MOSCOW, Jul 18 (Itar-Tass) -- The Russian State Duma's Committee for Affairs of Public Associations and Religious Organisations hopes that President Boris Yeltsin will sign the law on freedom of worship and religious associations despite the pressure from Washington and the Vatican.

Committee member Vladimir Medvedev described the U.S. Senate's decision to suspend aid to Russia if the law comes into effect as "a gross interference in Russia's internal affairs." "This is an unprecedented case of foreign pressure upon the leader of a sovereign state," he told Itar-Tass on Friday.

Medvedev also condemned the request of Pope John Paul II who had asked the Russian president to veto the law.

The legislator noted that the law which had been submitted to Yeltsin's signing did not anyhow limit activities of the Russian religious communities.

When considered in the Duma, the bill was agreed upon with all the Russian religious communities. The upper and lower chambers approved the low almost unanimously.

Medvedev noted that activities of various religious sects had never enjoyed confidence in Russia. The legislator sees the pressure on the Kremlin as "an attempt of the religious lobby on the international level to erode our spiritual potential -- Russia's most powerful weapon in all the times."

As was earlier reported, the senior hierarches of the Russian Orthodox Church addressed the Russian president on Thursday, asking him to sign the law.

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Johnson's Russia List

#1072

22 July 1997

djohnson@cdi.org