Russia – Page 2

Russia: Supreme Court supports ban on headscarves in document photos

By RFE/RL, 11 March 2003

The Supreme Court on 4 March rejected an appeal by 10 Muslim women from Tatarstan who asked the court to overturn a Tatar Interior Ministry ban on wearing headscarves in photographs for their domestic passports and other official documents

First published in Russian Foreign Policy and Security Watch, Vol. 4, No. 10, 11 March 2003. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Website: http://www.rferl.org/

The Islamic Party of Russia

By Robert Bruce Ware - RFE/RL, 27 February 2003

Boasting 2,160,000 members and aspiring to five times that number, the recently organized Islamic Party of Russia (IPR) stands poised to play a significant role in Russian electoral politics. It will undergo its first important test on its home field on 16 March when Daghestan elects its third National Assembly.

Robert Bruce Ware is an associate professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville who conducts fieldwork in the Caucasus.

Copyright (c) 2003. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Website: http://www.rferl.org/

Russia: public opinion divided over tuition of Orthodox culture in State schools

By Geraldine Fagan, 6 December 2002

According to her Constitution, Russia is a secular state. According to the 1992 law on education, state education is secular in nature. On 22 October 2002, however, Education Minister Vladimir Filippov sent to Russian regional education departments a 30-page prototype of a new curriculum subject – “The Foundations of Orthodox Culture“. Keston News Service – […]

Russia: ex-KGB renews interest in religion

By Geraldine Fagan, 2 December 2002

For the first time since the end of the Soviet regime, an Eastern-rite Catholic priest in Omsk region of western Siberia reports that he is being regularly questioned by an officer of the local FSB (ex-KGB). An FSB officer first contacted Fr Sergi Golovanov this spring, told Keston News Service in September, “in order to […]

Russia: destruction of Orthodox church in Tatarstan

By Geraldine Fagan and Tatyana Titova, 9 November 2002

Although not the first such incident in Naberezhnyye Chelny, the destruction of the Orthodox Church of St Tatyana on 1 October was “the first time the authorities took any notice,” the secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate’s local deanery has told Keston News Service. Naberezhnyye Chelny is the second largest city in the republic of Tatarstan, […]

Russia: national policymakers want Islamic clerics trained at home

By RFE / RL, 16 October 2002

At a conference in Moscow on cooperation between government and religious organizations on 10 October, Viktor Zorkaltsev, chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on Public and Religious Organizations, called for creating a center in Russia for the training of Islamic clerics in order to provide Russia with greater “spiritual security” and to limit the training […]

This news item was originally published by RFE/RL, (Un)Civil Societies, Vol. 3, No. 42, 16 October 2002. Copyright © 2002. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

Russia: census and religious statistics

By RFE / RL, 4 September 2002

Orthodox Church lobbies to include confessional preference in census data. But the Russian government disagrees. Meanwhile two-thirds of Russians profess faith in God. RFE/RL- 4 September 2002 – Antonii Ilin, spokesman for the Foreign Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, has said that the Russian Orthodox Church has a “direct interest” in including a question about […]

This news item was originally published by RFE/RL, (Un)Civil Societies, Vol. 3, No. 36, 4 September 2002. Copyright © 2002. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.www.rferl.org

Russia: are religious organs equal before the law? Report on experiences in Tatarstan and Mari-El

By Geraldine Fagan, 26 July 2002

Russia’s 1993 Constitution declares that the country is a secular state, and that religious associations are equal before the law. Yet latterly, there have been complaints that Russia’s state institutions are becoming markedly less secular and that, in the sphere of social service, the law is not being applied to all religious organisations in equal […]

Russia: Upper Chamber to begin process of returning land to Church

By RFE / RL, 25 July 2002

Federation Council Agriculture Committee Chairman Ivan Starikov announced that he intends to start working on a law that would restore land seized by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 Revolution to the Russian Orthodox Church, Izvestiya reported on 24 July. RFE/RL – 25 July 2002 – The Church at one point owned about 3 million hectares of […]

Published on 25 July 2002 by RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty). Posted on Religioscope with permission.

Russian-speaking people: Christian satellite TV channel takes to the air

By RFE / RL, 15 July 2002

The first Russian-language, Christian-oriented satellite television channel began broadcasting on 15 July, RosBalt and other Russian news agencies reported the same day. RFE/RL – 15 July 2002 – The channel, called the New Life Channel (CNL), will initially broadcast for six hours each day and can be received in 74 countries including most of Central Asia, […]