The Ombudsman of Tomsk Urged the Initiators of the "Bhagavad-gita Trial" to Come to Their Senses (Contributor for 70rus.org on Oct. 14, 2011)

Contributor for 70rus.org on Oct. 14, 2011

Photo Credits: www.70rus.org

 

 

Nelly Krechetova, the Ombudsman of Russia`s Tomsk region

Original text translated by Narayani Radha Dasi

Human Rights Commissioner for Russia`s Tomsk region Nelly Krechetova urged the initiators of the trial of the main book of the Society for Krishna Consciousness, "Bhagavad-Gita As It Is”, urging them to rethink their approach, and announced the participation of the representative of the Ombudsman of the Russian Federation in the court on the Hare Krishna`s side - says the News Agency “Tomsk”.

"The Commissioner for Human Rights in the Tomsk region has no right to interfere in the judicial process to represent the defendant. However, this right is available to the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation. It is known that V. Lukin decided to entrust his representative to participate in this trial" – says the assistant of the ombudsman in Tomsk region.

In August 2011, in the Leninsky district court of Tomsk there were hearings on the recognition of "Bhagavad - gita as it is" as extremist. The trial was initiated by the prosecutor of the city of Tomsk, and the main argument was the decision of a commission of experts of Tomsk State University, which, according to the Ombudsman, "fell apart right in court." At present, the proceedings are suspended until December 1, 2011. A new judicial complex examination was appointed, this time it is the Kemerovo State University which was entrusted to carry it out.

Tomsk Ombudsman Nelly Krechetova announced her views on this court case.

"Firstly, I think of the very absurdity of the statement of question. This book is considered as sacred by almost a billion people around the world. In Russia "Bhagavad - gita as it is" has been freely available for 20 years. At the same time, it is published in more than 60 languages."- said Nelly Krechetova.

She also felt that the attempt to ban books is a limitation of the constitutional right to freedom of conscience.

"Secondly, the possible ban of the book, and, consequently, the prohibition of religious activities of its followers, will violate citizens' constitutional rights to freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. The Society for Krishna Consciousness is an officially registered organization. Moreover, there has been no established cases of extremism during the last 20 years when the book was being widely spread on the territory of Russia", - said the Ombudsman.

In addition, she expressed surprise at the fact that the trial of the book was first initiated in Tomsk.

"Thirdly, it is particularly distressing that Tomsk acts as a "pioneer" in such dubious initiative. The "Bhagavad - gita as it is " was labelled to be as "extremist" by Tomsk expert commision, namely the department of philosophy and philology of Tomsk State University. Thus, we can "glorify" (in the meaning of “disgrace” – note of the translator) Tomsk not only within Russia but all over the world. We have to choose: either we are the innovative and tolerant, or, we are left behind in the deep past. Tomsk region already disclosed itself, when the barbaric decision about the demolition of the Hare Krishna houses in the village of Kandinka was carried out, "- said Nelly Krechetova.

In her address, the Ombudsman asked the initiators to change their minds and stop the trial of the book.

Source: The News Agency of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness

URL: https://iskconnews.org/the-ombudsman-of-tomsk-urged-the-initiators-of-the-bhagavad-gita-trial-to-come-to-their-senses,2919/

 

Note 1. Felix Corley about Bhagavad Gita Trial

RUSSIA: "How can a believer light a match to destroy holy books?"

By Felix Corley, Forum 18

10 October 2011

URL: http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1623

Russian prosecutors are seeking to have the Russian translation of the most important work for Hare Krishna devotees – the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is - banned. "They are trying not just to declare our book extremist, but our religious teaching also. If they succeed, our community throughout Russia could be declared extremist", the community's lawyer Mikhail Frolov told Forum 18 News Service. Prosecution "expert analyses" have been severely criticised. Meanwhile, an appeal court in Dagestan has ruled that works by the Muslim theologian Said Nursi should be handed to the Dagestan Muslim Board "for a decision on the question of the destruction of the banned books and pamphlets". Forum 18 notes that Russian law bans handing over state functions – such as this decision - to religious organisations. Dagestan's Muslim Board told Forum 18 they have not been given the books, and would not destroy them on state orders. Mikhail Odintsov of the office of Russia's Human Rights Ombudsperson described the decision to Forum 18 as "incomprehensible", asking: "How can a believer light a match to destroy holy books?" Book confiscations and destructions have taken place in relation to both Nursi's works and Jehovah's Witness literature.

Prosecutors in Tomsk are seeking through the courts to have the Russian translation of the most important work for Hare Krishna devotees – the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is - declared "extremist" and placed on the Federal List of Extremist Materials. "This case is more than important for us - it is vital," Hare Krishna lawyer Mikhail Frolov told Forum 18 News Service from Moscow on 4 October. "This is the most important development in the whole history of our movement in Russia. They are trying not just to declare our book extremist, but our religious teaching also. If they succeed, our community throughout Russia could be declared extremist."

Tomsk Prosecutor and FSB against Hare Krishna community

Viktor Fedotov, Tomsk's Prosecutor, asked the city's Lenin District Court to rule the third Russian edition of the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is extremist. The book is a Russian edition of a translation by Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. An "expert analysis" completed in October 2010 by three academics at Tomsk State University – Sergei Avanesov, Valeri Svistunov and Valeri Naumov - found that the book "contains signs of incitement of religious hatred and humiliation of an individual based on gender, race, ethnicity, language, origin or attitude to religion", he said. The analysis claimed the book humiliated those who did not believe in or even know about Krishna or follow Krishna's teachings. It claimed that the author propagated the exclusivity and superiority of his faith and was hostile, insulting and humiliating about other faiths. It also claimed that the author called for hostile or violent acts against women and non-Hare Krishna devotees.

[For an analysis of the problematic nature of the concept of "the incitement of hatred [nenavist] or enmity [vrazhda], as well as the humiliation of an individual or group of persons on the basis of .. attitude to religion", and other problems with Russian anti-extremism legislation, see a personal commentary by Alexander Verkhovsky of the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis at F18News 19 July 2010 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1468.)].

Tomsk Prosecutor Fedotov argued that the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is was therefore extremist under Article 1 of the 2002 Extremism Law. Article 13 of the same Law bans the distribution or storage for the purposes of distribution of such extremist works. He cited a 24 June report by Tomsk regional FSB security service that it had obtained the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is at the Saraswati Indian shop in Tomsk. Fedotov also asked the court to send its ruling that the book is extremist to the federal authorities in Moscow, so that it could be included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials and banned throughout Russia.

Tomsk Prosecutor's Office refused to put Forum 18 through to Prosecutor Fedotov. Marina Osipova, the official who prepared the 30 June letter, refused to tell Forum 18 on 24 August who had initiated the action against the city's Hare Krishna community and the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is or why. "There is a special procedure for answering questions," she told Forum 18 and put the phone down.

An officer of the Tomsk FSB, who would not give his name, insisted the same day that it could not comment while the case was in the courts. However, he claimed that the FSB security service had played "no role" in the case and merely "carried out the instructions given by the Prosecutor's Office".

Attempts to ban book "absurd"

Nelli Krechetova, the Tomsk Region Ombudsperson for Human Rights, described attempts to ban the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is as "absurd", the local media reported on 3 October. She warned that "the possible ban on the book, and, therefore, the ban on the religious activity of its followers, violates the constitutional rights of the citizen to freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and freedom of speech." She called for the legal case to be reconsidered.

As the court case was underway, Swami Prabhupada's edition of the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is gained praise from the Indian Ambassador to Russia, Ajai Malhotra. In a recording on YouTube he said: "The translation by Swami Prabhupada is I believe one of the best that you can find," he told a celebration of the festival of Krishna Janmashtami in Moscow on 21 August. "The reason is because he gives you the words, their meanings and the options to understand it [Bhagavad-Gita] as it was written, not through any intermediary."

In June, Russia's Supreme Court made clear that cases under "extremism"-related Articles of the Criminal Code should be very carefully and narrowly framed. But this has not stopped the Tomsk case, or similar cases against Muslim readers of Nursi's works and Jehovah's Witnesses (see F18News 19 July 2011 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1594).

Case begins

At Lenin District Court, the case was handed to Judge Galina Butenko, the court website notes. Four hearings took place between 12 and 30 August, when the case was suspended. As the case began, human rights defenders picketed the court, with posters quoting the rights to religious freedom and freedom of speech in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Russian Constitution.

Also displayed were quotations from the 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 by the writer Ray Bradbury, which envisages a future where all books are burnt and those who possess them punished. One poster quoted an exchange from the novel between a woman and her neighbour, a fireman who burns books: "'Do you ever read any of the books you burn?' He laughed. 'That's against the law!'"

During the hearings the three compilers of the "expert analysis" were questioned. On 18 August, Avanesov admitted in court that the FSB security service had asked him to conduct the analysis in 2010, long before the case reached court. In response to a question from the judge, he acknowledged that he sees no direct incitement to discord in the book. He claimed that some people – though not himself - could be offended by the use of the word "pigs". The judge then pointed out that the Bible uses the same word in the saying "do not cast pearls before swine" (St Matthew 7,6).

Svistunov also stated in court that the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is contains no hostile comments about other faiths. He said the book supports the exclusivity of the faith, but added that this is the same for any faith.

Among other assessments, the defence presented a 2004 analysis by Professor Boris Falikov, of the Russian State Humanitarian University's Centre of Comparative Religions (who is Russian Orthodox), which noted that: "Prabhupada's books do not express any negative views or positions in relation to any ethnic, racial, national or religious groups". However, the court refused to accept the analysis because it did not specify which edition of the book it analysed.

In the evening of 30 August, Judge Butenko agreed to the Prosecutor's request to order a further "psychological/religious studies/linguistic expert analysis" of the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is, this time by three academics at Kemerovo State University. The three academics are Aleksey Gorbatov (religious studies), Mikhail Osadchy (linguist) and Sergei Dranishnikov (psychologist). The instructions to the experts drawn up by the Prosecutor's Office include the formulation "manipulation of consciousness".

The book's publishers in Russia, the Hare Krishna-run Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, appealed against the judge's decision to send the book for further analysis. However, on 30 September Tomsk Regional Court rejected their suit. This allowed the Lenin District Court to request the expert analysis on 3 October, to be submitted by 1 December.

Concern over "experts"

The Hare Krishna community has expressed concern over the choice of "experts", pointing out that Gorbatov is not an expert in Hinduism and that his main publications have been on the history of Christianity in Siberia. They are also concerned at another of the three new "experts", Osadchy, as he was one of three Kemerovo State University "experts" who found that Jehovah's Witness literature was "extremist".

Will new assessment be accurate?

Some doubt that the second analysis of the Bhagavad-Gita As It Is will be more accurate than the first. "The defence succeeded in completely rejecting the conclusions of the 'expert analysis'," Nikolai Karpitsky, a philosophy lecturer at Siberian State Medical University, told Forum 18 from Tomsk on 4 October. Karpitsky, who is Russian Orthodox, attended court hearings as an expert for the defence. "The court had two choices: to agree that no reason exists to consider the Bhagavad-Gita As it Is extremist, or to decide that the court didn't have enough evidence to make a decision. The court chose the second option."

Kemerovo State University is "practically the only place where the Prosecutor's Office analysis that a book is extremist would be confirmed", Karpitsky told Forum 18. "That's why the court rejected the defence's suggestions of possible experts in Moscow or Yekaterinburg. I think all the mistakes of the first 'expert analysis' will be removed this time round, making it much harder to challenge the new 'expert analysis' in court."

"I can't be an expert on every single faith"

Gorbatov, one of the newly-appointed "experts", told Forum 18 from Kemerovo on 5 October that he had not yet had any official document about the analysis. He said he did not know if he would be paid for it, though he told Forum 18 its question about payment was "not appropriate".

Gorbatov told Forum 18 that he did not know why the court had chosen him, but that his dissertation had been on relations between the state and religious communities. Asked if he has a special knowledge of Hinduism, he responded: "I am a religious studies expert, but I can't be an expert on every single faith."

Gorbatov told Forum 18 he is not personally a religious believer, but is positive to all faiths. He defended his colleague Osadchy's contribution to the "expert analysis" on Jehovah's Witness literature. "He was one of those who judged my dissertation." He said he was aware of criticism of the analysis Osadchy contributed to, including from Odintsov of the Human Rights Ombudsperson's office. "He is entitled to his views. But Jehovah's Witnesses are a problem all over the world." He declined to explain what he meant by "problem".

Asked whether he believes it is right that the state carries out "expert analyses" of religious texts, Gorbatov responded: "All states do this." Asked to name some, he responded: "France and Germany."