Helsinki Commission report: Bulgaria's new religion law conflicts with human rights commitments
U.S. Newswire (19.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (21.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Bulgaria's Law on Religions is "out of step" with the country's human rights agreements to respect religious freedom, according to a report released today by the United States Helsinki Commission.
The report highlights sections of the Law on Religions which need further evaluation and legislative refinement, and suggests ways to bring the law into conformity with Bulgaria's human rights commitments since becoming a party to the Helsinki Accords.
"As Bulgaria prepares to assume the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in January, it is troubling that the religion law fails to fulfill all OSCE commitments on religious freedom," said Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ). "I sincerely urge my Bulgarian counterparts to seriously consider the recommendations in this report."
Complications with administering the registration process under the new law have reportedly led to the denial of visas for two Catholic religious orders.
Concerns also exist about the preferential treatment given the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and how that will impact other religious communities. For instance, the law automatically registers the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, thereby forcing the other religious communities to complete the registration process. Registration is critical, as the law ties property ownership rights to legal personality.
The Law on Religions passed the Bulgarian National Assembly on December 20, 2002. In an apparent rush to approve the legislation, certain religious communities were reportedly overlooked for consultations during the hurried drafting process.
The Bulgarian Constitutional Court reviewed the law on July 15, 2003. Six of the court's twelve judges ruled against the Law on Religions and five in favor. Under Bulgarian law, seven judges must rule against a law for it to be overturned.
The report is available on the Helsinki Commission's Internet web site, http://www.csce.gov.
The United States Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency, by law monitors and encourages progress in implementing provisions of the Helsinki Accords. The Commission, created in 1976, is composed of nine Senators, nine Representatives and one official each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce.
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Jehovah's Witness centre to be destroyed?
By Felix Corley
Forum 18 News Service (19.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (20.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A new centre the Jehovah's Witnesses are building in the Black Sea port of Burgas might be destroyed in the wake of popular and city council opposition.
"The city council adopted a law saying no places of worship can be built near schools. They believe such places will influence children," Jehovah's Witness leader Peter Mischler told Forum 18 News Service from the capital Sofia on 15 August. "This is ridiculous."
The new law reportedly grants the council the power to pull down such buildings. But the deputy mayor of Burgas responsible for religious affairs insists the council is acting according to its procedures. "The Jehovah's Witnesses don't have registration with the city administration," Marusya Lyubcheva told Forum 18 from Burgas on 18 August. "Religious organisations must have registration to build."
Lyubcheva confirmed that there was organised popular opposition to the new Jehovah's Witness centre. "Civil society has a problem with this building." She said the Jehovah's Witnesses had filed papers to build a business centre. "But it is not," she declared, reporting that she had discovered it would be used for religious meetings. "The documents were therefore sent back to them."
However, she declined to answer any other of Forum 18's questions about the reported city law barring new places of worship near schools or whether the Jehovah's Witnesses could continue to construct their centre. "I don't believe you'll quote my words accurately." She then put the phone down.
Forum 18's repeated emailed requests to the Burgas city administration for information about the reported city law and the text of it went unanswered.
Krasimira Cherkezova, the city's chief engineer, said the Jehovah's Witnesses were given permission to build a business centre in the Slaveykov district last year. "But the use of offices as places of worship is not allowed," she told Forum 18 on 18 August. "For us there is no problem for them to construct the building. The use of it is another problem - and
this is outside our competence." She stressed she was not a specialist on religion, but believed that only "legitimately registered" religious communities had the right to build places of worship. She declined to say what will happen to the Jehovah's Witness building now.
Mischler conceded that the Jehovah's Witnesses had gained building permission for an administrative building, but denied that also using such a building for courses, lectures and religious meetings violated the law. He also denied that local registration was necessary. "We already have national re-registration with the Sofia court under the new law, and that is valid for the whole country."
The Jehovah's Witnesses - who claim 1,300 adherents in Bulgaria - have faced restrictions on their activity by a number of local authorities in recent years. In Burgas a temporary tent they had been using was recently pulled down.
Mischler complained that opposition to the Burgas building had been led by the right-wing IMRO political party, which had formed a committee to oppose its construction. "Basically, they're against all other religions than the Orthodox Church." He said they had organised demonstration s against Islam and other religious communities. "We believe they've been initiating newspaper articles with lies against us," he told Forum 18. He added that although the Jehovah's Witnesses have faced restrictions from local authorities elsewhere in Bulgaria, they are at present facing such problems only in Burgas.
Mischler stressed that the Jehovah's Witnesses are keen to resolve the problems over the Burgas centre with the local authorities amicably. "The authorities were very nice to us until these problems began." He added that the police had come to defend the building during protests by opponents.
"I don't personally think the council will order the destruction of the building," he told Forum 18. "It is not an illegal construction - we have a building permit and we are building according to the drawings."
He said that because of the organised protests, the Jehovah's Witnesses had been obliged to erect a fence around the already-completed foundations to try to prevent physical attacks. "Construction is continuing, but only slowly."
No one was available for comment at the government's religious affairs directorate in Sofia on 18 August. An official said the director, Ivan Jelev, was on holiday and no one else could respond.
Many larger towns have an official who handles religious affairs. A Sofia-based expert on local government told Forum 18 on 18 August that local authorities have often restricted religious activity by minorities.
"It depends on how the local authorities view the religious community," she said on condition of anonymity. "There were more of such cases in the 1990s, with local laws and regulations on religion."
In the wake of last year's controversial new religion law, which narrowly survived a constitutional court challenge in July (see F18News 21 July 2003), all religious groups with the exception of the Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarchate were required to re-register with the courts to retain legal status. They can also re-register on a local level with mayors' offices.
Although this is supposed to be a technical matter, there are fears local registration applications could be subject to arbitrary refusal. Local registration has not been easy for the Jehovah's Witnesses in the wake of the new law. "Several towns are making an issue of this," Mischler complained.
From F18News: http://www.forum18.org/
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Controversial religion law survives constitutional challenge
by Felix Corley
Forum 18 (22.07.2003)/ HRWF Int. (23.07.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The controversial religion law adopted last December that allows religious communities to be suspended, banned or fined has survived a constitutional court challenge. "It is the first time in history that six judges have been against the law and only five in favour, but the law was gone through anyway," Lachezar Popov of the Rule of Law Institute, who represented the opposition parliamentary deputies who brought the case, told Forum 18 News Service. "I would say the problems of small religions and the 'alternative' Orthodox Synod have only just begun," Hare Krishna devotee Radha Vinoda dasa told Forum 18.
The lawyer who represented 50 parliamentary deputies in their case at the Constitutional Court to have parts of last year's controversial religion law overturned as unconstitutional has described the court's 15 July ruling as "amazing". "It is the first time in history that six judges have been against the law and only five in favour, but the law was gone through anyway," Lachezar Popov, chair of the Sofia-based Rule of Law Institute, told Forum 18 News Service on 17 July. "It is very strange how the judges acted." However, Ivan Jelev, the head of the Religious Affairs Directorate of the Council of Ministers, said he was "very satisfied" by the court ruling. "I was sure that the law C so vigorously attacked by some political and other factions in Bulgaria C is fine and in accordance with the constitution," he told Forum 18 from Sofia on 21 July.
Members of religious minorities C especially the Alternative Orthodox Synod which broke away from the Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarchate a decade ago, as well as Protestants and Eastern faiths - now fear the authorities will step up action against them.
Jelev told Forum 18 his office could now get on with its work, as it had hesitated to take decisions in case they could have been cancelled in the wake of the court ruling.
The religion law, adopted last December and which came into force on 1 January, was criticised in a June 2003 Council of Europe report by Rick Lawson of the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, and Malcolm Evans of Bristol University in Great Britain. In particular, their report expressed concern about privileges granted to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church; that the Religious Affairs Directorate can exert pressure on the courts that register religious communities; and that the directorate can punish religious leaders.
Under the Constitutional Court procedure, seven of the court's twelve members are required to proclaim a law unconstitutional. The last court member, Judge Georgi Markov, who it is believed would have voted against the religion law, refused to break off his holiday to attend.
In their challenge to the law, the 50 deputies of the opposition Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), which sympathises with the Alternative Orthodox Synod, were concerned about law's granting of official status to the Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarchate in Article 11, as well as the provision which grants the Patriarchate automatic registration, while all other faiths must register in a Sofia court or local courts.
Lachezar Toshev, a UDF parliamentarian and chairman of the parliamentary commission on religion and human rights, said that under Bulgaria's practice he could not comment on the court ruling. "We have to accept it," he told Forum 18 from Sofia on 21 July. But he pointed out that on many of the points the majority of the judges ruled against the law.
However, the Constitutional Court did not consider other elements of the law that have been widely criticised by minority faiths, especially provisions allowing religious groups to be fined and banned. The Sofia-based Tolerance Foundation, headed by Emil Cohen, complains about the rights given to the courts under Article 9 to punish religious organisations for a variety of alleged offences by banning their activities for up to six months, banning the publication or distribution of religious publications or cancelling an organisation's registration. The Foundation believes such blanket punishments could restrict individuals' inherent rights that should not be subject to such limitations.
But, as Hare Krishna devotee Radha Vinoda dasa (Asen Genov) points out, such punishment does not apply to the Patriarchate as its automatic legal status cannot be annulled by a court.
Many minorities object particularly to the punishments for religious activity prescribed in the law, with fines of up to 5,000 leva (21466 Norwegian kroner, 2570 Euros or 2912 US dollars). Article 38 punishes "any person carrying out religious activity in the name of a religion without representational authority", with second offences attracting a fine of up to 1000 leva. Many are concerned that this article might be interpreted by local religious officials to punish any individual member of a religious community who conducts any public religious activity without specific authorisation from the headquarters of that organisation.
"The fears and claims of many religious organisations have not been taken into consideration," Radha Vinoda dasa told Forum 18 from Sofia on 17 July. "I would say the problems of small religions and the 'alternative' Orthodox Synod have only just begun. The police will probably attack the churches used by the 'alternative' synod." He is also worried that religious communities that automatically get re-registration might still be forced to amend their statutes to meet provisions of the new law.
"All government institutions have been waiting for this ruling," Cohen told Forum 18. "Now they can see which direction the court has taken." However, he believes some of the fears of the Alternative Synod are exaggerated. "The situation at the moment is calm."
Adventist pastor Tsanko Mitev is equally concerned. "The ruling was very sad C it was a political decision," he told Forum 18 from Sofia on 21 July. He said that although his Church has not yet had serious problems as a result of the new law, he feared that with local elections due in September or October religious affairs could become a political football, to the detriment of minority faiths.
He also fears religious believers could be fined. "The authorities are afraid to do this at the moment. But there will be cases." He points out that religious communities already face problems from local authorities, many of which ban outdoor religious activity.
Popov reports that in recent months churches and monasteries in the hands of the Alternative Synod have been attacked and occupied by police, at times in the face of legal orders. He also reports that a Pentecostal church in the Black Sea port of Burgas has been banned from conducting any religious activity on the streets, while city officials have also cancelled bookings to use municipally-owned property for evangelistic meetings.
But Jelev dismisses fears about the law, especially the issue of registration. "All 31 religions that were registered before automatically receive new registration," he declared. "So even though the Orthodox Patriarchate is registered automatically, so is every other registered faith." He pointed out that the Alternative Synod has never had registration, even under the UDF government. "The UDF created the schism in the Orthodox Church, but even they didn't register the Alternative group."
Asked if the Alternative Synod would receive registration if it applied, he declared: "Of course. All they would have to do is change the name, as the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is already registered, and the law does not allow a second faith of the same name to register. Maybe they could call themselves the 'First Bulgarian Orthodox Church', or the 'Private' or 'Schismatic' or 'Alternative' Church."
Yet Jelev seemed uneasy about the question of fines. "Why do you keep mentioning them?" he asked. "They're not important." Asked why they were included if they were not important, he responded: "I didn't vote on the law in the council of ministers. It was parliament that adopted it. I'm just an executive official." Asked whether he expected religious believers to be fined under Article 38 he declared: "I hope there will never be fines."
Jelev also rejected complaints from human rights activists and minority faiths that the Council of Europe should have reviewed the law before it was adopted. "I don't believe that was necessary." He questioned whether any government official had ever promised a Council of Europe review, as some reports had claimed, and denied that he was nervous over the Council of Europe's views. "We should have enough sovereignty to arrange our own law. All denominations in Bulgaria are very satisfied with the new law."
But both religious minorities and UDF deputies say the campaign against the law will continue. "The problem has not been solved, it has been suppressed," Toshev declared. "But it will come to the surface again."
Pastor Mitev told Forum 18 there will be a meeting of religious minorities C including Muslims, Catholics, Protestants and other faiths C in September to decide how to continue the campaign. "There is very good interaction among religious minorities against this law," Radha Vinoda dasa told Forum 18.
Toshev said that now the June 2003 Council of Europe evaluation of the law has been translated into Bulgarian and circulated to members of his commission, he believes parliament will consider amendments to the law in the autumn to bring the text into line with the Council of Europe recommendations. "The UDF is committed to moving amendments in the autumn," he told Forum 18. "The Council of Europe view is our starting point."
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Police call for investigation against Islamic sect
Bulgarian News Network (08.04.2003)/ HRWF Int. (15.04.2003) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Police in Southern Bulgaria on Tuesday asked a prosecutor to order an investigation against four members of Muslim religious sect suspected of fundamentalist propaganda.
Police in Pazardzhik, 100 kilometers (62 miles) southeast of Sofia, said members of the Chalifate sect called in their sermons to replace Bulgaria's existing legislation by the Islamic religious law or the Sharia.
Police said sect members preached in a Roma neighborhood of Pazardzhik.
Officers said they seized outlawed fundamentalist literature in places where sect followers gathered.
The Chalifate sect is banned in neighboring Turkey and in Germany.
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Religious freedom practice in Bulgaria in 2002
Annual Report of the Tolerance Foundation
Tolerance Foundation (20.02.2003)/ HRWF Int. (20.02.2003) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - In 2002 there were two main events that marked the state of the religious freedom practice in the country. The first one was the visit of the Pope John Paul the Second in the country in May 2002. The second was the adoption by the Parliament of the new Denominations Act. The visit of the Pope was the first one in the entire history of Bulgaria. He was met warmly by the public and had meetings with all members of the highest representatives of the state as well as with the leaders of the main religious denominations. That was the only positive development in the sphere of the religious freedom. In contrast, the second main event, namely the adoption of the new Denomination law, can be determined as a serious deterioration of the state of religious freedom.
Along with its coming to power (after the general elections that took part on June 17, 2001) the new government of the former King Simeon the Second backed up one of the two mutual hostile fractions of the split Bulgarian Orthodox Church C the group of Patriarch Maxim or so called Holy Synod of Maxim. The other group, that of bishop Inokentyi, charges the Synod of Maxim of having been in close cooperation with the communist authorities during the period of communist rule in Bulgaria. In March, personally the President Parvanov and the Prime Minister Simeon Saxe Coburg Gotha promised their support to Maxim. One of the results of that promise was the dismissal of Mr. Lubomir Mladenov from his office as Director of the Religious Affairs Directorate on March 14. The guilt of Mr. Mladenov was that he did not want to take administrative measures in order to overcome the schism. Mr. Mladenov was replaced by Mr. Ivan Jelev, Associate Professor at the Department of Theology of the Sofia State University, who did not hide his adherence to the Synod of Maxim. On April 5, 2002 the police of Pomorie (a small town at the coast of Black Sea) attacked the local Orthodox temple The Virgin that was under the ruling of the Synod of bishop Inokentyi and gave it over under the ruling of Maxims group. A priest and few ordinary citizens were beaten by the police during the attack. In April a group of MPs from the ruling party National Movement Simeon the Second known under the title The New Time released a subscription list among the Orthodox temples that called on for accelerating the acceptance of the new Denomination Act. Meanwhile the relations between two groups continued to worsen. At the end of July near to the monastery Saint Panteleimon that was situated close to Petrich (a small town at the southwestern part of the country) a priest of the Synod of Inokentyi, father Steven Kamberov was beaten up a dead by stages by two priests of the Synod of Maxim. The killers were arrested and charged with murder. The crime provoked a wave of public protests by priests and citizens who belonged to the alternative Synod of bishop Inokentyi.
Three drafts for Denominations Act were introduced at the Parliament last year. The National Assembly passed all of them at first reading. Afterwards, they had to be consolidated by a specially appointed working group selected among the members of the parliamentary Commission on Human Rights and Religion. The Commission at a public meeting has promised that the ready united draft should be sent to the Council of Europe in order to accommodate the draft to their opinion. A lot of religious activists as well as ones from HR NGOs have took part in that meeting. The activity of the working group was prolonged during almost all 2002. Unexpectedly, in November and December 2002 the Commissiion accelerated its work. At the beginning of December, Mr. Borislav Tzekov, an introducer of the most restrictive text among the drafts provoked a scandal, insulted the representatives from the HR and religious organizations and they left the meeting. Afterwards, the discussion went on with very high speed despite the fact that until then it progressed extremely slowly.The work was completed in three days and the draft was introduced into the plenary hall. The Commission did not keep its promise to send the draft to Strasbourg and some MPs even denied the very existence of such a promise. These maneuvers aimed at preventing human rights activists and religious leaders from organising a discussion and from showing their arguments against the repressive provisions of the draft.
On December 13, 2002, a big conference of religious and human rights moderated by the President of Tolerance Foundation Mr. Emil Cohen criticized a lot of the provisions of the new draft[i]. They stressed that many of the provisions of the draft are in contradiction with both the Constitution of Bulgaria and Art. 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights as well as Art. 18 of the International Covenant for the Civil and Political Rights. Demonstrations were organized. 18 religious and human rights organizations signed an appeal to the President Mr. Parvanov with the request to impose a veto on the Act. Nevertheless ,on December 20, 2002 the draft was passed by the Parliament and on December 29, 2002 it was published in State gazette[ii]. The most restrictive provisions were passed only by the votes of the National Movement Simeon the Second (NMSS) and by the ones of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). The parliamentary fraction of the Turkish party Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) that is in coalition with NMSS did not vote for Art. 10 of the draft and left the plenary hall when it was voted[iii]. But the BSP, that is in opposition to the ruling coalition voted for Art. 10 of the draft[iv]. The President did not impose a veto on the Act. In January 2003, 50 MPs by the opposite coalition United Democratic Forces lodged an appeal with the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Bulgaria and wanted the Court to announce that some articles of the Act contradict the Constitution, as well as the European Convention and the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights[v]. Unfortunately, they did not appeal Art. 8 of the Act that is especially restricted. Under this article, some punishments can be imposed on religious organizations which cant be used for the mono-religious organizations (see for details below).
The Act contains a lot of restrictive and discriminative provisions and as a whole it contradicts as the Bulgarian Constitution as well as international treaties in the sphere of human rights that are signed and ratified by Bulgaria and especially those which treat the right of freedom of conscience and religion and give protection against discrimination based on grounds of religion or other beliefs. In this respect, Art. 10 and Para.3 from the transitional and conclusive provisions of the Act represent the most serious problem. Under the provisions of this article, the Synod of Patriarch Maxim is recognized as a legal person by the Act, being a member of the One, Holy, Congregational and Apostolic Church i.e. because it is a member of the community of the Orthodox Churches that are in communication with the Catholic Patriarch in Istanbul and also because of the fact that Maxim is not only Patriarch of Bulgaria but also Archbishop of Sofia[vi]. Under para. 3 of the transitional and conclusive provisions it is forbidden for persons, who have been moved from any registered religious institution to use the same name as the name of any registered religious institution as well as to use the property of the already registered religious institution. In other words these who have been divided from the Synod of Maxim can register their religious institutions only under name, that has to be different from the name Bulgarian Orthodox Church and only if they return to the Maxims Synod the possessions that at present are under their control. It is appropriate here to recall that two years ago the European Court on Human Rights in Strasbourg in its decision on the case Hasan and Chaush v. Bulgaria[vii] stated by occasion of similar situation of splitting in the Muslim denomination: State action favouring one leader of a divided religious community or undertaken with the purpose of forcing the community to come together under a single leadership against its own wishes would likewise constitute an interference with freedom of religion. In democratic societies the State does not need to take measures to ensure that religious communities are brought under a unified leadership. Furthermore the Court criticizes the state that it has not given an opportunity to one of the wings of the Muslim denomination to retain control over at least part of the property belonging to the community, although Mr Hasan undoubtedly had the support of a significant proportion of its members.[viii]
Despite the fact that under the provisions of Art. 10, para. 3 of the Act for the registered by virtue of the law Bulgarian Orthodox Church privileges are not allowed, in fact this religious organization is in favored situation in comparison with other religious communities that get their legal persons by the Sofia City Court[ix]. They can be punished by the court including with canceling of the registration (Art. 8, par.1) by the court. However is not able to cancel the registration of the religious organization registered by the virtue of the law that is Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
Along with this there are a lot of discriminative and restrictive provisions in the new Act. Art. 7 provides for a number of prohibitions for religious communities. Some of them are neither provided for in the international law, nor can be imposed on the non-religious organizations. For instance the national safety is a reason for punishing of the religious organizations[x]. The same is the situation with the prohibition the religious convictions to be used for political aims also the prohibition minors to be attracted to take part in the activities of the religious institutions unless with permission of their parents.
Special attention should be paid to Art. 8, par.1. Under this article, the possibilities for restrictions on the right of freedom of religion in cases when the religious organizations breach the requirements of art. 7. Some of the punishments that are provided for in the article can be imposed only on religious institutions, but not on non-religious ones. For instance, such punishments include tsuspension of the spreading of the print editions of the religious organizations, suspension of the publishing activity also the forbidding of the activity of the religious institution for certain term. As a matter of fact, the Act establish a double regime for punishing the religious communities: on one side by courts order by lawsuit before the Sofia City court for imposing of one of the measures for restriction[xi] and on other part the religious institutions and their officers can be punished for any breach of the act by decisions of Religious Directorate. The Act does not except the imposing of two punishments for one and the same violation.
The new Act adopts from the old one the obligation of the religious communities to declare their local branches before the majors of the municipalities (Art. 19, par. 2). It should be noted that any of the non-religious organizations are obliged to do the same. As it was with the old law the aim of the new one is to be strengthened the control on their activities from the state. As it was repeatedly noted in the reports of the Bulgarian human rights organizations this obligation for declaring their local branches provoked a lot of problems concerned with both unlawful refusals for registrations and other forms of restrictions of the activities of the religious organizations at local level[xii].
As with the previous law, the new Act establishes a state administrative body for control on the religious organizations, namely the Religious Directorate of the Council of Ministers. Under the new act this body gets considerable possibilities for practicing control on the religious communities. The most important among them is that it has a task to keep up with for the observance of the restrictions that are provided for in the act. Over again it is the body that is able to ask the court to open a legal procedure for applying the sanctions provided for in Art. 9. Besides, that administrative body supervises the registration of the religious organizations through the expert opinion given by it before the Sofia City court (Art. 35, par.4). It executes also police functions because it gives permissions for the entry of foreign clerics in Bulgaria or refuses to give them. (Art. 35, par. 5). There is neither a special supervision body nor preliminary estimation as to who can be invited from abroad by all other non-for-profit organizations. The function of the Directorate to check all complaints of citizens for violations of their rights or of the rights and freedoms of their fellowman by misuse of third persons with the right of freedom of religion provokes great concern (Art. 35, para.6). As a matter of fact, the Directorate acquires functions of religious police that must supervise actions committed by potentially dangerous persons, i.e. of the religious persons and their organizations. Besides, the very expression misuse with the right of freedom of religion of third persons is extremely ambiguous and that ambiguity contains far-reaching possibilities for arbitrariness as regards with future implementation of Art. 35 of the Act.
Under another discriminative provision, the possibility for registration of non-for-profit legal persons for promotion and popularization of one religious organization that is a legal person is bound by a preliminary agreement of the management of the registered religious organization. In other words it would be impossible in Bulgaria to be registered as an association for popularization of any religious community if there is no registered religious organization that has been given its permission for such a popularization. There is not any similar provision for any non-religious convictions. Therefore, according to existing legislation every one can popularize the doctrine and activities of any other without prior permission given by the second.
Further, the Act binds the registration of the religious organization with the activities that someone can commit on its behalf. Art. 36 provides for steep penalties for everyone who without authorization commits activities on behalf of the name of some registered religious organization. But no one can have authorization without prior registration. Thus, not only the freedom of religion is violated on discriminatory grounds but also the freedom of expression. That provision opens a way for witch-hunt and hunting of heretics.
In conclusion, the Tolerance Foundation believes that the Act severely violates the religious human rights of the citizens and represents, in itself, a step back to the totalitarian past.
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