Source:
RUSSIA: "This isn't about
freedom of conscience or censorship"
By Felix Corley, Forum 18
2 December 2011
Bhagavad-Gita As It Is banning
case delayed
The suit brought by Tomsk
Prosecutor Viktor Fedotov to have the book the Bhagavad-Gita As It Is banned as
"extremist" has been delayed.
The case began under Judge
Galina Butenko at Tomsk's Lenin District Court on 12 August, but was suspended
after the fourth hearing on 30 August when the Court controversially ordered a
new "expert analysis" by three "specialists" of Kemerovo
State University. They were instructed to submit their analysis to the Court by
1 December. A May 2009 "expert analysis" to which one of the three,
Mikhail Osadchy, contributed formed a basis for the prosecution of Jehovah's
Witness Kalistratov in Gorno-Altaisk (see F18News 10 October 2011
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1623).
It is not clear when the case
will resume. Telephones at the Lenin District Court went unanswered each time
Forum 18 called. Fedotov's telephone at the Prosecutor's Office similarly went
unanswered. Yuri Pleshakov of the Hare Krishna community in Moscow told Forum
18 on 1 December that the Court had told them that it had not yet received the
"expert analysis" and was unable to say when the case would resume.
Aleksei Gorbatov, one of the
Kemerovo "experts", admitted to Forum 18 on 1 December that their
analysis was late, but refused to say why. He also refused to say when he
expected it to be completed. He also refused to say whether or not he had read
the book the Bhagavad-Gita As It Is. "What do you think, if I have been
asked to analyse it?" He insisted that he could not answer any questions
until the court case is complete.
Pleshakov welcomed the support
he says has come from a wide range of society to the Hare Krishna community's
defence of one of their key books. "Given what these 'experts' have
written on other books, and their designation of them as 'extremist', we fear
what they might produce," he told Forum 18. "But we continue to hope
that the court will take a just and objective decision."
