<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Thank you, Mr. Chair.<\/p>\n
The freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief is a pillar of the OSCE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s concept of comprehensive security. In the Helsinki Final Act, we determined that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153participating States will respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that states \u00e2\u20ac\u0153will recognize and respect the freedom of the individual to profess and practice, alone or in community with others, religion or belief acting in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In Copenhagen in 1990, we reaffirmed that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153this right includes freedom to change one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s religion or belief and freedom to manifest one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s religion or belief, either alone or in community with others, in public or in private, through worship, teaching, practice and observance.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d More recently in 2010 in Astana, we determined that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153greater efforts must be made to promote freedom of religion or belief\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d These decisions demonstrate recognition by all 57 participating States that the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief remains essential to maintaining human dignity, and to ensuring security in the OSCE region.<\/p>\n
The United States is, therefore, extremely concerned by the Russian government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions targeting members of religious minorities, including the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses, Crimean Tatars, and others, under the fa\u00c3\u00a7ade of combating \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremism.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d More recently, on March 15, the Russian Ministry of Justice suspended the activities of the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses and asked the Supreme Court to dissolve the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses Administrative Center and its 395 local religious organizations for supposed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremist activity.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Should the Supreme Court grant the Ministry of Justice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s request, we understand that there effectively would be no further opportunity for appeal within the Russian court system. If property held by these local organizations were to be confiscated by the state, the local organizations would likely cease to exist as legal entities, resulting in the complete legal dissolution of a religious group that has been present in Russia since the 1800s. Should this occur and Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses continue their activities, individual Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses could risk criminal prosecution simply for gathering to practice their faith.<\/p>\n
Local and regional authorities have been targeting Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses for years in Russia, as authorities have sought to shutter local branches on baseless \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d grounds.<\/p>\n
Mr. Chair, colleagues, let me be clear \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the threat to our region from violent extremism and terrorism is real. However, the prosecution of members of peaceful religious minority groups for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d serves only to distract from and undermine our mutual efforts to combat true violent threats.<\/p>\n
The United States urges Russian authorities to abide by Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s international obligations and OSCE commitments. We therefore call upon Russian authorities to withdraw their request to liquidate the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses Administrative Center, stop their overall repression of Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses in Russia, allow Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses to enjoy their rights to freedom of religion and peaceful assembly without interference, as guaranteed also by the Russian Federation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own constitution, and ensure that Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153anti-terrorism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153anti-extremism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d legislation is not misused to target members of religious minorities. We call on Russia to respect the right of all of its residents to exercise the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief.<\/p>\n
In closing, let me add that the United States looks forward to the upcoming OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on the topic of the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief. We hope all participating States will support the Chairmanship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s effort to hold this event, and look forward to a principled discussion of this important topic.<\/p>\n
Thank you, Mr. Chair.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/osce.usmission.gov\/russias-misuse-terrorism-extremism-laws-restrict-freedom-thought-conscience-religion-belief\/\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As delivered\u00c2\u00a0by Charg\u00c3\u00a9 d\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Affaires, a.i. Kate M. Byrnes to the Permanent Council, Vienna March 30, 2017 Thank you, Mr. Chair. The freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief is a pillar of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-news","category-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5667,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions\/5667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}