RFE/RL Newsline on minority issues

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Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2001 11:05:06 +0300 (EEST)
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Subject: RFE/RL Newsline on minority issues

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
 
Original sender: RFE/RL <[email protected]>

RFE/RL Newsline on minority issues


RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
___________________________________________________________
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 125, Part II, 2 July 2001

ESTONIAN PRESIDENT REJECTS LAW ON CHURCHES. Lennart Meri refused to
promulgate the recently adopted Churches and Congregations Act on 29
June, BNS reported. Before making the decision, Meri consulted with
Justice Chancellor Allar Joks, while his advisers talked about freedom
of religion with an expert from Tartu University. Meri noted that the
Estonian Council of Churches opposed the law because it could prevent
the registration of such traditional churches as the Estonian Union of
Seventh-Day Adventists (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 25 June 2001). Meri did
not, however, mention the more important complaints against the law by
the Estonian Orthodox Church subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate.
Leonti Morozlon, a representative of that church, praised the
president's decision, but expressed regret that it is still not clear
when the church will be able to be registered officially. SG


RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
___________________________________________________________
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 122, Part I, 27 June 2001 

PUNISHMENTS PROPOSED FOR MISUSING RUSSIAN. Deputy (Unity) Kaadyr-
Ool Bilcheldei, the deputy head of the Duma Nationalities Affairs
Committee, has introduced legislation calling for elevating Russian to
the status of the state language and imposing criminal and other
penalties on those who misuse it, Interfax reported on 26 June. VY

RUSSIA'S ROMA GET FIRST NEWSPAPER. The first issue of a Roma
newspaper in Russia has been published in Samara, the unofficial
capital of the country's Romany population, "Nezavisimaya gazeta"
reported on 26 June. Called "Romani Duma" ("Council of the Gypsies"),
the paper has a press run of 20,000 copies. At the time of the last
Soviet census in 1989, the Roma population of the USSR was 261,956. PG

AZERBAIJANI MINORITY IN GEORGIA PROTESTS POLICE BRUTALITY.
Some 300 Azerbaijanis staged a protest on 25 June in the southern
Georgian town of Bolnisi after local police beat up one Greek and two
Azerbaijani men arrested two days earlier on charges of theft,
RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service reported on 26 June. The three men were
subsequently hospitalized. At a meeting with the protesters later on
25 June, local officials pledged to open criminal proceedings against
the police
officers involved. LF


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