MINELRES: Demonstrations in Sofia against the new Law on Religions

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: Emil Cohen <toleranc@abv.bg>

TOLERANCE FOUNDATION*
An associated member of the 'Human Rights Without Frontiers
International'

PRESS RELEASE


BULGARIA: BELIEVERS AND PRIESTS OF DIFFERENT FAITHS DEMONSTRATE AGAINST
THE DISCRIMINATIVE PROVISIONS IN THE DRAFT RELIGION LAW

Sofia, December 16, 02 - On Saturday and on Sunday two demonstrations
took place in Sofia. About one thousand people took place in them. The
marches got together Orthodox clergy along with a lot of Protestants as
well as believers from other denominations. The tar-get of the protest
actions was the discriminative provisions that are included in the new
De-nominations Act that is under discussion in the National Assembly at
present. The Draft now is in process of its final reading and after the
end of the consideration will become acting Law. 

As it is well known for last several months a process of preparing of
new Denomina-tions Law has been under way. In May the National Assembly
adopted at first reading three drafts. Later a special working group for
unification of the drafts has been formed within of framework of the
Commission on Human Rights and Religion. The process of development of
the new united Draft was very slow. Suddenly about two weeks ago at the
one of the meet-ing of the working group the MP of the ruling party
(National Movement Simeon the Second) Mr. Borislav Tzekov provoked a
scandal, insulted the presented experts from the religious organizations
and as a result they left the meeting hall. After this the elaboration
of the draft was finished within two or three days. The Commission has
denied its previous decision to send the Draft to the Council of Europe
for review.  
Later the draft was introduced into the Parliament. On Saturday the
final reading of the draft begun. A day earlier a meeting of religious
activists and NGOs was carried out. The con-ference was organized by NGO
titled 'European Center on Jurisprudence'. Prof. W. Cole Durham, Jr., a
prominent expert in the sphere of the religious human rights and
Director of the Brigham Young University International Center for Law
and Religion Studies took part in the conference. Mr. Emil Cohen,
President of Tolerance Foundation was a moderator of the event. The main
speakers were the lawyer Atanas Krussteff, member of the board of
Toler-ance Foundation and the lawyer Ivan Gruikin. Both of them are well
known as human rights activists. More than 40 representatives from
almost all religious communities 

All three speakers and at first place Prof. Durham pointed out that in
some respects the draft was a step forward but there were a lot of
serious problems with some provisions that threatened to violate basic
human rights of the Bulgarian citizens in the sphere of the religious
human rights. 
The first problem is related to the status of the Orthodox Church. By
the provisions of the Draft only one of the two wings of the split
Bulgarian Orthodox Church receives recogni-tion by the state while the
another one in fact remains out of the law. Through the Law it be-comes
very clear that only one Orthodox Church has to exist in our country and
it is a wing of Patriarch Maxim. By this a step toward of establishing
of the State Orthodox Church has been made. Thus the rights of many
Bulgarians Orthodox believers who has chosen to be followers of the
alternative Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church would be very seriously
violated. That outcome would be in clear inconsistency with some
decisions of the ECHR including the re-cent decision on case of Hassan
and Chauch v. Bulgaria. 

Another very heavy problem of the Draft is that it sets limitation
clauses that are in contradiction with of the European Convention of
human Rights. First of all in inconsistency with the ECHR the 'national
security' is a one of the grounds for limitation of the religious human
rights. Beside this in art. 9 is written that in case of abuses of the
grounds of limita-tions of the rights to exercising of religion the
court can impose sanctions against a religious organization. The list of
the sanctions includes (art. 9 of the Draft):

- Prohibition of dissemination of a certain printed publications;
- Prohibition of the total publishing activity;
- Restriction on public manifestations;
- Deprivation of registration of educational, health or social
enterprises;
- Cancellation of activities for a period of up to six months;
- Nullifying of the registration of the legal entity of the religion.   

It is clear from that list that the offences committed by the religious
organizations will not be treated as all others: a special regime of
sanctions on the religious groups has been cre-ated. Beside this there
are not definitions of the offences that can provoke these sanctions. By
that way a large room for subjective interpretations is opened. 

A lot of the provisions of the draft are too vague and can be I
interrupted in different ways. In essence the practice of religion
remain dependent on the availability of registration of the religion
group. It is not allowed for the religious group to be registered as a
non-for profit organization. In essence according to the Draft only
registered organizations can de-velop any kind of religious activity. 

The conclusion of the experts was that the Draft was not in consistence
with the OSCE commitments also with the requirements of the European
Convention of Human Rights.  It is expected that the Draft will be
passed through the Parliament in Wednesday. 

The participants in the seminar called on the National Assembly to stop
the adoption of the Draft and to send it to the council of Europe for a
review. The Chief Mufti of the Mus-lims in Bulgaria stated that his
religious organization would appeal to the European Court for Human
Rights because of the preferences that the Draft give to the Orthodox
Church. An ap-peal to the President of Bulgaria to impose a veto on the
future Law has been prepared. It has been signed by all Protestant
Churches, by one of the wings of the Orthodox church as well as by many
other religious and HR organizations. 

Tolerance Foundation calls on all HR community to exercise a pressure
upon the Bul-garian authorities to stop the passing of the Draft. 

Note: The full text of the Draft can be found in the message of the
Human Rights without Frontiers International from December 12, 02 on the
website of the organization:
 http://www.hrwf.net

	On behalf of Tolerance Foundation

	Emil Cohen, President

*The TOLERANCE FOUNDATION is a human rights group monitoring the freedom
of con-science and the religious freedom practices in Bulgaria,
providing legal assistance to victims of discrimination based on
religion, as well as propagating the idea of tolerance towards
reli-gious and other convictions. 

The group was founded in 1994. Mr. Emil Cohen is President of the
Tolerance Foundation. Since April 2001 the organization has been an
associate member of 'Human Rights without Frontiers International'. 

Address: 1000 Sofia, 163A Rakovski St. 
Phone/fax: Phone: (+359 2) 988 31 36; (+359 2) 981 50 66 and a cellular
phone: 
(+359) 088335707  
E-mail: toleranc@abv.com and emilcohen@mbox.cit.bg

-- 
==============================================================
MINELRES - a forum for discussion on minorities in Central&Eastern
Europe

Information/Subscription:
http://lists.delfi.lv/mailman/listinfo/minelres
Submissions: minelres@lists.delfi.lv
Moderator: minelres@mailbox.riga.lv 
List archive: http://www.minelres.lv/archive.htm
MINELRES website: http://www.minelres.lv/
==============================================================