Posts - Page 79 of 136 - Talk About: Law and Religion

Freedom of Religion or Belief in Russia: Restrictions and Challenges in 2020

Post published:May 3, 2021

Olga Sibireva is the head of the Religion in Secular Society project at the Moscow-based SOVA Center for Information and Analysis

In this blog post, I will briefly explain some recent Russian developments regarding freedom of religion or belief protections in 2020. The post is based on the April 2021 report released by the Moscow-based human rights monitor, the SOVA-Center. Generally, Russia did not make any positive progress concerning challenges to freedom of religion or belief that emerged in previous years.

Persecution of Religious Minorities

Since 2017, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been banned in Russia as an extremist organization. Leaders and members of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ communities can be fined and punished criminally for professing their religion. While in 2019 there were 18 criminal sentences of Jehovah’s Witnesses, this number increased to 25 in 2020, and 13 people were sentenced to prison time. Overall, more than 400 believers have been prosecuted. New criminal cases were initiated less than a year ago, which means that the authorities will continue to prosecute Jehovah’s Witnesses. Additionally, human rights monitors regularly report cases of violence against detained believers.

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Limited Progress: Religious Freedom and Covenantal Pluralism in Uzbekistan

Post published:April 22, 2021

Dmytro Vovk is Director of the Centre for the Rule of Law and Religion Studies, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and co-editor of Talk About: Law and Religion

Elizabeth A. Clark is Associate Director, International Center for Law and Religion Studies and Regional Advisor for Europe at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University

In December 2020, the U.S. State Department announced that Uzbekistan would be removed from its Special Watch List for religious freedom violations. Some observers welcomed this decision celebrating the country’s significant progress in protecting religious freedom, while others were more pessimistic, claiming that many burdensome restrictions are still in force and there is much work to be done by the government in order to meet international standards. As legal scholars who have closely studied Uzbekistan’s laws and political culture vis-à-vis religion, we take a mixed view: real progress has been made, but continuation and consolidation of progress will require significant “top-down” and “bottom-up” engagement and reform.

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Constitutionality of Abortion: Legal Analysis of the Recent Case in Poland

Post published:April 20, 2021

Piotr Szymaniec holds the degree of Habilitated Doctor of Law from the University of Wrocław. He is a professor at the Institute of Socio-Legal Studies at the Angelus Silesius University of Applied Sciences in Wałbrzych (Poland)

The judgement of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal on the controversial issue of limiting the admissibility of abortion was passed on October 22, 2020. It aroused great social emotions. There were stormy demonstrations in major Polish cities, which—despite the restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic—lasted over a week. After the protests, the Polish government decided not to publish the judgment until the majority opinion was prepared. Finally, the majority opinion was made public on January 26, 2021. The next day, the judgment was officially published in the Journal of Laws and thus began to produce legal effects. This time it did not raise major public protests, with the exception of mass protests in Warsaw. In this article, I will indicate what the controversial judgment really contained and show the reasoning of the Constitutional Tribunal. However, I will start with a brief introduction on the history of the legal regulations on abortion in Poland. This issue is very important for understanding the content and context of the judgment.

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