Russia;Turkmenistan;

FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway http://www.forum18.org/

The right to believe, to worship and witness The right to change one’s belief or religion The right to join together and express one’s belief

1 February 2005 GEORGIA: TWO LEADERS OF RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE FINALLY SENTENCED – BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS? http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=503 Two prominent leaders of large-scale violence against religious minorities, Fr Basil Mkalavishvili and Petre Ivanidze, have been given jail sentences, but Forum 18 News Service has been told that many other attackers remain free and unpunished, as individual attacks and sectarian hostility continue. “Of course I’m pleased by the prison sentences, but I know no-one else will ever face trial for any of these many attacks,” Orthodox priest Fr Basil Kobakhidze told Forum 18 gloomily. “Dozens of people if not more – including priests of the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate – should be on trial, but they never will be.” Interior Ministry press secretary Guram Donadze declined any official comment, but stated “as a private individual”, that others should be tried for their involvement in religious violence. Mkalavishvili and Ivanidze’s lawyers are going to appeal against the sentences. Forum 18 knows of no other trials pending for violent attacks against members of religious minorities.

1 February 2005 KAZAKHSTAN: LINKED MOVES AGAINST PROTESTANT ORGANISATIONS? http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=502 In what may be linked moves, public prosecutor’s offices in central and southern Kazakhstan have both attacked the statutes of Protestant organisations, Forum 18 News Service has been told. In central Kazakhstan, the prosecutor is trying to close down a Baptist charitable fund which ran an orphanage that the authorities previously closed, and in the southern city of Almaty, prosecutors are trying to force a Protestant community’s statute to be re-written, which may result in its closure. Baptists in central Kazakhstan insist to Forum 18 that the moves are part of a recently toughened central government policy. But Protestants in Almaty have told Forum 18 that they are unsure whether the legal move against them is the result of central policy, or the result of local decisions. Also in Almaty, local officials are continuing to try to close the only Hare Krishna farming commune in the former Soviet countries.

4 February 2005 MACEDONIA: SELECTIVE REFUSAL TO REGISTER SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=505 The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Macedonia, Metropolitan Jovan (Vranisskovski), has told Forum 18 News Service that he is challenging in the Supreme Court the government’s refusal to register the Archbishopric of Ohrid. Without registration, the Archbishopric cannot own any church buildings or other property, maintain a bank account or receive permission to build churches. “Although the Constitutional court has ruled that people can gather in private homes for worship, the police do not always share that opinion,” Metropolitan Jovan told Forum 18. “Basically, the police can break up any private meeting and arrest believers and priests if they want. For them without registration the Archbishopric of Ohrid is an illegal organisation.” The government also claimed against Metropolitan Jovan that “only citizens of Macedonia can organise a religious group”, ignoring the fact that he is a Macedonian citizen. It is notable that neither the Catholic Church nor the Methodist Church have had this claim used against them by the Macedonian government. * See full article below. *

3 February 2005 RUSSIA: SOUTHERN AUTHORITIES SIDE WITH PATRIARCHATE AGAINST ALTERNATIVE ORTHODOX? http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=504 Despite the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law for all religious associations, state authorities in Stavropol appear to assist the local Moscow Patriarchate diocese against alternative Orthodox communities, Forum 18 News Service has found. Incidents known to Forum 18 have included an alternative Orthodox bishop, Andrei (Davidyan), who belongs to the recently formed Orthodox Russian (Rossiiskaya) Church, being held for questioning by police. This followed entry being forcibly made into a church by representatives of the local district administration, police officers, Moscow Patriarchate clergy and Cossacks, and the church’s destruction reportedly being threatening whilst its contents were listed. The Moscow Patriarchal clergy present insisted that Bishop Andrei should submit to the authority of the local Moscow Patriarchate metropolitan. Neither state authorities nor Moscow Patriarchate representatives were willing to talk to Forum 18 about the incidents. Alternative Orthodox communities elsewhere in Russia, who are opposed to the Moscow Patriarchate, have also had problems with state authorities.

31 January 2005 TURKMENISTAN: JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES INTERROGATED AND MOSQUES DEMOLISHED http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=501 Raids and other pressures against Jehovah’s Witnesses are continuing, Forum 18 News Service has learnt, including the sudden detention and interrogation “in a verbally abusive manner” of Altyn Jorayeva and her three children, aged 8 years, 6 years, and 7 months old. Forum 18 has also learnt of further demolitions of mosques the authorities do not approve of.

4 February 2005 MACEDONIA: SELECTIVE REFUSAL TO REGISTER SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=505 By Drasko Djenovic, Forum 18 News Service

The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Macedonia, Metropolitan Jovan (Vranisskovski), has told Forum 18 News Service that he will challenge in the Supreme Court the Macedonian government’s refusal to give state registration to the Archbishopric of Ohrid. This follows the failure on 11 January of an appeal by the Archbishop to the Commission for Arbitration on Administration Acts. In a three-page judgment, the commission’s chairman, Taip Elezi, found that the government had neither broken Macedonian law, nor the constitution in refusing registration. The Commission decision is final and can only be challenged in the Supreme Court within 30 days of the judgment.

Metropolitan Jovan told Forum 18 that without registration, the Archbishopric cannot own church buildings or other property, maintain a bank account or receive permission to build churches. “Although the Constitutional court has ruled that people can gather in private homes for worship, the police do not always share that opinion,” he told Forum 18 on 4 February. “Basically, the police can break up any private meeting and arrest believers and priests if they want. For them, without registration the Archbishopric of Ohrid is an illegal organisation.”

Forum 18 tried to reach Cane Mojanovski, head of the religion committee, to find out why the Serbian Orthodox Church’s Ohrid Archbishopric has been singled out for selective denial of legal status and been the victim of harassment, but he was not available.

Services of the Ohrid Archbishopric have been broken up and believers fined (see forthcoming F18News article). Metropolitan Jovan has been sentenced to 18 months in jail and is waiting for the result of an appeal. The St John Chrysostom monastery was demolished last October (see Forum18 News 21 October 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=437) after being previously attacked with machine guns by a paramilitary “state security unit” (see F18News 24 February 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=259).

“Our Church had many problems in January, but it is a little more peaceful now,” Metropolitan Jovan told Forum 18. “I’ve still not been sent to prison – the government obviously thinks it is not the political moment to imprison me.”

As chairman of the Holy Synod of the Ohrid Archbishopric, Metropolitan Jovan applied for registration to the state religion committee on 6 September 2004. Three weeks later, on 30 September, the Committee decided that the registration application was incomplete and asked Metropolitan Jovan to supply extra documents within 15 days. On 18 October, only two days after the monastery was demolished, the committee received the extra documentation it had demanded. But Mojanovski of the religion committee rejected the application in November, having previously vowed “never” to give the church registration (see F18News 23 September 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=418).

Since the Ohrid Archbishopric was granted autocephalous (independent) status by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2002, its priests, monks and believers have been under pressure from both the Macedonian government and the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC). The MOC – which is not recognised by any other canonically recognised Orthodox Church in the world – has strong backing from the government (see eg. F18News 13 January 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=228).

In its six-page explanation of why it refused the application, the religion committee declared that a religious group should apply for registration within 30 days of being set up. The documentation presented to the Committee showed that the Ohrid Archbishopric Synod was elected in December 2003.

The Committee also declared that the MOC – whose place and importance in Macedonian society is described by the Constitution – is already registered and claimed that the name chosen by the Serbian Orthodox jurisdiction was an attempt to be a parallel organisation to the already-registered MOC, which used the name of the Ohrid Archbishopric in what the Committee described as its 800-year history. (The MOC was set up under heavy pressure from the then government in 1961.) Article 8 of the religion law declares that only one entity can exist for any one faith, while Article 12 specifies that the name of the religious community should be different from an already-registered religion. It also bans the registration of religious communities with a country name in the title.

The Committee also declared that the headquarters of the religious group should be in Macedonia, while the statute of the Ohrid Archbishopric shows that, although formally autocephalous, it is in reality part of the Serbian Orthodox Church, a foreign religious body. The Committee went on to say that only the MOC has canonical status “and not any foreign church. Only citizens of Macedonia can organise a religious group, not a foreign church or state.”

Metropolitan Jovan pointed out to Forum 18 that he was born in the Macedonian town of Bitola and is a Macedonian citizen.

The Committee added that on 6 August 2004 the MOC registered the “MOC – Archbishopric of Ohrid” as a trademark (no. TM-2004/574) with the State Institute for Industrial Ownership. So the name “Archbishopric of Ohrid” is protected and no other religious group in the country can have this name.

The constitutional court, the highest legal institution in the country, ruled in October 1998 that one religion can have only one religious organisation, and that such a stipulation does not produce inequality in individuals’ realisation of the right to religion freedom. It ruled that this decision protected people from manipulation and divisions in the body of believers. The same court ruled in May 2004 that believers of the same religious teaching but who by their free will do not belong to a registered religious community may form a religious group and conduct religious rites. It ruled that the stipulation that only one religious group of any one faith can be registered does not cause discrimination among believers.

The stipulation that “only citizens of Macedonia can organise a religious group” appears to be applied only to the Ohrid Archbishopric of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Although the Catholic Church in Macedonia is subject to Vatican jurisdiction, it has not complained that the authorities have obstructed the exercise of this oversight from abroad. The secretary of the Methodist church in Macedonia, Sofija Trajkovski, told Forum 18 on 4 February that their superintendent is an Austrian citizen Wilhelm Nausner and that the church has not faced any problems because of this. Their bishop is from Switzerland and he regularly visits Macedonia, preaches and leads meetings, she added.

A printer-friendly map of Macedonia is available from http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=macedo Note that the formally recognised name of Macedonia in international law is “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”. (END)

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