A programmer who gave a lecture on yoga will be tried in St. Petersburg

A case of illegal missionary work has been opened against a St. Petersburg lecturer who spoke about yoga.

At the beginning of January 2017, it became known that on October 22, 2016, in St. Petersburg, the police detained programmer Dmitry Ugay, who was giving a lecture on yoga at the city festival “Vedalife”. The police interrupted the lecture and demanded that D. Ugay come with them, without explaining the reason for the detention.

After two months, it became clear that he was accused of illegal missionary work. Moreover, the protocol, which was not shown to the detainee, was later returned by the magistrate due to the large number of violations. After this, a new protocol was drawn up, in the absence of D. Ugay. According to him, the testimony of three witnesses was attached to the new protocol, two of whom were not present at the lecture at all.

“I relied on special publications that are used in all universities where Indian philosophy is studied. In my speech, I did not name a single religious organization, did not use a single religious book, and did not name a single religious figure other than Christ and Buddha. All this can be seen from the transcript and video recording of my lecture, ” D. Ugai told reporters. - An examination will be carried out by a religious expert, I hope that it will show the absence of any missionary activity, any appeals. Moreover, I was not even talking about any particular type of yoga, but about yoga in general. And all I said was the scope of about the first two classes with religious studies students, general information. In addition, although I myself am a believer, I do not belong to any religious organization, I am simply interested in Indian philosophy, like so many in our country. I was asked to give a lecture to the public because now there are a lot of commercial organizations that are engaged in yoga, but do not explain to people how it originated, what its history is, they do not talk about the sacred books on which it is based. And I talked about the worldview underlying yoga, about these ideas and knowledge.”

The court hearing is scheduled for January 9.

Sources

• Serova N. Yoga classes in Russia can lead to prison // New News. 2017. January 5.
• In St. Petersburg, yogis will be judged for missionary activity according to the “Yarovaya Law” // Rosbalt. 2017. January 9.
• Voltskaya T., Toroshechnikova M. Yoga according to Yarovaya’s law // Radio Liberty. 2017. January 8.