Paul Goble
Staunton,
December 8 – The policy of the Putin regime toward religious minorities is “a
continuation of Soviet religious policy,” albeit sometimes in a “lite” version,
according to Aleksandr Soldatov, editor of the Credo portal, who adds that “unfortunately
very few talk about the persecution of religious minorities” nowadays.
Soldatov’s
comments came at a session of the Forum of Free Russia now meeting in Vilnius,
a meeting of Russian opposition figures and experts who deserve high marks for
taking up the issue of religious minorities even though the group has devoted
relatively little attention to the situation of Russia’s ethnic minorities (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5C0B809C59C46).
Other participants
in the panel gave evidence in support of Soldatov’s conclusions. Pavel Devushkin, a Lutheran pastor, denounced
the Russian government’s persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses and almost all
forms of missionary activity. The
moderator Daniil Konstantinov said that Buddhists were being deprived of contact
with the Dalai Lama.
And Ruslan Kambiyev, a human rights
inspector for the North Caucasus, said that the situation of Russia’s Muslims
has deteriorated because many equate Islam with terrorism. As a result, they are prepared to accept the
mistreatment of Muslims in society and in prisons and to restrict their
religious rights.
When the communists ruled Russia,
human rights activists within the country and Western governments and experts
paid a great deal of attention to the ways in which religious believers were
treated. But with Putin portraying himself as a religious person, ever fewer
are doing so.
The forum is to be praised for calling
attention to this issue, but it is one that deserves far more attention because
for all but those in the four traditional faiths who are prepared to go along
with Kremlin policy and its restrictions on the life of faith, the situation of
believers now is about as bad as it was under the communist regime.
That must be exposed and
stopped.
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