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Moldova legalizes Orthodox Church which is loyal to Romania
AP (06.08.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (04.10.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - Following international pressure, Moldova has recognized a branch of the Orthodox Church which is loyal to the church in Romania, officials said Tuesday.
The official registration of the Bessarabian Metropolitan Church, which occurred in July, was mandated by the Council of Europe, the organization based in Strasbourg, France, which calls on countries to respect and defend human rights. Moldova is a member of the Council of Europe.
"We have always felt discriminated against," Father Ioan Ciuntu, a spokesman for the church told The Associated Press. "Now we are ready to collaborate with our Russian brothers."
The church was founded in 1992, shortly after Moldova declared independence, but local authorities had refused to legalize it. The main church in Moldova is loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Moldova was part of Romania until 1940 when it was annexed to the Soviet Union. There were fears that some people wanted to reunite with Romania after the republic declared its independence in 1991.
Although the unofficial Orthodox clergy were allowed to officiate in churches, there were constant tensions between the church and the main Orthodox Church loyal to Moscow. Its bishops claimed that a separate church could lead to animosity among believers.
Some 10 to 15 percent of Orthodox faithful belong to the Romanian branch, and the rest belong to the main Orthodox Church.
Almost 90 percent of Moldova's 4.5 million population are Christian Orthodox.
Moldova is located between Romania and Ukraine, and two-thirds of its people are of Romanian descent. It has a large Russian-speaking minority, mainly in Chisinau and the breakaway region of Trans-Dniester in the east.
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Deadline expires, but no compensation for Bessarabian Church
Keston News Service (27.06.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (01.07.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - Despite the expiry today (27 June) of the deadline for the Moldovan government to pay compensation ordered by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to the Orthodox Church of the Bessarabian jurisdiction for repeated refusal to grant it registration, there is little sign that compensation will be paid soon.
"The government is not abiding by the Strasbourg ruling - we haven't had the compensation and we haven't been registered. They're not in any hurry," Father Andrei (Caramaleu), the assistant to Bessarabian Church leader Metropolitan Petru (Paduraru), told Keston News Service. Vitalie Parlog, a justice ministry official, admitted that the compensation should have been paid by 27 June. "I know it is the last day," he told Keston.
Source : http://www.keston.org/
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Fined for door to door preaching
by Felix Corley
Keston News Service (21.06.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (21.06.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - In a move that Jehovah's Witness leaders in Moldova say is a first in recent years, one of their members has been fined for door to door preaching.
Igor Danile, from the town of Glodeni in north western Moldova close to the border with Romania, this week paid the fine of 360 lei (27 US dollars, 28 Euros or 18 British pounds), equal to twenty months' minimum wage, imposed by a court last March. "The penalty was imposed for preaching from door to door," Ion Rusu, a Jehovah's Witness leader in the capital Chisinau, told Keston News Service by telephone on 20 June.
Danile was charged under Article 200, part 3 of the administrative code, which punishes "the carrying out in the name of a registered or unregistered faith or in one's own name of customs and rites that violate current law" with a fine of between ten to twenty months' minimum wage. Danile was found guilty by the city court in Glodeni on 26 March and fined the maximum under the article. He took his case to appeal, but a hearing on 15 May upheld the original ruling.
Source : http://www.keston.org/
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? Khrushchevite smell ? from new criminal code article
by Felix Corley
Keston News Service (20.06.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (21.06.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - Some religious leaders and human rights activists have criticized an article in the new Moldovan criminal code lifted almost word for word from an article introduced into the Soviet criminal codes at the time of the anti-religious persecution unleashed by Nikita Khrushchev at the beginning of the 1960s.
The Pentecostals and the Jehovah's Witnesses, who were unaware of the new article until Keston News Service sought their comments, are particularly concerned. "I grew up with this - I know what it means," Bishop Pyotr Borshch, head of the Pentecostal Union, told Keston from the Moldovan capital Chisinau on 20 June. "I don't trust them." His colleague, Bishop Viktor Pavlovsky, agreed. "This smells of the Khrushchev era." Their concerns were shared by Serghei Ostaf, chairman of the Moldovan Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. "This is a backward step," he told Keston.
The new code - adopted by the Moldovan parliament on 18 April - comes into force only next 1 January, as the Criminal Procedure Code needs to be adopted as well.
Article 186 of the new code punishes "an offence against the person or the rights of citizens under the guise of the fulfilment of religious rituals." The new article declares in full: "The organization, conducting or active participation in a group whose activity, carried out under the guise of the preaching of religious beliefs or the fulfilment of religious rituals, if it is accompanied by the causing of harm to the health of citizens or the instigation of citizens to refuse to participate in public life or the fulfilment of citizens' obligations, is to be punished by a fine of 300-700 units or imprisonment of up to 5 years."
The only substantial difference from part 1 of Article 143 of the criminal code of the Moldovan SSR is that reference to "enticing minors into such a group" has been deleted and that there is no longer the possibility of being sent into internal exile for this offence.
During the Soviet period this article was widely used against believers, including Pentecostals ("singing in tongues" or prophesying was deemed to harm health) and Hare Krishna devotees (chanting was likewise deemed to harm health). Jehovah's Witnesses suffered under this article because of their rejection of blood transfusions and their refusal to vote or perform military service.
Many other former Soviet republics abolished this article in the early 1990s as a relic of the Soviet totalitarian past. Article 227 of Russia's Soviet-era Criminal Code was repealed in 1991 by the law on exonerating victims of political persecution. However, the similar article in the Armenian criminal code, Article 244, has not yet been abolished and was used last year to attempt to send to prison a Jehovah's Witness, Levon Markaryan, who was not finally cleared until April of this year (see KNS 19 April 2002). The Yerevan office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) complained that Armenian Article 244 contained "outdated concepts" and should be abolished, although attempts have been made to bring it back in under a new guise.
Ostaf has so far produced the most detailed critique of Article 186. He complains that the article does not specify that any actions must have been carried out against an individual's will, that the article is too broadly formulated and that the article is aimed solely at religious activity. "Religious values and ideas are discriminated against in comparison with non-religious values, as they are required to meet far stricter requirements," he told Keston. He argues that the article directly attacks religions' core activity, not any specific harm that such activity might have caused based on firm evidence. He also fears that the article could be deployed not only against religious groups, but against non- governmental organisations that disseminate religious beliefs.
Citing case law of the European Court of Human Rights, Ostaf complains that the notions of "citizens' obligations" and "participation in public life" are "clearly outdated" and "cannot be considered as legitimate reasons for limitations of any rights, including religious rights". Bishop Pavlovsky also complained about what he believed was the article's "very general formulation". "You could easily get five years under it!" he told Keston. "Whoever controls the interpretation of the article will be right." He feared that the provision over "citizens' obligations" could cause problems for the Pentecostals. "We don't take any oaths," he noted. "If alternative service is abolished, we would have a choice of going to prison or renouncing our faith. We had just such problems in the past." He argued that there are some "dangerous sects" in Moldova which harm health, but said that other articles of the criminal code already cover that. "Why should there be a specific law just for religious believers? Are religions more dangerous than anything else?"
Equally unhappy is the Jehovah's Witness community. "The article is not good," Ion Rusu, a Jehovah's Witness leader, told Keston from Chisinau on 20 June. "It could be used against us." He pointed out that various Jehovah's Witness practices, such as preaching from door to door, refusing to vote in elections and rejecting blood transfusions could fall foul of the article. "Our people were sentenced under this provision in the Soviet era - this could happen again," Rusu warned.
However, Angelina Zaporojan-Pirgari, human rights assistant at the OSCE mission to Moldova, made no direct criticism of Article 186. "The OSCE does not have an official position on the new article on religion," she told Keston from Chisinau on 13 June. "I think that the article does not exceed the margin of appreciation afforded to states to limit the
right to freedom of religion." However, she stressed that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights concerning article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the European human rights convention was also relevant to any application of this article.
Source : http://www.keston.org/
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Will Supreme Court victory help True Orthodox?
Keston News Service (31.05.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (04.06.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - Moldova's True Orthodox community has welcomed its 29 May victory in the country's Supreme Court over the government's repeated denial of registration, but fears that this may not be enough to overturn the government's objections to granting registration to an Orthodox group outside the framework of the Moldovan Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. It has not yet registered the Bessarabian Orthodox Church of the Romanian Patriarchate, despite a European Court of Human Rights ruling last year.
Speaking to Keston News Service on 31 May, a senior religious affairs official appeared to reject the validity of Wednesday's court hearing. Meanwhile the opposition politician and church activist Vlad Cubreacov, who disappeared on 21 March , reemerged on 24 May, saying he had been kidnapped.
Source: http://www.keston.org/
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No easy registration for Bessarabian church
Keston News Service (15.04.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (16.04.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net Despite the Moldovan government's acceptance of the March decision by the European Court of Human Rights that its refusal to register the Orthodox Church of the Bessarabian jurisdiction violated its commitments under the European Convention on Human Rights (see KNS 10 April 2002), the Bessarabian Church seems unlikely to gain registration soon. Government officials have told Keston News Service that "certain procedures" - including changing the law and addressing the question of property claimed by the Church - have to be undergone before the Church can gain registration as a denomination and its individual communities as religious organisations.
Keston News Service: http://www.keston.org
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Concern over "disappeared" Church activist
Keston News Service (10.04.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (11.04.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net - Friends and supporters of Vlad Cubreacov, a politician and active layman in the Bessarabian Orthodox Church, have expressed growing concern about his fate in the wake of his disappearance in the Moldovan capital Chisinau late on 21 March. "I know him as a friend and he is a person of transparent integrity," John Warwick Montgomery, a British-based lawyer who represented the Bessarabian Church in Strasbourg, told Keston News Service on 9 April. "His disappearance is terrible." Church leader Metropolitan Petru Paduraru told Keston he believed that Cubreacov had been abducted not just because of his anti-government political activity, but his religious activity also.
Keston News Service: http://www.keston.org
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Government fails in Bessarabian Church appeal
Keston News Service (10.04.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (11.04.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has rejected the Moldovan government's attempt to appeal against last December's ruling that its refusal to register the Bessarabian Orthodox Church violated its commitments under the European Convention on Human Rights. A court official confirmed to Keston News Service from Strasbourg that on 27 March judges refused to allow the appeal to go forward to the Grand Chamber of the court. The government must now pay the Church compensation. The leader of the church welcomed the ruling, but was skeptical as to whether the government would in fact register the Church.
Keston News Service: http://www.keston.org
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