Crushing Diverse Religion in Putin’s Orthodox Russia

The Bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report on Russia in the fall of last year which begins: “Since Vladimir Putin became president of Russia in 2000, the Russian government has steadily retrated from democratic reform, endangering significant gains in human rights made since the end of the Soviet era, including in the areas of freedom of religion or belief.” The report documents increasing race violence, official harassment of Muslims, attacks on NGO monitoring, and cites an April 2006 statement of Metropolitan Kirill (pictured, left) which asserts Russia’s right “to deviate from UN human rights norms to correct the ‘harmful emphasis’ on ‘heightened individualism’ which has infilatrated Russian society via ‘opposition groups’ working through Russian civil society organizations.” In essence, Kirill called these groups foriegn spy organizations. The report also points out that under Russian law Russian Orthodoxy is the only form of Christianity to receive recognition (along with Islam, Judaism and Budhism).

Now, Kirill has responded to the USCIRF report. According to Interfax:

Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Departmenr for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad has criticized the depiction of the situation in Russia in a 2006 report issued by the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom. “In its report U.S. experts are superficial and biased when judging the Orthodox Church’s approach to the understanding of human rights, to the problems of Church-State relations. The report for its authors is not an opinion, which we want to respect, but a sort of verdict on religious freedom in Russia,” Metropolitan Kirill said in an interview with the Rossijskaya Gazeta newspaper published on Friday. On March 20, the Metropolitan, in comments on the report sent to U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns, confirmed, among other things, the Russian Orthodox Church’s concern about “the radical-liberal interpretation of human rights” and its desire to ban any abuses of human rights that “humiliate human dignity and undermine conventional ethical principles.” In his interview the Metropolitan recalled that democracy as a “political mechanism” makes it possible for various systems of values to co-exist and is not identical to “the ideology developed in the West without other civilizations and cultures taken into account. This is why it is surprising when some see themselves as ultimate holders of the truth,” the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church said. The support of same-sex “marriages”, drug addiction, prostitution, death by lethal injection in the West should not be made “the criterion of democracy in society and should not make everyone believe they are useful, right and ethically acceptable.”

So, what he’s saying is that if you are a democrat this means you have to accept the existence of fascist maniacs as an expression of divurgence of opinion, and leave them alone. Isn’t that what Hitler said at Munich? It seems he’s also saying that the West consistes of morally degraded inferior beings who have no right to make moral criticisms. Isn’t that what Krushchev said at the United Nations? Is this man a cleric or an apparachik? Kind of hard to tell, isn’t it?

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Crushing Diverse Religion in Putin’s Orthodox Russia

The Bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report on Russia in the fall of last year which begins: “Since Vladimir Putin became president of Russia in 2000, the Russian government has steadily retrated from democratic reform, endangering significant gains in human rights made since the end of the Soviet era, including in the areas of freedom of religion or belief.” The report documents increasing race violence, official harassment of Muslims, attacks on NGO monitoring, and cites an April 2006 statement of Metropolitan Kirill (pictured, left) which asserts Russia’s right “to deviate from UN human rights norms to correct the ‘harmful emphasis’ on ‘heightened individualism’ which has infilatrated Russian society via ‘opposition groups’ working through Russian civil society organizations.” In essence, Kirill called these groups foriegn spy organizations. The report also points out that under Russian law Russian Orthodoxy is the only form of Christianity to receive recognition (along with Islam, Judaism and Budhism).

Now, Kirill has responded to the USCIRF report. According to Interfax:

Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Departmenr for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad has criticized the depiction of the situation in Russia in a 2006 report issued by the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom. “In its report U.S. experts are superficial and biased when judging the Orthodox Church’s approach to the understanding of human rights, to the problems of Church-State relations. The report for its authors is not an opinion, which we want to respect, but a sort of verdict on religious freedom in Russia,” Metropolitan Kirill said in an interview with the Rossijskaya Gazeta newspaper published on Friday. On March 20, the Metropolitan, in comments on the report sent to U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns, confirmed, among other things, the Russian Orthodox Church’s concern about “the radical-liberal interpretation of human rights” and its desire to ban any abuses of human rights that “humiliate human dignity and undermine conventional ethical principles.” In his interview the Metropolitan recalled that democracy as a “political mechanism” makes it possible for various systems of values to co-exist and is not identical to “the ideology developed in the West without other civilizations and cultures taken into account. This is why it is surprising when some see themselves as ultimate holders of the truth,” the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church said. The support of same-sex “marriages”, drug addiction, prostitution, death by lethal injection in the West should not be made “the criterion of democracy in society and should not make everyone believe they are useful, right and ethically acceptable.”

So, what he’s saying is that if you are a democrat this means you have to accept the existence of fascist maniacs as an expression of divurgence of opinion, and leave them alone. Isn’t that what Hitler said at Munich? It seems he’s also saying that the West consistes of morally degraded inferior beings who have no right to make moral criticisms. Isn’t that what Krushchev said at the United Nations? Is this man a cleric or an apparachik? Kind of hard to tell, isn’t it?

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Crushing Diverse Religion in Putin’s Orthodox Russia

The Bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report on Russia in the fall of last year which begins: “Since Vladimir Putin became president of Russia in 2000, the Russian government has steadily retrated from democratic reform, endangering significant gains in human rights made since the end of the Soviet era, including in the areas of freedom of religion or belief.” The report documents increasing race violence, official harassment of Muslims, attacks on NGO monitoring, and cites an April 2006 statement of Metropolitan Kirill (pictured, left) which asserts Russia’s right “to deviate from UN human rights norms to correct the ‘harmful emphasis’ on ‘heightened individualism’ which has infilatrated Russian society via ‘opposition groups’ working through Russian civil society organizations.” In essence, Kirill called these groups foriegn spy organizations. The report also points out that under Russian law Russian Orthodoxy is the only form of Christianity to receive recognition (along with Islam, Judaism and Budhism).

Now, Kirill has responded to the USCIRF report. According to Interfax:

Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Departmenr for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad has criticized the depiction of the situation in Russia in a 2006 report issued by the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom. “In its report U.S. experts are superficial and biased when judging the Orthodox Church’s approach to the understanding of human rights, to the problems of Church-State relations. The report for its authors is not an opinion, which we want to respect, but a sort of verdict on religious freedom in Russia,” Metropolitan Kirill said in an interview with the Rossijskaya Gazeta newspaper published on Friday. On March 20, the Metropolitan, in comments on the report sent to U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns, confirmed, among other things, the Russian Orthodox Church’s concern about “the radical-liberal interpretation of human rights” and its desire to ban any abuses of human rights that “humiliate human dignity and undermine conventional ethical principles.” In his interview the Metropolitan recalled that democracy as a “political mechanism” makes it possible for various systems of values to co-exist and is not identical to “the ideology developed in the West without other civilizations and cultures taken into account. This is why it is surprising when some see themselves as ultimate holders of the truth,” the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church said. The support of same-sex “marriages”, drug addiction, prostitution, death by lethal injection in the West should not be made “the criterion of democracy in society and should not make everyone believe they are useful, right and ethically acceptable.”

So, what he’s saying is that if you are a democrat this means you have to accept the existence of fascist maniacs as an expression of divurgence of opinion, and leave them alone. Isn’t that what Hitler said at Munich? It seems he’s also saying that the West consistes of morally degraded inferior beings who have no right to make moral criticisms. Isn’t that what Krushchev said at the United Nations? Is this man a cleric or an apparachik? Kind of hard to tell, isn’t it?

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Crushing Diverse Religion in Putin’s Orthodox Russia

The Bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report on Russia in the fall of last year which begins: “Since Vladimir Putin became president of Russia in 2000, the Russian government has steadily retrated from democratic reform, endangering significant gains in human rights made since the end of the Soviet era, including in the areas of freedom of religion or belief.” The report documents increasing race violence, official harassment of Muslims, attacks on NGO monitoring, and cites an April 2006 statement of Metropolitan Kirill (pictured, left) which asserts Russia’s right “to deviate from UN human rights norms to correct the ‘harmful emphasis’ on ‘heightened individualism’ which has infilatrated Russian society via ‘opposition groups’ working through Russian civil society organizations.” In essence, Kirill called these groups foriegn spy organizations. The report also points out that under Russian law Russian Orthodoxy is the only form of Christianity to receive recognition (along with Islam, Judaism and Budhism).

Now, Kirill has responded to the USCIRF report. According to Interfax:

Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Departmenr for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad has criticized the depiction of the situation in Russia in a 2006 report issued by the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom. “In its report U.S. experts are superficial and biased when judging the Orthodox Church’s approach to the understanding of human rights, to the problems of Church-State relations. The report for its authors is not an opinion, which we want to respect, but a sort of verdict on religious freedom in Russia,” Metropolitan Kirill said in an interview with the Rossijskaya Gazeta newspaper published on Friday. On March 20, the Metropolitan, in comments on the report sent to U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns, confirmed, among other things, the Russian Orthodox Church’s concern about “the radical-liberal interpretation of human rights” and its desire to ban any abuses of human rights that “humiliate human dignity and undermine conventional ethical principles.” In his interview the Metropolitan recalled that democracy as a “political mechanism” makes it possible for various systems of values to co-exist and is not identical to “the ideology developed in the West without other civilizations and cultures taken into account. This is why it is surprising when some see themselves as ultimate holders of the truth,” the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church said. The support of same-sex “marriages”, drug addiction, prostitution, death by lethal injection in the West should not be made “the criterion of democracy in society and should not make everyone believe they are useful, right and ethically acceptable.”

So, what he’s saying is that if you are a democrat this means you have to accept the existence of fascist maniacs as an expression of divurgence of opinion, and leave them alone. Isn’t that what Hitler said at Munich? It seems he’s also saying that the West consistes of morally degraded inferior beings who have no right to make moral criticisms. Isn’t that what Krushchev said at the United Nations? Is this man a cleric or an apparachik? Kind of hard to tell, isn’t it?

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Crushing Diverse Religion in Putin’s Orthodox Russia

The Bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report on Russia in the fall of last year which begins: “Since Vladimir Putin became president of Russia in 2000, the Russian government has steadily retrated from democratic reform, endangering significant gains in human rights made since the end of the Soviet era, including in the areas of freedom of religion or belief.” The report documents increasing race violence, official harassment of Muslims, attacks on NGO monitoring, and cites an April 2006 statement of Metropolitan Kirill (pictured, left) which asserts Russia’s right “to deviate from UN human rights norms to correct the ‘harmful emphasis’ on ‘heightened individualism’ which has infilatrated Russian society via ‘opposition groups’ working through Russian civil society organizations.” In essence, Kirill called these groups foriegn spy organizations. The report also points out that under Russian law Russian Orthodoxy is the only form of Christianity to receive recognition (along with Islam, Judaism and Budhism).

Now, Kirill has responded to the USCIRF report. According to Interfax:

Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Departmenr for External Church Relations Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad has criticized the depiction of the situation in Russia in a 2006 report issued by the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom. “In its report U.S. experts are superficial and biased when judging the Orthodox Church’s approach to the understanding of human rights, to the problems of Church-State relations. The report for its authors is not an opinion, which we want to respect, but a sort of verdict on religious freedom in Russia,” Metropolitan Kirill said in an interview with the Rossijskaya Gazeta newspaper published on Friday. On March 20, the Metropolitan, in comments on the report sent to U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns, confirmed, among other things, the Russian Orthodox Church’s concern about “the radical-liberal interpretation of human rights” and its desire to ban any abuses of human rights that “humiliate human dignity and undermine conventional ethical principles.” In his interview the Metropolitan recalled that democracy as a “political mechanism” makes it possible for various systems of values to co-exist and is not identical to “the ideology developed in the West without other civilizations and cultures taken into account. This is why it is surprising when some see themselves as ultimate holders of the truth,” the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church said. The support of same-sex “marriages”, drug addiction, prostitution, death by lethal injection in the West should not be made “the criterion of democracy in society and should not make everyone believe they are useful, right and ethically acceptable.”

So, what he’s saying is that if you are a democrat this means you have to accept the existence of fascist maniacs as an expression of divurgence of opinion, and leave them alone. Isn’t that what Hitler said at Munich? It seems he’s also saying that the West consistes of morally degraded inferior beings who have no right to make moral criticisms. Isn’t that what Krushchev said at the United Nations? Is this man a cleric or an apparachik? Kind of hard to tell, isn’t it?

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Bush and Shamanov Sitting in a Tree

La Russophobe continues to be disappointed with the Russia policy of U.S. President George Bush. First he “looks into Putin’s eyes” and now it’s Russian General Vladimir Shamanov‘s turn. His reputation in history is in serious jeopardy. The Moscow News reports:

Russian human rights groups on Thursday asked U.S. President George W. Bush to explain why he had a White House meeting with a Russian general accused of rights abuses in Chechnya, the Reuters news agency reports. Bush met General Vladimir Shamanov in March as part of a U.S.-Russian commission on missing soldiers. A spokeswoman said it was “unlikely” Bush would have met Shamanov if he had known about the abuse allegations. “The rather vague apologies of the White House don’t seem sufficient in such a grave situation. We hope to hear your own explanation,” said an open letter signed by leaders of 13 Russian human rights groups. “Was that meeting with Shamanov a misunderstanding and a very unfortunate mistake? Or do you believe that … war crimes and crimes against humanity may remain uninvestigated, and the perpetrators may go unpunished?” “Whether you wanted it or not, the international community received a signal that the leader of a world power … welcomes a general who is allegedly responsible for war crimes,” said the letter.

New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch has accused Shamanov, now retired, of being in charge of a Russian battalion blamed for attacking the Chechen village of Alkhan-Yurt in December 1999, killing 17 civilians. The signatories of the letter included several prominent Russian human rights campaigners. One of the signatories, Tatyana Lokshina, met Bush and told him about rights abuses in Chechnya when the U.S. president visited Russia for a Group of Eight summit last year. The European Court for Human Rights on Thursday awarded a Chechen woman over 50,000 euros ($66,700) in damages to a Chechen woman whose husband disappeared during a security sweep by federal forces in the troubled region.

Publius Pundit has more, including a copy of the photograph.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Oops, They did it Again (kidnapped, murdered and railroaded justice, that is)

Ladies, have you ever asked yourselves how much it would take to compensate you if the KGB kidnapped and murdered your husband because it didn’t care for his politics? The European Court for Human Rights has the answer: $69,400. The Moscow Times reports:

The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday blamed the Russian government for the disappearance and presumed killing of a Chechen man during a military sweep in Grozny in 2000. The court ruled that Russia failed to investigate the incident properly and awarded the man’s widow 52,000 euros ($69,400) in damages and almost 13,000 euros ($17,400) in court costs. It was the court’s fourth ruling in nine months against Russia in cases concerning hostilities in Chechnya. Shakhid Baysayev disappeared on March 2, 2000, on his way to work near Grozny. Government forces conducted a sweep in the area that day to identify members of illegal armed groups. Several months later, Baysayev’s widow was sold a videotape by an unknown man showing Baysayev lying on the ground and being kicked by a soldier before being taken away. She was also given a sketched map purportedly showing where her husband was buried, and later found a piece of cloth at the burial site resembling his coat. The investigation into Baysayev’s abduction was adjourned and reopened more than a dozen times by authorities, but no one was charged with the crime and the perpetrator was never identified, the court said.

Also on Thursday, the Strasbourg court ruled that Moscow city authorities had infringed on the rights of the Church of Scientology by repeatedly refusing to register it as a religious organization. The church operated in Moscow legally from 1994 to 1997, when a change in the law required all religious groups to register anew. Those that failed to do so faced the threat of dissolution by a court order. The Moscow Justice Department has rejected the Scientologists’ application 11 times, each time on different grounds. As a result, the church was “restricted in exercising the full range of its religious activities,” the court said. The court found that city authorities were biased and did not act in good faith, and awarded the church 10,000 euros ($13,400) in damages and 15,000 euros ($20,000) in court expenses.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of Americans Saving Russian Orphans

More Russian children cast off by Russian society saved by big-hearted American famlies. The Cook County News Herald reports:

A Grand Marais, Minnesota, family with a big heart wants to bring one more Russian orphan to the United States so that he can join his twin brother and three other Russian orphans as the newest member of this extraordinary family. Mike and Laurie Senty and their youngest daughter, Hana, are determined to find a way to bring Ilya to the United States, but at this point, they can’t really afford to. Enter Marce Wood, a good friend of the Senty family with a big heart of her own, who watched as the Sentys went to Russia and brought home the first two teenaged orphans two years ago. Then, within months, a third Russian orphan joined the family and before the year was over a fourth. More about this later. So Wood, who wants Kostya re-united with his twin brother, Ilya, as much as the Sentys do, decided to organize a wonderful art fundraiser at Betsy Bowen’s Studio April 21 to begin to raise money for “Ilya’s Fund.” There will be music and art and pony rides as well as lots of good food — and everyone in the community is invited, she said. Kostya, a talented artist in his own right, will have several drawings at the benefit and Hana will have her “famous” hand-knitted headbands, which she’s been making for the last two years to help raise money for her new brothers. Her mother, Laurie, a talented photographer, will have a slide show of photos she took on her trips to Russia.

The story of how Mike and Laurie Senty managed to adopt four Russian orphan teenagers from Pskov, Russia, started innocently enough — they agreed that they would give an orphan in Russia a chance to live with an American family for the summer. But two weeks into Ilya’s visit, the Sentys knew they didn’t want to send him back. “We wanted to keep him,” Laurie said. She called the adoption agency she was working with and made the request, and was informed that Ilya had a brother. They couldn’t be separated. Did the Sentys want to adopt the brother, too? Hmmmm. But an hour later, this generous couple had made up their minds — “What the heck,” Laurie said. “Let’s take his brother, too.”

When they returned to Russia to complete the adoption, they discovered Ilya’s brother, Alex, wasn’t the least bit interested in going with them. “Alex didn’t like us. He didn’t want to see us,” Laurie said. They kept on trying to get him interested, but to no avail. He didn’t want to go to America with them, apparently. But then Kostya, who had just met the Senty family (including Hana, their daughter), intervened. The 16-year-old who had been in the orphanage since he was an infant, began talking to Alex on his own. This was a good family, he told his fellow orphan. You’ll never get another chance to go to America. Four days later, Alex came in to the room where the Sentys were waiting, sat down and counted to 10 in English. “It was his way of showing us that he wanted to come,” Laurie said.

The papers completed, the Sentys returned to America. But during a layover in Amsterdam, Hana and her mother looked at each other and said — we can’t leave Kostya. “We went off to this little cafe,” remembers Laurie. “And we kept asking ourselves — ‘What should we tell Mike?’” Mike, as it turned out, had opened his heart to the friendly young Russian, too, and he agreed. So now there were to be three. At this point, things began to get really complicated.
When they went back to Russia to get Kostya, they were told that adopting him would be fine, but he had a twin brother who had to go, too. It was a shock to find this out, Laurie said. The twin boys had been separated for schooling, with Ilya, the twin, being sent to an orphanage out in the country, while Kostya stayed in town. Kostya, who didn’t speak English, couldn’t tell the Sentys about his brother and since, at that time, the family had no intention of adopting him, no one at the orphanage mentioned it either. What to do? Their finances couldn’t handle adopting any more children, Laurie said. But there was a legal way around this, they soon discovered. When Kostya reached legal age, he could formally submit a request to have his brother join him in America. The courts agreed to this stipulation and Kostya flew back to the states with his new parents.

But the story doesn’t end here. Hana, who, Laurie said, was an important part of this whole process, couldn’t get one other orphan named Losha out of her mind. They had made eye contact during each of her visits to the orphanage, and she just couldn’t let it go. Finally, Laurie suggested that Losha come and visit them, just for the summer. “We tried the whole summer to find a family who would adopt him,” she said, but they didn’t have any luck. She contacted the adoption agency again and explained the dilemma. They didn’t want this Russian orphan to have to go back, she told them, but she and Mike didn’t have enough money to adopt him. And then, wonder of all wonders, the adoption agency offed to pay for his adoption by raising the money for it. “They just said, ‘We have this opportunity to help,’ and they did,” Laurie said. And so the couch in their living room in Grand Marais is full of happy, well-fed boys today. It’s been a struggle, certainly, but worth every minute of it, she said. The boys all had their own issues that had to be worked out before they felt they were truly part of a family, and the household that first year when the boys didn’t speak English and the Sentys didn’t speak Russian was rather hectic — but it has all worked out, she said.

She’s very concerned about Kostya’s brother having to stay in Russia. The country doesn’t have a social security system like we do, she said. When Russian orphans are 18, they have to leave the orphanage. They can’t find work, primarily because they haven’t been trained for jobs, and they end up on the street. It is a miserable and dangerous life, she said, and they’re worried about Kostya’s twin. At this point, they’re working with an attorney in St. Paul to determine the best way to bring Kostya’s brother to America. Any way you look at it, it will cost money, she said, and the fundraiser Marce Wood is organizing is the first step in that direction. Hopefully, Ilya can walk through that door by fall. Kostya sure hopes so. “I just want to open my eyes and he’ll be right here now,” he said.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !