RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION: Occasionally I print stuff from the Keston Institute’s email newsletter, which you all should subscribe to. (It’s free!) Here are excerpts from this week’s installment:

BELARUS: ONE QUARTER OF HINDU COMMUNITY IN PRISON (10 Sept). An estimated quarter of the active members of a small Hindu community in the Belarusian capital Minsk are now serving ten-day prison sentences for holding an unauthorised demonstration to protest against earlier state actions against their community. The sentences have been condemned by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and also by a member of the Belarusian parliament’s human rights commission, who described them as “illegal”. “These poor Hindus have not been targeted because of who they are,” he told Keston News Service. “The authorities want to send a signal to other religious groups.”

RUSSIA: ANOTHER TWO CATHOLIC PRIESTS DENIED ENTRY (11 Sept). A further two foreign Catholic priests have been denied entry to Russia, despite holding valid visas. Keston News Service has learnt that Fr Jaroslaw Wisniewski, based in Sakhalin, was detained at Khabarovsk airport on 9 September and deported to Japan. Fr Wisniewski had complained in an open letter to Russia’s “Pravda” newspaper about the treatment of Bishop Jerzy Mazur, previously denied entry to Russia.

These are the third and fourth foreign Catholic clerics this year to be refused entry. The Vatican has declared its intention to resolve the problem through diplomatic channels.

RUSSIA: SWEDISH PROTESTANT IS LATEST DEPORTEE (12 Sept). A Swedish Protestant is the latest in a growing number of religious deportees from Russia, as the authorities step up their campaign against foreign religious workers. The deportation of Leo Martensson, who had worked in Russia as a missionary for nine years, was ordered on 10 September and his visa was cancelled. ‘This was an illegal decision – there is no basis for it,’ Martensson’s lawyer Aleksandr Antipyonok told Keston News Service. In addition to being deported, Martensson was fined 500 roubles. His wife and daughter are still in Russia.

RUSSIA: FIFTH CATHOLIC PRIEST DENIED ACCESS TO RUSSIA (12 Sept). On 10 September the Polish Catholic priest Edward Mackiewicz was denied entry to Russia despite holding a valid visa, while border guards reportedly told him that his parish in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don had been “abolished”. He is the fifth foreign Catholic priest to have been denied access to the Russian Federation this year. Foreigners working with other religious communities have also had their visas stripped from them. Speaking to Keston News Service on 11 September, a Vatican source commented that “if this strategy keeps up, they will succeed in crippling the Catholic Church in Russia.”

RUSSIA: AUTHORITIES SILENT AS BUDDHISTS PROTEST DALAI LAMA VISA REFUSAL (13 Sept). Keston News Service has witnessed a third demonstration staged by approximately 100 Buddhists in Moscow demanding that the Dalai Lama be granted permission to visit Russia. Leading the demonstrators, Buddhist monk Dzhampa Tinlei declared that Russia had “spat in the face” of its citizens in refusing to allow the Dalai Lama’s planned visit to Russia’s four traditionally Buddhist republics.

So far there has been no official response to the protests, or to a letter of complaint sent to President Putin himself.

TURKMENISTAN: ORTHODOX CHURCH JOURNAL BANNED (13 Sept). In the wake of a presidential ban last June on the import of all Russian newspapers and magazines, Keston News Service has learnt that members of the Russian Orthodox Church in Turkmenistan are now barred from subscribing to the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, as well as to other Russian church publications. Customs officials have also been instructed to confiscate any Russian publications brought into Turkmenistan. Nevertheless, Fr Andrei Sapunov, head of Turkmenistan’s Orthodox church, remains optimistic: “We have permission from the state agencies to bring religious literature here from Russia, and so I do not envisage any problems.”

UZBEKISTAN: JEHOVAH’S WITNESS FEARS IMPRISONMENT IF HE RETURNS HOME (9 Sept). Three years after a criminal case was launched against a Jehovah’s Witness from the town of Navoi in western Uzbekistan in an attempt to halt his religious activity, he is still frightened to return home. Mars Munasypov was charged in 1999 with possession of firearms, which he claims were planted in his home by the police. The investigator in charge of his case insisted to Keston News Service that Munasypov will be amnestied if he returns to Navoi. Munasypov, who has spent the past three years in Kazakhstan, is suspicious. “I do not trust these people, and I fear for my safety.”

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