By VK
Russia continues discussion of the disputable law aimed at prevention of insulting the religious feelings of the Russian citizens, as well as prevention of violating religious shrines and sacred facilities. It requires amendments to the Criminal Code.
Ali Polosin, director of the educational center "Al Wasatiyya"
The topic is actually very delicate and important. And today, in relation to specific provocations that happened to Orthodox Christians, I mean some kind of action in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which offended the Orthodox Christians, and another anti-Islamic resurgence in the form of the film "innocence of Muslims", tempers flared in our society, followed by suggestions like "let's toughen the law". Generally, when something happens, some major accident, for example, we immediately offer to toughen laws. In general, the problem, which pursues us in our Russian reality, is not in the fact that laws are not tough, but in the fact that they just are not enforced, or are improperly executed. If they had been enforced, it seems that the rigidity of these articles would be quite enough. As for religious feelings, this is a very important point; being an expert, I would like to draw attention to it. It's one thing when it comes to the feelings of believers, associated with their religious activities - in a church, a mosque, a synagogue or other houses of worship, and the faithful gather there specifically for religious purposes. So, for example, any derogatory action against things that are considered sacred to the religion can be called an insult to religious feelings. These are sacred books and images, and any other items that are present in this religion, in this cult. Deliberate humiliation of visible, tangible objects in places where the faithful gather specifically, of course, is an insult to their feelings. But there was the wording in this law on unacceptable anti-religious activities near the temples and places of worship. "Near," of course, is a vague concept, but at the same time it is still clear that this is a field at the entrance to the temple or near the temple, and if there is some sort of anti-religious a demonstration, then of course it will be a certain if not an insult, then, at least, a militant anti-religious act. But, unfortunately, now this term is abused, as if it meant any feelings of any person..There were, for example, people who in 2009 filed a lawsuit in order to recognize some of the works of Leo Tolstoy extremist because they offended the feelings of any individual believers. And here the question arises what can be considered an insult to the feelings of the believers that is not invasion to their sacred territory and is situated just somewhere in the mass media space. My good friend and colleague, Doctor of Philosophy Aydin Alizadeh, working in the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan and living in Baku, at the time when massacres occurred near Paris or there was the scandal related to the cartoons, in my opinion, wrote rightly: where does the boundary end? Let us look at the "Divine Comedy" by Dante. What does it say about the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him? The most negative things that I do not even want to repeat. One can then say that this book also insults the religious feelings of Muslims. So, let's burn all the libraries, in which it is stored, all the schools in Europe, where this "comedy" is taught, etc. There should be a reasonable limit. In my opinion, we have enough cruel punishment. We’d better just think about the more precise wording of the law and correctly apply the law. Because girls who danced in colorful costumes in the Cathedral - basically, they are punished severely enough for today, many believe that the punishment is even too tough. Should we toughen the law more and more? We should clearly define the boundaries between a crime and an expression of freedom of opinion.
Shamil Alyautdinov, imam-khatib of the Moscow Memorial mosque, Islamic scholar and preacher
Over the last 15-20 years I watched, then just having stopped to watch because of my bad attitude to the media on the results of their work, such a huge number of insults, humiliation against Muslims ... It was a lot of stinking mud, which flowed to the Muslim culture. After the picture of explosions the media immediately showed or mentioned people praying in a mosque. In terms of the association, even now, sometimes I talk to someone and understand that a whole generation in Russia grew with terrible perception of Islam in their mind: "Islam" = "terrorism." None of those who insulted a considerable part of Russian citizens, inciting ethnic strife, offending some indigenous nationalities of the Russian Federation - none of them will not be responsible for the incitement of ethnic, sectarian strife, so the laws will not work in favor of the Muslims. So being an ordinary citizen, having lived for almost 40 years in this world and during last 20 years watching various information streams, I can say that the Muslims have not seen any good law on this subject, including on religious literature. If desired, any book might be called extremist. Here, again, the Muslims will be a whipping boy. Again, any Muslim books are extremist, according to the definition of some unknown experts.
Therefore, I’ll cite two quotations. First, the words of Peter the Great: "Laws and decrees should be written clearly, so that they are not misinterpreted. There are little truth and a lot of guile in human beings". This is the first one. And we usually have very complex, complicated laws, adopted by an order from above or by means of bribery, and it's not what I heard or read somewhere in the newspaper - that's life; federal judges in the past and prosecutors in the past talk about these realities of life. And the second quotation is a wording by Bacon. I think it is very well suited to the realities of Russian. "Laws are like a spider's web; the small are caught, the great tear it up”.
Heydar Jemal, the chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia
The approach toward laws, feelings, and so on is not quite right, I think. We need should consider the problem from the point of view of an independent observer. We talk about it as if Russia an isolated from the whole world space, like the Soviet Union, where autonomous processes are undergoing. In fact powerful trends are operating and crossing borders – borders between countries, borders between regions such as Europe, the US, Eurasia, Africa, and the main trend in the process is attack on Islam and exaggeration of civilizations’ conflicts. We should consider that certain forces of international establishment pose a task of destroying the forces balance, the relevant balance of situations in the world arena and turning the Muslim community of the world into an outcast society, hunting down it to a ghetto, isolating it and neutralizing its influence and significance. I think the point is in the war between civilizations. If we discuss how close a mosque was from an insulting act, we will lapse into dotage. For example, a Danish newspaper published a cartoon about Prophet Muhammad, how close was their edition office or their printing office situated from the nearest mosque? It is a senseless approach. There is a certain fundamental attack on Islam which is universal. It is a provocation, offensive of Islam.
