At least 159 individuals and communities were prosecuted for violating Russia’s controversial “anti-missionary” restrictions in 2018, according to an analysis by Forum 18.
The Oslo-based religious freedom organisation said there at least 56 cases involving organisations and 103 involving individuals reached court during the year with 129 of them resulting in fines. Of the 14 foreigners charged, three were ordered to be deported with one case overturned on appeal.
Forum 18 said while the figures represent a decrease on the 2016-17 total – the first year of the legislation’s implementation, this appears to have been primarily driven by the “sharp drop” in cases against Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose activities were outlawed as extremist by Russia’s Supreme Court in 2017.
The conviction rate, meanwhile, climbed to 90 per cent in 2018 compared with 82 per cent in 2016-17.
The amendments to the Religion Law were introduced in July, 2016, as part of the “Yarovaya” package of “anti-terrorism” laws. Russia has also imposed its “anti-missionary” legislation in Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Under the laws, Russian citizens can be liable for fines of between 5,000 and 50,000 roubles for conducting missionary activities, organisations for between 100,000 and a million roubles and foreigners for between 30,000 to 50,000 roubles. Forum 18 said a fine of 50,000 Roubles represents nearly six weeks’ average wages for those in work or 16 weeks’ average state retirement pension.
Forum 18 says law enforcement agencies across Russia “continue to use the ‘anti-missionary’ legislation to control and punish the exercise of freedom of religion or belief in public and even private space”.
“Police and prosecutors continue to interpret a broad spectrum of activity as ‘missionary’, from posting videos on social media to praying with friends in one’s own home,” the organisation noted.
It quoted lawyers involved in the cases as saying the risk of prosecution has a “chilling effect” on the exercise of people’s freedom of religion or belief.
