Violation of law found in the Ministry of Culture instruction on re-registration of statutes

NGO "Public Advocacy" has sought the removal of classification "for official use" from the regulations of the Ministry of Culture on the approaches to registering changes to statutes of religious organizations. The head of the NGO Oleg Denisov found incorrect interpretations of the Law "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations" in the regulations. This is reported on the website of "Public Advocacy".

In the regulations sent out to the regions, the Ministry of Culture insists that any community can freely change its canonical subordination, and the provisions of the statutes that limit this possibility are illegal.

"In fact, any religious organization has the right to independently establish in its statute any provisions aimed at protecting property and legal entities from raider seizures and other offenses, and such norms of statutes are not restrictions on the right to freedom of religion," the human rights advocate Denisov said. "It should be understood that "the right to change canonical subordination" does not exist in principle, there is only a possibility to change the statutes of religious organizations in the order as provided for in the documents."

The human rights advocate fears that the regional state administrations may interpret the directives of the Ministry of Culture as a basis for refusing to register the statutes of religious organizations or will begin to demand that changes to the documents of the community that do not comply with the law are introduced.

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