Tag Archives: Country: Russia

Moscow Times: An unsanctioned gay pride parade descended into violence Sunday as religious activists arrived to break up the demonstration and police detained protesters.

Daily Telegraph: Vladimir Putin’s election as Russian President was either the result of a hopelessly inept rigging exercise or voting patterns which contradict the laws of statistics, according to a new study.

AP: A prominent Russian gay rights activist was convicted on Friday of spreading “gay propaganda” among minors in the first such ruling in Russia’s modern history . . . a city court in St. Petersburg fined him 5,000 rubles ($170) for breaching the law . . .

Religion Clause Blog: RT reports that the Russian Interior Ministry is investigating a controversial televised interview of Chechen lawyer Dagir Khasavov who told REN TV that authorities should legalize shariah courts or face violence and bloodshed.

Christian Science Monitor: The Russian Orthodox Church’s ties with the government are facing push back. Church leaders have decried recent incidents, including a punk band’s protest inside a church.

RIANOVOSTI: Thousands of priests are expected to arrive in Moscow on Sunday for a nationwide prayer in defense of the faith and desecrated sacred objects, Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vladimir Legoida said.

Interfax: Only 6% of respondents oppose the measure and most were citizens aged under 35 (9%), supporters of unregistered parties (15%) and respondents who have friends with a non-traditional sexual orientation (16%

Telegraph: UK-led plans to reform the European Court of Human Rights could have a “devastating” effect on thousands of people seeking justice in Russia, the Government has been warned.

Washington Post: Here in St. Petersburg, a city that prides itself as the most European in all Russia, the lawmaker behind a new local ban on gay “propaganda” has said he is defending traditional Russian values against an onslaught from the West

Text at the Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United Kingdom

Wall Street Journal: Following a meeting in Washington, the statement of the G8 Foreign Ministers Meeting Chair said: “The ministers reaffirmed that human rights and fundamental freedoms are the birthright of all individuals, male and female, including lesbian, gay, bisexual …

Chicago Tribune: Russian lawmakers have submitted a bill that would impose fines for spreading gay “propaganda” among minors, setting up a tolerance test for the Kremlin-controlled parliament ahead of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration as president.

Religion Clause Blog: According to The Hindu, earlier this week a Russian court for a second time rejected attempts by prosecutors to ban the Russian translation of the book, Bhagavad Gita As It Is . . .

RIANOVOSTI: Hegumen Philip Ryabykh, the Russian Orthodox Church’s representative to the Council of Europe, said on Tuesday Russia would do what it can to help British Christians banned from openly wearing crosses at work defend their right to do so.

Religion Clause Blog: Gay Star News reports today that a trial court in Russia has backed last year’s decision by the Russian Ministry of Justice to refuse the registration of the NGO that planned to organize a “PRIDE House” for gay and lesbian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

AP reports.

AP: A leading official in the Russian Orthodox Church has urged federal lawmakers to adopt a bill outlawing what he called the promotion of homosexuality among minors.

One News Now: “You’ve got 60 divorces for every 100 marriages,” explains Griffith. “That’s more than half of married couples.”

AP: Thousands of Russians gathered Monday for a massive rally to challenge Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s victory in Russia’s presidential election, chanting “Shame!” and “Russia without Putin!”

Interfax: Over the past 16 years, the number of Russians who go to church, mosque, or synagogue increased from 57% to 71%.

LifeSiteNews: The Russian government has cut off funding for most late-term abortions that are done for “social” reasons, in a move that may signal more restrictions to come.

Blitt, Robert C., Whither Secular Bear: The Russian Orthodox Church’s Strengthening Influence on Russia’s Domestic and Foreign Policy (2011). Fides Et Libertas: The Journal of the International Religious Liberty Association, p. 89, 2011. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2008331

The Center for Reproductive Rights is calling on the Russian government to reverse a recent string of unnecessary and dangerous abortion restrictions.

Asia News: Putin signs a decree to introduce the fundamentals of religion at a national level. From September, pupils can choose between Orthodoxy, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam, or opt for “moral ethics”.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: “Given the demographic crisis that Russia is experiencing, the latest move by the Russian government to further limit the cases in which abortion is available on demand in Russia is not surprising . . . ”

The Moscow Times: St. Petersburg lawmakers on Wednesday approved at the crucial second reading a bill introducing fines for advocating gay and lesbian relationships in front of children and promoting pedophilia.

Religion Clause Blog: CNN reports that in the Russian city of Tomsk, a court has  postponed until Dec. 28 its decision on an attempt by the prosecutor to ban the Bhagavad Gita as an extremist book that sows social discord.

We, being the representatives of the civil society and non-governmental organizations of the Russian Federation and Ukraine, taking part in the second hearing conducted in Saint-Petersburg on November 24th, 2011, addressing the influence of international political organizations on the condition and welfare of the family in our countries, have examined the current trends concerning family problems in the United Nations, and in particular some activities of the UN treaty monitoring bodies, including the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Yahoo! News: Russian authorities should annul the parliamentary vote results and hold a new election, ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev urged Wednesday as popular indignation grew over widespread reports of alleged election fraud.

Montreal Gazette: Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak on Friday backed a controversial regional bill proposed by the ruling United Russia party to issue fines for “propaganda of homosexuality.”

News from The Associated Press: Russia’s top gay rights activist on Thursday condemned a bill passed in the country’s second largest city that prohibits “propaganda of homosexuality” to minors, warning it could be used to ban gay protest rallies.

Yahoo! News: Its abortion rate — 1.3 million, or 73 per 100 births in 2009 — is the world’s highest. Backed by the Russian Orthodox Church, an influential anti-abortion lobby is driving a moral crusade to tighten legislation and shift public attitudes that are largely a legacy of the Soviet era.

News from The Associated Press: Russia’s parliament adopted a law Friday limiting abortions but rejected even tougher restrictions backed by the country’s conservative Orthodox Church.

Interfax-Religion: Special Envoy of the Russian President for Interaction with NATO Dmitry Rogozin believes mass visits to Cathedral Mosque in Moscow on chief Islam feasts have political background.

VOA Breaking News: Tens of thousands of Muslims gathered in Moscow and Saint Petersburg for worship Tuesday on Eid al-Fitr, the three-day festival marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

LifeSiteNews.com: Amid the crumbling ruins of an empire that had condemned the traditional family as a bourgeois institution, the Russian people are now witnessing a population free-fall as the youngest population is being eliminated at the staggering rate of seven abortions per woman. In the last 20 years, an estimated 80 million unborn Russian children are believed to have been aborted.

Religion Clause: The ruling means that the painting will be banned from exhibitions, newspapers, magazines and television under the provisions Art. 13 of of Russia’s Federal Law No. 114 FZ on Counteraction of Extremist Activities (2002).

Spero News: The authorities abandon plans for a new place of worship for Muslims in the capital, which had led to protests and tension. The prefect: the area “not suitable”.

CSMonitor.com: Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev chose a painful anniversary – that of the 1991 August Coup, which tried to reverse his democratic reforms – to criticize Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

WBEZ (includes audio): This week, to gain insights into this country’s incredibly polarizing debate over abortion, we’re looking at how reproductive issues play out around the world. It’s part of our occasional series Here, There, where we compare U.S. policy on tough issues to those of other countries.

Allan Carlson Front Porch Republic:
Paper prepared for “The Moscow Demographic Summit: Family and the Future of Humankind, ”29-30 June 2011, Russian State Social University, Moscow, Russia.

Bloomberg: China, the largest foreign investor in U.S. government securities, joined Russia in criticizing American policy makers for failing to ensure borrowing is reined in after a stopgap deal to raise the nation’s debt limit.

AP: On a visit to Kiev on Thursday, the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church Catholicos Ilya II asked Russian Patriarch Kirill to “restore friendship and brotherhood between our people.”

Interfax: “We do not want the (Church) to become part of the state apparatus, state machinery, to assume secular functions,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations, said.

The Christian Institute: Health warnings are set to be placed on abortion adverts in Russia – where over a million abortions were carried out in 2008.

AP: The United States and Russia ended an ugly dispute over the abuse of adopted Russian children on Wednesday, with Washington signing an agreement that will increase oversight of adopting families to curtail possible maltreatment.

The Washington Post: Two founders of a new Russian opposition party have been barred from leaving the country for six months, after court officials ruled that a correction they were ordered to publish did not have a large-enough headline and was missing a key word.

Catholic Culture: he lower house of Russia’ parliament, the Duma, has approved legislation that will require all abortion advertisements to include warnings about the risks to the mother’s health.

AP: A court in a Moscow suburb has banned works by the founder of the Church of Scientology, officials said Thursday.

Spero News: They also maintain that the closure of the Centre for Islamic culture is linked to the Kremlin’s desire to bring the large Muslim community in the country under the control of a single organisation loyal to the state.

LifeSiteNews.com: Conservative parliamentarians, with the backing of Russia’s Orthodox Church, are drafting legislation aimed at reducing the more than 1 million abortions performed in Russia each year.

LifeNews.com: When Dale Mcalpine was arrested and charged for saying that homosexual activity is sinful in April last year, the charges were eventually dropped, but the Christian street preacher called for changes to the law that would make it possible to express religious opinion out loud in Britain without fear of arrest and prosecution.

: Some 85% of them are young people, that is, activists under 30 years old.

Interfax: . . . head of the Council of Trustees of the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation and JSC Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin believes tolerance to homosexuality is harmful . . .

LifeSiteNews: Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk told an ecumenical meeting in Moscow that stopping the demographic crisis in Russia must be a priority for all Christians, as well as the state.

MonstersandCritics.com: Officials in the Russian capital Moscow will defy threatened penalties by the European Court of Human Rights and ban a public demonstration by gays and lesbians, human rights officials said Tuesday.

Washington Post: Russia’s most prominent gay rights activist says Moscow City Hall has banned a gay rights rally on the basis it might provoke civil unrest.

John Couretas at the Acton Institute Blog: The miraculous post-Soviet revival of the Russian Orthodox Church, all but destroyed by the end of the Stalinist purges in the 1930s, is one of the great stories of 21st Century Christianity. This revival is now focused on the restoration of church life that saw its great institutions and spiritual treasures — churches, monasteries, seminaries, libraries — more or less obliterated by an aggressively atheist regime. Many of the Church’s best and brightest monks, clergy and theologians were martyred, imprisoned or forced into exile. Yet, plans are now underway to build 200 churches in the Moscow area alone . . . Christianity Today deputy managing editor Timothy C. Morgan interviewed Hilarion on the bishop’s recent trip to Washington. Here’s an excerpt . . .

AP on Yahoo: The Church of Scientology says Russian authorities have lifted a ban on some of its publications.

LifeNews: Abortion has become such a pervasive form of birth control that the nation is seeing worker and population shortages that are already beginning to take an economic toll. The nation’s Duma is considering legislation to address the problem.

Christian Newswire: Against this backdrop, the World Congress of Families will hold the world’s first demographic summit – “Moscow Demographic Summit: Family and the Future of Humankind” – at the Russian State Social University (RSSU), June 29-30.

Telegraph: Vladimir Putin has promised to spend £33 billion to boost the country’s flagging population by up to a third over the next four years, during a two-and-a-half hour speech that appeared to gear him up for a 2012 presidential run

RiaNovosti: A Muslim crescent should be part of Russia’s national emblem along with Orthodox crosses, Chief Mufti of Russia Talgat Tadzhuddin said on Friday in an interview with Moskovskiye Novosti daily.

Catholic Culture: The new head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has said that he would like to meet with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, in a bid to resolve tensions between the Moscow patriarchate and the Byzantine Catholics of Ukraine.

AsiaNews.it: Fresh controversy has broken out in Russia between the Orthodox Church and human rights organizations. The head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for Relations between the Church and society, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, has appealed to the community of believers to be more courageous in showing their faith.

Telegraph: A group advising the Kremlin on human rights has urged President Dmitry Medvedev to decide whether Vladimir Lenin’s body should be removed from its Red Square mausoleum.

NY Times: A day after an unusual air attack on what officials here said was a militant base in Russia’s North Caucasus region, President Dmitri A. Medvedev warned separatist fighters in the mostly Muslim region to surrender or “be destroyed.”

BBC: When an amateur video of a screaming, naked boy being plunged by a priest into an ice hole in Siberia appeared on the web, it caused a massive outcry in the Russian media and blogosphere.

Reuters: “China, with Russia, India, Brazil and other developing countries have condemned the U.S.-led air strikes on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as risky and unwarranted overreaching by the West.”

Moscow Times: “After twin attacks by female suicide bombers killed 40 people in the Moscow metro last March, media reports warned that women sporting a Muslim headdress in public may face verbal or even physical attacks.’