Sovetskaya Rossiya

July 22, 1997

[translation for personal use only]

Report by ITAR-TASS correspondent Lyudmila Aleksandrova:

"G. ZYUGANOV: THEY WANT TO IMPOSE FREEDOM OF SECTARIANISM ON US"

Moscow, 21 Jul -- CPRF [Communist Party of the Russian Federation] leader Gennadiy Zyuganov believes that the Western attacks on the Russian law on freedom of conscience conceal an attempt to get an opportunity for the uncontrolled activity of totalitarian religious sects in Russia, whose activity is often dangerous even to people's lives. "They want to impose on us the freedom of sectarianism with no account of the Russian perception of the world," he told your ITAR- TASS correspondent today.

Zyuganov assesses the adverse Western reaction to the law on freedom of conscience and religious associations as nothing but "trouble-making."

Adopted by parliament but not yet signed by the president, the law has generated a contradictory reaction in the West and in Russia. Patriarch Aliksiy II of Moscow and All the Russias has urged Boris Yeltsin to sign the law while Pope John Paul II has sent the Russian president a letter expressing concern that the law could introduce restrictions on the activity of various religions.

According to the law Russia's "traditional" religions are Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. The problem is that a 15-year trial period for registration is set for nontraditional religions. Some Western mass media have already assessed this provision as a threat to the existence of Catholicism in Russia.

John Bukovsky, the Vatican's ambassador to Moscow, hopes that the application and interpretation of the law, if it enters into force, will be "favorable" to Catholics but nonetheless believes it is necessary to define precisely who comes under the concept of "other" traditional religions. He is afraid that the unclear points in the law could lead to restrictions in freedom of conscience since they make its application dependent on "the authorities' interpretation."

The Pope asks Boris Yeltsin "to do everything possible to ensure that this law complies with international principles of freedom of conscience," the Vatican ambassador stressed in a recent radio interview.

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Johnson's Russia List

#1079

24 July 1997

djohnson@cdi.org