Editorial
Reporting on Religion at Its Best

Mark Elliott

"Keston News Service correspondent Lawrence Uzzell deserves a Pulitzer Prize for his exceptional reporting on recent threats to religious freedom in Russia." I made this statement at a conference on the new 1997 Russian law on religion at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, in October 1997, only to learn, to my pleasant surprise, that Mr. Uzzell already had been nominated by Professor John Witte, the organizer of the Emory meeting. Whether or not, in this instance, Keston's tenacious watchdog for freedom of conscience receives the recognition he deserves, his 23 April 1998 summary evaluation of the new law's impact is a perfect illustration of his reporting at its best. It should be required reading for all serious observers of the Russian scene. "Concrete Effects of Russia's New Religion Law" masterfully weaves together the complicated and contradictory strands of the story in nine single-spaced pages of carefully nuanced text. His observations deserve our close attention.

• Full-fledged religious persecution "of the sort seen in China, where one can be arrested simply for organizing a prayer group in one's own home" is "virtually nonexistent" in Russia today; religious repression, "the denial to disfavored confessions of the right to worship and proclaim their beliefs in public," Uzzell notes, "is scattered, but growing;" while religious discrimination, "preferential treatment for some religious bodies over others," is "pervasive."
• Contrary to expectations, enforcement of the new 1997 law to date has hampered indigenous believers more than expatriate missionaries.
• Infringements of religious liberty certainly began well before the 1997 law, but have increased since its passage. Conversely, Russia has not embarked on anything like systematic enforcement so far. Will the teeth in the text of the law bite hard a) now that official implementing regulations have been issued (March)? b) Or once the deadline for reregistration (December 1999) has past? c) Or at whatever point the West tires of the story and ceases to highlight unfair treatment? d) Or never, but with the law's draconian provisions ever present to "perpetuate a climate of intimidation"?
• Enforcement to date has been uneven a) as some two dozen provincial laws on religion remain operative, despite their contradiction of federal legislation and the constitution; b) as the state arbitrarily delineates favored and unfavored Protestants, favored and unfavored Muslims, and even favored and unfavored Orthodox; c) as bribery of local officials--both willing and unwilling--further distorts the law's provisions; and d) as Protestants, especially Pentecostals, have suffered more than Catholics. (It should be noted, however, that Protestant congregations are more numerous than Catholic.)
• The reemergence of a republic-level equivalent of the heavy-handed Soviet Council for Religious Affairs appears ever more threatening and ever more likely.

• Given its sparse population, Siberia has endured a disproportionate number of restrictions of religious liberty and threats of restriction, based on the 1997 law. Could this be a consequence of decades of deportations of religious dissidents to this region, along with a lingering xenophobic Gulag mentality among local officials? (Keston reports that Nikolai Volkhov, a Siberian provincial adviser on church-state relations, ascribes the increase in "nontraditional religions" in his region to the influence of America, which he describes as "a sewage ditch" for "all sorts of rabble.") Human rights lawyer Lauren Homer also suggests that Siberia's continuing economic deterioration has embittered the region toward the center (Moscow) and the West.
• Increasingly, Western Mormons appear to be having a singular impact upon Russian interpretation and implementation of the law, despite the minimal response of the Russian people to their missionaries. Three Mormons in the U.S. Senate (Gordon Smith of Oregon and Robert Bennett and Orrin Hatch of Utah) have traveled to Russia to voice their opposition to the law and have spearheaded legislation aimed at rolling back Russian restrictions. Russian officials who headed West in September 1997 to calm Western fears about the law visited not only Brussels (European Union) and Washington, but also Salt Lake City (Mormon headquarters). And in March, the Russian Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, moved expeditiously and successfully to secure the release of two Mormon missionaries kidnapped in Saratov, while two British Quakers, two Swedish Pentecostals, and two Hungarians and one Russian working for ecumenical relief agencies remain in the hands of kidnappers in the Caucasus. Granted, Russian authority in Dagestan and Chechnya is limited to nonexistent, but the prompt and energetic police efforts brought to bear in the Saratov case surprised this writer and, as Lauren Homer advises, some Mormon officials as well. Finally, of the several dozen specific instances of discriminatory enforcement of the new law that have come to the attention of Western observers to date, none has involved Mormons. This appears all the more surprising given the barrage of negative Russian press treatment of cults leading up to the law's passage in September 1997. Although the Salt Lake City headquarters at present prefers not to publicize Russian incidents, and some Mormon missionaries are having difficulties in Khabarovsk, Siberia, Mormons still have been relatively unscathed by legislation widely advertised as a direct challenge to cults.

Mark Elliott, editor

Editor's note: For subscription rates and order information for Keston News Service contact Keston Institute, 4 Park Town, Oxford OX2 6SH, England; tel: 44-865-311-022; fax: 44-865-311-280; e-mail: keston.institute@keston.org.

Mark Elliott, "Reporting on Religion at Its Best," East-West Church & Ministry Report, 6 (Spring 1998), 15-16.

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© 1998 East-West Church and Ministry Report
ISSN 1069-5664