State Duma Supports Believers

Moskovsky Komsomolets (RIA Novosti) 27/9/2012 The State Duma adopted a statement on Tuesday on the need “to firmly repel the destructive forces that encourage anti-religious extremism” and is expected to adopt a bill shortly approving imprisonment for causing damage to religious objects. The Duma Council has decided against holding a pubic discussion of the draft statement “On the Protection of the Religious Feelings of Believers,” instead ruling that a brief report on the issue be delivered by Yaroslav Nilov (LDPR), head of the State Duma Committee on Public Associations and Religious Organizations, because public discussions of delicate issues such as ethnic relations or religious feelings often provoke rash statements that lead to protests and even defamation lawsuits. “Lately there have been a number of outrageous, blasphemous, shocking and obscurantist events,” Nilov said, citing the examples of the Pussy Riot scandal, the defiling of icons, swastikas and satanic symbols painted on Orthodox churches and synagogues, the murder of Muslim leaders in Tatarstan and Dagestan, and the destruction of a Protestant prayer house in Moscow.