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Hindus registered, but others still wait
By Felix Corley
Forum 18 News Service (02.09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (02.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Slovenia's Hindu community was finally registered at the end of August, seventeen months after first applying, Drago Cepar, head of the government's Office for Religious Communities, confirmed to Forum 18 News Service from the capital Ljubljana on 1 September. And for the first time he revealed the names of the seven other groups whose registration applications are still pending. He failed to explain why he had held up the Hindus' registration for so long or whether and when the remaining seven would be registered. The co-pastor of a Protestant Church which has applied for registration told Forum 18 they have been waiting for half a year.
"We are very happy to get registration, of course," Natasa Sivic, leader of the Hindu community, told Forum 18 from Ljubljana on 2 September. She said Cepar had written to her community on 26 August to inform it that registration had been granted. She said there are a number of minor formalities the community must undertake to complete the registration process. The Hindu community has already been added as the 34th on the
list of registered religious communities on the Office for Religious Communities' website (www.gov.si/uvs).
After taking office in 2000, Cepar refused to register any new religious communities, a policy he reversed in August of this year in the wake of strong pressure from officials, religious communities and journalists. Just before granting the Hindu community registration, he registered the Calvary Chapel in Celje and the Dharmaling Tibetan Buddhist association (see F18News 27 August 2003).
Cepar told Forum 18 that the other seven groups "whose written materials we have received" are: the Christian Outreach Centre of Ljubljana, the Christian Centre in Ljubljana, the International Church of Christ, the Holy Church of Ultra Teleme, the Universal religious community of the rising sun, the original native of the invincible sun of the empire of the sun and the Raelians.
Carol Vidic, who co-pastors the Christian Outreach Centre congregations in Ljubljana and Maribor with her husband Klemen, told Forum 18 on 2 September that the Ljubljana centre had applied for registration at the beginning of the year. "My husband was told at the religious office that they couldn't accept any new communities because as Slovenia is joining the European Union all laws need to be changed," Vidic reported. "That was their excuse." She said the church had been forced to register after that as a social organisation instead. "That was easier - there was far less hassle." However, the Centre continues to seek registration as a religious organisation.
Other groups on the list remain controversial. The Raelians sparked worldwide controversy last December when they claimed to have achieved the birth of the world's first cloned baby.
Source: F18News http://www.forum18.org/
Slovenian Episcopate sees a rising anti-Catholicism
Zenit.org (24.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (26.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The Slovenian episcopate publicly criticized acts of intolerance against the Catholic Church in the country.
"Numerous acts of religious violence in Slovenia have taken place, especially in relation with the Catholic Church, Christian values and sacred buildings," a statement of the bishops' Justice and Peace Commission disclosed.
Among other incidents, the statement mentions the Ljubljana municipality's prohibition of the ringing of bells on Aug. 15, solemnity of the Assumption and a public holiday.
It also refers to the profanation of churches and religious statues, and the burning of a crucifix, and laments that "none of the representatives of power explicitly condemned these actions."
"What is more, much of the media has humiliated and condemned representatives of the Catholic Church for the condemnations expressed following offenses to several places of worship," the commission said.
The panel said the reasons for this growing intolerance must be sought in "the many problems of the relation between the state and the Church which have remained unresolved" in this former Communist country of 1.9 million.
The statement calls for the intervention of the country's president, of the government, of the Human Rights Commission, and of media directors to halt the rise of intolerance against Catholics.
Pressure mounts on beleaguered senior religious official
By Felix Corley
Forum 18 News Service (18.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (23.06.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Drago Cepar, director of the government's Office for Religious Communities - who has failed to register any new religious groups in the three years he has held the post - is facing mounting pressure not to block further the registration of religious communities. Mirko Bandelj, general secretary of the government, wrote to Cepar on 12 June instructing him to "handle promptly" the registration of the Dharmaling Tibetan Buddhist group, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The ombudsman's office has taken up the case of the Buddhists as well as of the Stoic Pantheists, two of the ten religious communities whose registration applications have languished unanswered (see F18News 12 June 2003). "The problem in our opinion is with the religious affairs office, which does not respond to the applications," Barbara Samaluk, spokesperson for the ombudsman's office, told Forum 18 from the capital Ljubljana on 13 June.
In his letter to Cepar, of which Forum 18 has seen a copy, Bandelj noted that Rok Ceferin, lawyer for the Dharmaling community, had complained to the government on 2 June about the Office's failure to respond to the registration application, lodged on 14 January. "The reasons with which you have explained your silence in this concrete case to the ombudsman (Ljubljana, 27 May 2003) are not based on the derogated realisation of the constitutionally-guaranteed equality of religious communities and of the basic human right of freedom of religious belief in the Republic of Slovenia," Bandelj wrote. "I request you at the same time to inform me about the course of the procedure, especially about any eventual difficulties and their solution."
Samaluk said the ombudsman's office equally regarded Cepar's response on the Buddhist denial of registration as "unsatisfactory". "We will take further steps," she declared. She said deputy ombudsman Jernej Rovsek is completing a letter to Cepar urging him to register the Buddhists and the Stoic Pantheists. The Hindu community, which applied for registration last year, is among other communities which have seen their applications ignored.
In a 13 June written response to Forum 18's question as to why the applications were languishing unanswered, Cepar merely outlined what he claimed was the country's adherence to religious freedom standards and explained that religious communities can if they wish gain legal status as associations. "Each group, also a group which thinks of itself as being a religious community, can attain the status of legal subject according to the Law on Associations, which doesn't exclude religious activities from registration," he declared. "This enables it to immediately start the religious mission; it can for example found schools, own property and conduct legal business with it, employ people, build objects."
However, Cepar pointedly failed to explain why his Office was failing to register religious communities under the specific provisions his Office is supposed to be overseeing. "Some groups wish to get the status of legal subjects on the foundation of the Law about the legal status of religious communities. To none of these groups has the state denied this, or admitted this," he claimed. He maintained that the matter is "complicated", claiming that the state has not set out criteria "to determine when a group is a religious community". He said the government is working "intensively" to fill this "legal void".
"How it is possible to talk about a 'legal void' when 31 religious communities have already been registered?" the abbot of the Dharmaling community, Gelong Shenphen, told Forum 18 from Ljubljana on 15 June.
"How it is possible to say that an association and a religious community have the same rights, when it is obviously not true!" He says it is "a fact" that the Office does not want to share the state funds that currently go to some religious communities with others. "I really wonder how such discrimination can still take place in a country which will enter Europe next year!"
While the Buddhist Dharmaling community, the Hindus and others have seen their registration applications stalled, other groups were able to register with the Office before Cepar became director, including the Rosicrucians, Moonies, Mormons and Scientologists. One of the last groups to gain such registration was the White Gnostic Church in 1999.
Cepar's secretary Maria Pajk confirmed to Forum 18 on 18 June that her boss will become acting director on 28 June while the Office's activity is reviewed. She said she was unable to say what response Cepar would give to the government secretary's letter. Cepar himself was out of the office, she said.
Source: http://www.forum18.org
No response to Buddhist or Hindu registration applications
by Felix Corley
Forum 18 News Service (12.06.2003) Five months after lodging its registration application with the government's Office for Religious Communities, the Dharmaling association of traditional Tibetan Buddhists has received no response from the Office, which is headed by Drago Cepar. "It seems the problem is due mainly to one man, Drago Cepar," the abbot of the community, Gelong Shenphen, told Forum 18 News Service from the capital Ljubljana on 31 May. "The law says an answer has to be given within two months." The Buddhists' lawyer Rok Ceferin agreed. "It is a very simple case," he told Forum 18 on 12 June. "The Office should register the Buddhists immediately in accordance with the law." Neither Cepar nor his deputy Borut Sommeregger responded to Forum 18's written questions first submitted on 3 June. After repeated telephone calls, Cepar's secretary Maria Pajk confirmed to Forum 18 on 11 June that Cepar had received the questions and was preparing a response.
Gregor Krajc, chief government spokesperson, told Forum 18 on 12 June that after a government administration reshuffle that day, the Office is one of three government agencies whose activities will be reviewed before the autumn. He said on 28 June Cepar will become only acting director until the review is completed. But Krajc pledged that the government will resolve this issue. "We intend to register all religious communities without exception," he declared categorically.
"This is not just a problem affecting the Buddhist community, but all religious communities which have wished to register since 1999," Abbot Shenphen told Forum 18. "In Slovenia, this office is not meant to 'judge' any religious community, but just to register." He believed Cepar was obstructing the registration of religious communities as he is close to the dominant Catholic Church.
Natasa Sivic, a leader of the Hindus, said her community, which has existed for eight years, lodged its first application with the Office on 21 March 2002. She said the Office's legal specialist met Hindu leaders several times, each time demanding changes to the documents, which the community carried out. "They now claim the application was lodged in September 2002," Sivic told Forum 18 News Service from Ljubljana on 12 June.
She complained that there has been no progress since then. "They always tell us we will never get an answer. We find this very offensive. They have never given us any written answers." She said she and the Hindus' lawyer Magda Vranicar had met Sommeregger at the Office in mid-May, but he told them he could not do anything as he was soon to be removed from his post.
"We'll wait to see what happens," Sivic told Forum 18. "Something has to come out of this." Like the Buddhists, she blames Cepar for the impasse. "One government official told us off the record that if a new person takes over his job then all the communities will be registered. If not, they won't."
Since Cepar became head of the Office in 2000, no new religious communities have gained legal status. The Office's website (http://www.gov.si/uvs) lists 31 recognised religious communities, the last of which attained this status in 1999. Sivic said she had learnt from a government official C who had the information from Sommeregger - that a total of ten religious communities have had their registration applications stalled.
Although Cepar failed to respond to Forum 18's questions, he was quoted by journalist Ranka Ivelja in the paper Dnevnik on 28 May as asserting that his Office has no legal basis to register new religious communities. "If a group of people say about themselves they are a religious community, it doesn't mean this is truly so or that I have to take it on trust. A religious community is after all a legal subject, and this means it can buy and sell real estate, have a bank account and much more." He said "clear measures" are needed to establish when a group of people or an organisation of believers can be defined as religious community.
"The constitution doesn't tell this, the concept of religious community is not defined a constitutional concept and needs to be defined," Cepar added. He said no law C either the law on the legal status of religious communities, first adopted in 1976, or any other law - contains such a definition.
To draw attention to the denial of registration, the Hindus organised a press conference in Ljubljana on 27 May, attended also by the Buddhists, the Baha'is and Muslims. "Although we do have registration, I was there in solidarity to support the cause of the Hindus and Buddhists," Muslim leader Mufti Osman Djogic told Forum 18 from Ljubljana on 12 June.
The Dharmaling community started holding meetings last September and was formally established on 23 December. The community's legal representative, Tiberij Sezun, lodged the registration application with the Office on 14 January. "We intend to build a temple, but beforehand we need to be registered, which is obstructed by Mr Cepar," Abbot Shenphen reported. He said that if they ever have the resources to found a school, that too would be impossible without legal status.
He said he had met Slovenia's president, Janez Drnovsek, who had been sympathetic, but even he could not get an answer from the Office as to why they were not dealing with the application.
Ceferin told Forum 18 he had repeatedly tried to meet Cepar to try to find out why the application was being held up. "He didn't answer our phone calls or our letters. We have had absolutely no response." In the wake of this, Ceferin wrote a complaint to the government, which oversees the Office, at the end of May. The government has not so far responded, but if it fails to do so within the specified two months, Ceferin said the Buddhist community will have to decide whether to challenge the denial of registration in court. "I would very much like to go to court C the case deserves it." However, he insisted the decision rests with the abbot. "They're a religious community, and Buddhists don't usually go to court."
Since January the community has met for teaching each Friday, with a meeting for practice each Saturday. Abbot Shenphen estimates that up to 120 people attend the teaching meetings, with about 50 attend the practice. The community meets in a gymnasium within the Rehabilitation Institute for handicapped people.
The abbot, Lama Thubten Shenphen, was ordained by the Dalai-Lama. The secretary is the monk David-Lodreu. Although both are foreign citizens, the rest of the community is made up of local people.
Another Buddhist group, the Union of Buddhists, was registered in 1995, but Abbot Shenphen maintains that it is no longer active and the founder now lives in Austria.
Sivic reported that her community has some 200 people associated with it, although as it has chosen not to become organised until it gains registration it cannot be sure of exact numbers. "We gather only on major feasts, such as Diwali," she told Forum 18. "If we gather for other meetings we could have problems with the police."
Source: http://www.forum18.org
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