Disproportionality of Anti-Extremist Measures: The Case of Faizrakhamanists in Russia

Maria Kravchenko, of the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, is the author of Inventing Extremists: The Impact of Russian Anti-Extremism Policies on Freedom of Religion or Belief, a report for the USCIRF

Russian anti-extremist legislation provides multiple instruments for the state to actively intervene in the religious sphere. As a result, there are numerous cases of abuse and overreaction on behalf of the state. Many cases of prosecuting “religious extremism” rely on a broad and vague definition of extremist activity incorporated in the Russian Law on Combating Extremist Activity (2002)[1]). In contrast to numerous international documents (see for example the OSCE/ODIHR Freedom of Religion or Belief and Security Policy Guidance)[2]), the Russian definition of extremism penalizes both violent and non-violent extremist acts as well as mere claims of religious and belief-related superiority. Such claims expressed in religious literature or public speeches could result in banning a religious group and prosecuting leaders and adherents as members of extremist organizations regardless of their actual involvement in extremism. (more…)

Continue Reading Disproportionality of Anti-Extremist Measures: The Case of Faizrakhamanists in Russia

More Security Does Not Require Less Freedom: The Case of the NYPD Surveillance Program

Asma T. Uddin is a Senior Scholar at the Freedom Forum Institute and a 2019 Visiting Scholar at Brigham Young University.

A few years ago, the New York Police Department (NYPD) spied on a wide range of Muslims within a 250-mile radius of New York City, without any probable cause or reasonable suspicion of illegal activity. Leaked NYPD reports plus a series of Pulitzer Prize–winning articles published in 2011 by the Associated Press, revealed how it all worked: the NYPD used census information and government databases to map ethnic neighborhoods in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. The maps at times included groups other than Muslims (for example, Syrian Jews and Egyptian Christians), but the NYPD spied only the Muslims in those neighborhoods.

Undercover agents would infiltrate mosques and religious schools. These agents would sit among the Muslims and listen in on their conversations, sometimes engaging them in conversations of their own, all for the purpose of assessing their religious and political views and reporting them back to the NYPD. Inside the mosques, the agents would record the imam’s sermons and statements by congregants. (more…)

Continue Reading More Security Does Not Require Less Freedom: The Case of the NYPD Surveillance Program

The Names of Religious Groups and Security-Related Concerns

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.

Among other things the OSCE/ODIHR Freedom of Religion or Belief and Security Policy Guidance focuses on finding a fair balance between the autonomy of religious groups and the requirements of public safety and national security. The guidance document calls these two values “complementary, interdependent and mutually reinforcing objectives that can and must be advanced together.” The autonomy of a religious groups includes the right to self-name. It presupposes that religions may, at their discretion, choose any name for themselves based on their dogmas, canons, and principles. This name unites believers and expresses their shared religious identification. The name may include the institutional form of a religious group (church, movement, society, etc.), the name of the deity, a leader, sacred places or texts, the mission of the group, and so on. (more…)

Continue Reading The Names of Religious Groups and Security-Related Concerns