views over others and "negative and hostile statements about Orthodox Christianity."

• On July 17, 2020, the Prosecutor General's Office declared undesirable seven organizations associated with followers of the Chinese spiritual practice Falun Gong, including Friends of Falun Gong Inc. (“Friends of Falun Gong”) registered in the United States.