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A December 5 news report of a government document outlining recommendations for countering “religious extremism” has alarmed religious rights activists in Russia. The document listed the Catholic Church as the number one threat to national security and Protestant churches as number two. Attorneys with the Slavic Center for Law and Justice in Moscow immediately blasted the document as “blatantly incompetent and anti-constitutional.” The draft paper defines “extremists” as those who conduct the “propaganda of exclusivity, of the supremacy or inferiority of citizens according to their attitude to religion and according to what social, racial, ethnic or linguistic group they belong.” Religious extremists, authorities say, promote disrespectful attitudes toward traditional religions. “The officials have set down Catholics, Protestants, sectarians and foreigners as extremists — that is, everyone except Orthodox adherents, Buddhists, and for the time being, Jews,” wrote Nadeshda Kevorkova in the Gazeta newspaper. The report will be presented early in 2003 at a joint session of the Security Council, State Council and Council for Relations with Religious Organizations.
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