January 25, 2010
Source: Yahoo News
Wire Service: AP
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_religious_freedoms
Religious freedoms are being rapidly curtailed throughout Russia as the Orthodox Church seeks to boost its dominance, human rights activists warned Monday.
In its annual report on religions freedoms, the independent Moscow-based Liberty of Conscience Institute expressed concern that growing state support for the Russian Orthodox Church is coming at the expense of minority denominations.
President Dmitry Medvedev's inititiative to permanently assign Orthodox priests to army units and introduce religious education classes at state schools could prove detrimental to the idea of Russia as a secular state, the report said.