Criminal penalty for hurt believer feelings unhelpful to Church – Communists

(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 9, 2013) The draft law that introduces criminal penalties for hurting the feelings of the believers and desecrating holy places is an anti-Church document, which will cause an outbreak of militant atheism, the Russian Communist Party parliamentary group believes.

“This criminal penalty will not add to the Church’s authority. This is an anti-Church law,” Communist Party faction member Yuri Sinelshchikov said at the first hearing of the bill at the State Duma.

The bill punishes public insults and humiliations of Church services, other religious rights and ceremonies and religious beliefs and feelings of citizens with a fine or up to three years in prison.

Desecration of holy sites and objects is punishable with up to five years behind bars.

“The adoption of this law and criminal cases based on it will trigger an outbreak of militant atheism, above all, its most aggressive forms, seed discord between believers and non-believers and deepen inter-religious discord,” Sinelshchikov said.

The Communist Party regrets witnessing “the continuing trend of criminal law being the main regulator of public relations in the country.” In the opinion of Sinelshchikov, this is characteristic of an unhealthy society.

He thinks the law is unfounded and the crimes it covers are already punishable under existing laws. Besides, many notions of the draft law do not have legal determination.

At best, there will be lengthy linguistic, theological, historical and other examinations and investigative red tape, the Communist Party faction member stated.

“At worst, there will be abuses by officials engaged in criminal procedures, corruptive practice and reprisal upon unwanted persons,” Sinelshchikov said.

In turn, the Yabloko party protested against the State Duma’s approval in the first reading of the amendments tightening punishment for insulting a believer’s feelings. “These amendments trample upon the Russian constitution, article 28 of which guarantees the freedom of worship, including the right to practice any religion individually or in a group or not to practice any religion, and the right to disseminate religious or other beliefs and act according to them,” the party said in a statement published on Tuesday.

In their opinion, “this is a gross violation of rights of persons who practice no religion.” The party cited Russian Justice Ministry reports which said the country had over 60 religions represented by officially registered religious organizations as of January 1, 2012. They included shamanism and paganism, “the rights that are insulting to Christians and Muslims,” it said.

Meanwhile, A Just Russia faction deputy head Mikhail Yemelyanov said his party did not have a consolidated position regarding the bill and faction members were free to vote the way they felt.

United Russia backed up the draft.

One of the draft authors, head of the State Duma Committee for Public and Religious Organizations Yaroslav Nilov (the Liberal Democratic Party) promised to update the document by the second reading, with due account for the comments.