The district police officer appealed the termination of the case against a yoga teacher who was tried for illegal missionary work

A district police officer from St. Petersburg, Arsen Magomedov, filed a complaint to the court to dismiss the case against yoga teacher Dmitry Ugay, who was tried for illegal missionary work because of a lecture about yoga. This was reported by the Dozhd TV channel, which received a copy of the statement from Memorial lawyer Denis Shedov.

Magomedov’s statement said that at the lecture, Ugay spoke about yoga “not as a physical exercise, but from the point of view of love for God, spiritual fusion, and the desire for God as a person.” At the same time, “the word God... means the highest being and is inextricably linked with religion,” the district police officer points out with reference to explanatory dictionaries.

Since Ugay himself, according to the policeman, is a member of the Hindu organization Sri Taichanya Saraswat Math, during the lecture he “publicly disseminated information about the doctrine among people who are not members of the relevant association, in order to involve them in it,” retells the statement of “Rain” "

• Dmitry Ugay was detained in October 2016 during his own lecture on the philosophy of yoga at the Vedalife festival. A man named Nail Nasibulin filed a police report against him, claiming that Ugai would covertly conduct religious propaganda at his lecture.
• The police drew up a report on Ugay under the article “violation of the legislation on freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and religious associations” (part 4 of article 5.26 of the Administrative Code), which prohibits missionary activity without the permission of the authorities; the norm was adopted in the summer of 2016 as part of the “Yarovaya package”.
• In January 2017, Magistrate Judge of the Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg Zhanna Kustanovich dismissed the case.