Religious freedom, problems in Eastern Europe” “

“A world survey of the exercise of religious freedom”: that is what is offered by the latest Report on religious freedom in the world, published by “Aid to the suffering Church”. The Report, now appearing in its fourth annual edition, provides a survey of the various restrictions or legal curbs placed on the practising and propagating of one’s own faith. In particular, the research reports the violations of the right to religious freedom ascertained in 2001. Ample coverage is dedicated to anlayzing the situation in the various European countries. “Intolerance towards minority groups, new laws that discriminate against religious communities, restrictions on the teaching of religion in schools”: these are some of the curbs suffered by the Catholic Church and by the other Christian denominations in the continent, in particular in some former Communist countries, such as Russia and the Ukraine. Below we give a brief review of the various episodes of religious intolerance and discrimination registered. In Belgium the list of sects “potentially dangerous and damaging for society”, compiled by the parliamentary Commission on sects in 1997, continues to be a source of discrimination against the groups included in it. An even more critical situation is registered in Belarus, where the policy of giving preferential treatment to the Orthodox Church, the religion most widespread in the country, has caused an increase in religious discrimination. To this is added the ban on renting buildings to celebrate religious functions, which makes it impossible for the Churches that do not possess their own buildings, to celebrate in public. In Bulgaria some 10 municipal administrations have approved, or are about to approve, laws that regulate the activities of the religious communities; the alarming aspect of these laws is that they violate the Constitution, some national laws and international treaties of which Bulgaria is a signatory. In Montenegro the tension between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Montenegran Orthodox Church, which has unilaterally declared its independence, continued in 2001; the tension erupted into some episodes of violence between the supporters of the two communities. The situation of religious freedom in Turkey remains worrying; this is a country with an overwhelming Islamic majority, but it is constitutionally a secular state. The 2001 report of the United Nations on religious intolerance stressed that the state directorate of religious Affairs exercises “excessive powers in the management of religion such as to make religious practice appear disciplined by the government, while Islam is treated as if it were an affair of State”. A new law on the juridical status of the religious communities is currently being drafted in Croatia and in Serbia. But both bills have aroused serious misgivings due to the “too significant role” assigned to the so-called “historic religions” (Catholic and Orthodox). In the Czech Republic, the new law on religious liberty entered into force on 7 January 2002; it has been denounced by the Senate and by the Czech President as unconstitutional and in violation of human rights. In Russia the law on freedom of conscience and on the religious organizations of 1997 introduced restrictive and potentially discriminatory elements. The law, apart from causing serious problems for many religious groups in the Federation, is also in flagrant violation of the constitutional provision, on the basis of which all the religious confessions are equal under the law. A similar situation is registered in Macedonia, where the Constitutional Court in 1999 abrogated various articles of the law of 1997 that defined the status of religious groups. In Lithuania, a new department of religious Affairs entered into operation in the early months of 2002. A similar measure has also been adopted in Poland, where the government has instituted a department to “monitor” the activities of the new religious groups. Great progress, on the other hand, has been made in Greece, where the country’s entry into the EU marked a greater willingness to recognize the right to religious freedom also for citizens who do not belong to the Orthodox Church. In Latvia, finally, it seems that a process for the reconquest of religious freedom, suppressed during the years of Communist totalitarianism, is now underway.