Commissioner for Human Rights: “Vague criteria for classifying religious materials as extremist are unacceptable”

At the beginning of June 2019, a report on the activities of the Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia for 2018 was published. Special attention in the report is paid to the observance of the right to freedom of conscience.

On June 11, 2019, Rossiyskaya Gazeta published a report on the activities Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia for 2018.

Special attention in this text is paid to the observance of the right to freedom of conscience (part 2.3 of the report), complaints of believers and against believers.

“ The right to freedom of conscience and religion is not only a constitutional, but also an inalienable natural right of man - so this part begins. - Independence of self-determination of personality, latitude worldview choice of an individual - this is his nature. One of the most important elements of freedom of conscience is the right to confess openly individually or share any religion with others, or profess no religion, without harassment on the part of society or the authorities to choose and change, to have and distribute religious beliefs ."

A few paragraphs below it says that “ In December 2018, the Commissioner for Human Rights signed an agreement on cooperation with His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia , fixing the forms and methods of joint activities of the institute of state human rights activist and the Russian Orthodox Church, in order to ensure the rights of believers and strengthening respect for human dignity in the state and society .”

The report presents statistical data: in Russia, 38% assess the level of observance of the right to freedom of conscience as “good”, 34% "satisfactory" and 14% "poor". It is also indicated that in 2018 to the authorized received 2766 appeals on freedom of conscience and religions, of which 46 are collective.

“ A number of appeals related to restrictions on freedom of conscience and religion ,” the text says, “ contained proposals to ban the confession of religious beliefs of the Church of Adventist Christians seventh day, as well as requests for the protection of the rights of followers spiritual and health-improving direction of Chinese gymnastics qigong Falun Gong (Falun Dafa), as well as Baptist Christians who complained about being attracted to administrative responsibility for the implementation of missionary activities without permits. Based on the request of the authorized the prosecutor's offices of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation carried out checks, in as a result of which no violations of federal law were revealed .”

Separate attention in the report is paid to Article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (violation of the legislation on freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and religious associations).

The statistics are interesting: “In 2018, 419 cases under Article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, in 2017 - 477 cases. Punished 250 persons (78 legal entities and 172 individuals), of which 243 were fined.”

And no less comments to it are interesting: “ At the same time, it should be noted that, according to citizens, courts of general jurisdiction do not take into account all the circumstances of the case and unreasonably apply punishment, restricting the right to association and freedom activities of religious organizations. On the need to correct judicial errors are drawn to the attention of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, indicating which in itself is a violation of the legal requirement to notifications by the acting religious group to the authorized body state authority to continue activities is not an act entailing administrative responsibility provided for by part 4 of article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Offenses RF. Bringing to administrative responsibility requires taking into account all totality of the circumstances of the offense committed .

And even more interesting the following comment: “ In the opinion of the commissioner, in order to ensure uniformity of law enforcement practice seems expedient preparation within the framework of the implementation of the provisions of the agreement on cooperation between the Office of the Commissioner and the Legal Department of the ROC review enforcement of missionary and freedom laws conscience ."

The report also refers to six complaints from members of the Orthodox Church of the Mother of God Derzhavnaya in the city of Tver, who were evicted from "municipal non-residential premises" due to the termination of the contract for the gratuitous use of premises that were used as churches.

“ Despite the appeal of the commissioner, by a court decision, the religious organization was evicted from the occupied premises with reference to the norms of civil law on the freedom to terminate the contract for gratuitous use .”

The author of the report did not ignore the Jehovah's Witnesses.

« The expert and human rights community has widely discussed the issue of restricting the exercise of the right to freedom of religious beliefs of adherents "Jehovah's Witnesses". Activities of all branches of this organization recognized by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation as extremist and banned on the territory Russian Federation. From appeals to the Commissioner it followed that after liquidation of branches of Jehovah's Witnesses, believers were deprived the right to religious freedom. In connection with the appeal of the Complaint Commissioner M., who reported numerous facts of unjustified detention, interrogations, searches of residential premises and initiation of criminal cases against citizens, involved in the organization "Jehovah's Witnesses", the Prosecutor General's Office The Russian Federation was instructed to the prosecutors of the entities mentioned by the applicant Russian Federation to organize verification of the information provided. Out of 23 responses prosecutor's offices of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation it follows that the detention and prosecution of citizens had place . <...> In relation to all citizens in the prosecutor's offices 23 subjects of the Russian Federation put under control the progress and results investigative actions ."

« Events taking place with the followers of the Witnesses Jehovah" (sentencing Danish citizen Dennis Christensen, criminal prosecution of more than 100 adherents, application of measures coercion to some of them), make you think about the need clarification of signs of extremist activity specified in Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code RF. Of course, any extremist activity is unacceptable, but vague criteria for attributing religious materials to extremist when virtually any federal the judge, in his discretion, may ban any book, image, video or audio recording , ”the Commissioner for Human Rights comes to this conclusion.

At the same time, the authorized person indicates that a number of appeals came from citizens who did not want to listen to the preaching of Jehovah's Witnesses.

“ In particular, there were appeals from citizens who considered violation of their rights, the obsessive missionary activity of the "Witnesses Jehovah" who came to their house or stopped them on the street, offered to buy relevant literature and join their ranks. Wherein citizens pointed out that there were cases when these missionaries wrote in their records of their place of residence, considering such actions as an invasion of their privacy, and sometimes a threat to their safety. Authorized believes that adherents of Jehovah's Witnesses should not be persecuted for subjective grounds, but they should not infringe on the rights of other people .

Sources

• Report on the activities of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation for 2018 // Russian newspaper. 2019. June 11.