Russia Eyes 5-Year Jail Terms for ‘Russophobia’

Russian lawmakers are drafting legislation that would punish anti-Russian words and actions deemed as “Russophobia” with up to five years imprisonment, the independent news outlet Vyorstka reported Thursday.

The bill is expected to amend Russia’s Criminal Code by adding clauses on “Russophobia” to articles criminalizing public calls for extremism and violating equal rights.

Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, defines “Russophobia” as actions and statements directed against Russian citizens, Vyorstka cited an unnamed lawmaker as saying.

Analysts say the Kremlin co-opted the term “Russophobia” to advance its idea of Moscow as a besieged fortress amid rapidly deteriorating relations with the West.

The presidential administration “conceptually” supports jail terms for Russophobia, Vyorstka cited an administration source as saying. The bill's authors are said to be members of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, the Duma's fourth-largest party by representation.

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision in March to issue an arrest warrant for war crimes against President Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova falls under the new legislation, Vyorstka said.

It added that the Russophobia bill will also target statements by people on Russia's “foreign agents” registry who openly support Ukraine, which Russia invaded in early 2022.

An unnamed lawmaker said the “timely” Russophobia bill will apply primarily to punish violations of the rights of Russian nationals abroad.

“The terms will be vague enough to apply [punishments] against whoever needed,” another source close to the Kremlin was quoted as saying.

The bill is expected to amend Russia’s Criminal Code by adding clauses on “Russophobia” to articles criminalizing public calls for extremism and violating equal rights.

"Equal rights?" As the liberal West longs to do, Russia forbids evangelicals (the most conservative and active major religious group in the West) from sharing their faith, as well as any other faith group, apart from Putin's state church sanction. The West wants Ukraine to do the like, but flying the GBTQ flag.

Chapter 24 of the law now states: "For the purposes of this federal law, missionary activity is recognised as the activity of a religious association aimed at disseminating information about its beliefs among people who are not participants (members, followers) in that religious association, with the purpose of involving these people as participants (members, followers)." Missionary activity, described as above, is only granted narrow exemptions, primarily permitting it on religious premises, and explicitly not allowing in in residential buildings.

Russia Enacts Law to Restrict Religious Freedom and Missionary Activities July 13, 2016 | Joe Carter Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law measures that redefine “missionary activities” as religious practices that take place outside of state-sanctioned sites. The new law will ban “preaching, praying, proselytizing, and disseminating religious materials” outside of sites officially designated by the state. Citizens can also be fined up to $15,000 for engaging in these activities in private residences or distributing unauthorized religious materials through “mass print, broadcast, or online media.” .. USCIRF also notes that current anti-extremism law allows targeting of religious groups that have never threatened or used violence.

Russian Evangelicals Penalized Most Under Anti-Evangelism Law The tight restrictions on minority faiths have increasingly gotten Protestants in trouble and continue to raise concerns over religious freedom. Kate Shellnutt|May 7, 2019 09:28 AM

More than half of all cases of alleged violations last year were against evangelicals. Of the 159 individuals and organizations prosecuted for demonstrating their faith in public, 50 were Pentecostals and 39 were Baptists, according to analysis by Forum 18, a news service covering religious freedom issues in Russia and surrounding countries.

Russia: Evangelical believers paid a rising “tax on faithfulness” in 2022 Posted on January 17, 2023 by Pastor Foley Evangelical believers paid a “tax on faithfulness” in 2022, and that tax is increasing, according to persecution watchdog Voice of the Martyrs Korea. “Across the Russian Federation in 2022, basic Christian activities—gathering for worship, distributing Bibles and Christian literature, and personal evangelism—were investigated by Russian police and punished as crimes by Russian courts of law,” says Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley. “Believers paid fines, appealed their decisions, and in most cases lost their appeals. It is a trend that Voice of the Martyrs Korea is monitoring closely as 2023 begins.”

On November 8, 2022, in the village of Yayva, Perm region, a trial was held against the presbyter of the local evangelical church, Stefan Valery. The court found Stefan V. guilty and fined him 5,000 rubles (approx. 71 USD). The basis for the decision was a report from an inspector in the Ministry of Internal Affairs which said: “During the monitoring of social networks on the Internet, an official … revealed that Stefan V., professing religious beliefs of ‘Evangelical Christian-Baptists’ … carried out missionary activities for two years in violation of the requirements of the legislation...And also he distributes materials like the newspaper ‘Do You Believe?’, which violated the law ‘On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations’, Article 5.26 Part 4 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation.” Representative Foley notes that the newspaper, “Do You Believe?”, is produced by a media company lawfully registered with the Russian government.

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Moscow church destroyed in sign of new Russian repression Posted on Sep 26, 2012 | by Jill Nelson

MOSCOW (BP) -- It was in the early hours of the morning on Sept. 6 when Pastor Vasili Romanyuk's phone rang. A group of men backed by local police were demolishing his Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church, housed in a three-story building nestled in a Moscow suburb. As word spread, congregants arrived at the scene hoping to save the building, but their efforts were futile. By dawn the church was in ruins and some of its most valuable contents were missing.

An isolated incident? A misunderstanding? Analysts watching the current climate in the former Cold War country don't think so: "This destruction of the church is about as concrete of evidence as you can get that something very bad and very troubling is taking place," said Katrina Lantos Swett, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. "This could not have happened without the backing, support, and implicit blessing of the police."

The incident is just one sign of deteriorating freedoms in Russia, and behind the scenes a cozy relationship between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church has raised more than a few eyebrows. As President Vladimir Putin digs into his third term, a number of Kremlin crackdowns involving vague interpretations of the country's extremism law and other human-rights abuses are troubling signs that the country has slipped into a familiar, repressive era.

"When you have unknown people backed by the police coming out at midnight to begin tearing down a church, you know something doesn't smell right," Lantos Swett said.

Officials evicted Holy Trinity Church from its original building in 1995 and relocated the church to the eastern Moscow suburb. The congregation used its own funds to construct a new building and repeatedly battled officials over permits. The church demolition and its history reflect an emerging pattern: Authorities confiscate land from non-favored religious communities and force the congregation to relocate to a remote suburb, the religious leaders apply for permits that are subsequently denied, and officials confiscate (once again) or demolish the relocated congregation, citing lack of proper documentation.

Pastor Romanyuk and a small group of the church's 550 congregants arrived on site around 3:30 a.m. as about 45 men claiming to be civil volunteers blocked them from the building and threw stones. "When I arrived, I just burst into tears," 25-year-old Natalya Cherevichinik told The Moscow Times as she surveyed the destruction. "I couldn't believe that something that had been built over several years could be destroyed in a few hours."

Russian Evangelicals Leery of Orthodox Church, Friday, December 30, 2011:

class="adjusted">MOSCOW, Russia -- For decades, the Russian Orthodox Church was persecuted under the Soviet Union's Communist Party.

Since the early 1990s, the church has grown in size and influence as its relationship with the Russian government has improved significantly.

However, that cozy relationship worries the country's evangelicals.

Threats Against Evangelicals

For eight years, Yuri Sipko ran one of the largest Baptist organizations in Russia. Now, 20 years after the fall of Communism, he worries about the growing threats against the country's evangelical movement.

"The collapse of Communism was supposed to usher in an era of greater religious freedom, but I'm concerned we are moving in the wrong direction," Sipko said.

What makes the Russian evangelicals very concerned is an emerging relationship between the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church.

"For example, the government recently introduced religious classes based on the principals of the Orthodox Church in public schools," Sipko said.

"Then late last year, the Russian president announced an initiative to appoint Orthodox chaplains to all army units," he said. "Our constitution clearly states no religion can be the state religion."

Russia Church-State Relations

Russia watchers credit two men, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, for elevating the church's prominence. The state media has also played a key role, often showing the leaders attending church services.

Sergey Ryakhovski knows both men well. As head of Russia's Pentecostal Union, he meets regularly with top government and Orthodox Church leaders.

Ryakhovski worries that the Orthodox Church's influence is coming at the expense of religious freedom, especially for minority groups such as Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists.

"There are so many laws and by-laws that regulate religious life in Russia," Ryakhovski said. "For example, evangelical Christians just can't go out and buy a church building or buy a piece of land to build a church."

"Plus, criticizing or challenging the Orthodox Church is not a task for all," he added.

Orthodox Church Revival

The Russian Orthodox Church on the other hand has had it easy in recent times after decades of state persecution.

Church buildings that were destroyed during the Soviet era have been rebuilt with Russian taxpayer money. In the past 20 years, the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars restoring some 23,000 churches.

Most Russians say they belong to the Orthodox Church. Yet CBN News found mixed reactions on the streets of Moscow to the growing bond between church and state

At Expense of All Others, Putin Picks a Church

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY Published: April 24, 2008

STARY OSKOL, Russia —

It was not long after a Methodist church put down roots here that the troubles began.

First came visits from agents of the F.S.B., a successor to the K.G.B., who evidently saw a threat in a few dozen searching souls who liked to huddle in cramped apartments to read the Bible and, perhaps, drink a little tea. Local officials then labeled the church a “sect.” Finally, last month, they shut it down.

There was a time after the fall of Communism when small Protestant congregations blossomed here in southwestern Russia, when a church was almost as easy to set up as a general store. Today, this industrial region has become emblematic of the suppression of religious freedom under President Vladimir V. Putin.

Just as the government has tightened control over political life, so, too, has it intruded in matters of faith. The Kremlin’s surrogates in many areas have turned the Russian Orthodox Church into a de facto official religion, warding off other Christian denominations that seem to offer the most significant competition for worshipers. They have all but banned proselytizing by Protestants and discouraged Protestant worship through a variety of harassing measures, according to dozens of interviews with government officials and religious leaders across Russia.

Russia's De-Facto State Religion : Persecution : http://www ... www.persecution.org/?p=9350&upm...‎ International Christian Co... Putin frequently appears with the Orthodox head, Patriarch Aleksei II, ... Baptists, evangelicals, Pentecostals and many others who cut Christ's robes like bandits, ...

Government Returning Land to Religious Organizations to Favor Orthodox Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009: An ambitious draft law on the transfer of property of religious significance to religious organisations may reignite a process begun in 1993.

Pentecostal Seminary Targeted for Liquidation

Pentecostal Church Forced to Meet Outside in Moscow Winter

Russia: Governor Orders Church Land Grab

Council of Religious Experts threatens religious freedom

A new Inquisition ?

Russia “You have the law, we have orders ”

In contrast,

the early days of the American experiment the famous French Catholic political thinker and historian, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) best known for his two volume, "Democracy in America") attested,

Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country. <

The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God...Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same...

n the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth...

The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live... Thus religious zeal is perpetually warmed in the United States by the fires of patriotism. These men do not act exclusively from a consideration of a future life; eternity is only one motive of their devotion to the cause. If you converse with these missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be surprised to hear them speak so often of the goods of this world, and to meet a politician where you expected to find a priest. (Democracy in America, [New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1851), pp. 331, 332, 335, 336-7, 337; http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/ch1_17.htm)

And Benjamin Franklin also advertised,

And the Divine Being seems to have manifested His approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness by which the different sects treat each other, and by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been please to favor the whole country. (Benjamin Franklin, "Information to those who would Remove to America" In Franklin, Benjamin. The Bagatelles from Passy. Ed. Lopez, Claude A. New York: Eakins Press. 1967; http://mith.umd.edu//eada/html/display.php?docs=franklin_bagatelle4.xml. Also, John Gould Curtis, American history told by contemporaries .... Volume 3, p. 26)

We cannot doubt that the Russian Orthodox Church is an arm of the government. It's infiltration and control by the KGB is quite well known, and its corruption is just as extreme as any other sector of the "post"-Communist society of Russia. For example: "Kirill, who was the Metropolitan of Smolensk, succeeds Alexei II who died in December after 18 years as head of the Russian Church. According to material from the Soviet archives, Kirill was a KGB agent (as was Alexei). This means he was more than just an informer, of whom there were millions in the Soviet Union. He was an active officer of the organization. Neither Kirill nor Alexei ever acknowledged or apologized for their ties with the security agencies. As head of the church’s department of foreign church relations, Kirill gained the reputation of a relatively enlightened church leader. He met with Pope Benedict, and he has been attacked by church conservatives for “ecumenism.”Snip... http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/20/putin-solzhenitsyn-kirill-russia-opinions-contributors_orthodox_church.html

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