(Photo: The destroyed mosque in the house of the Rusanov family) Recently, Muslims discussed how the authorities demolished a mosque in Kaliningrad. It was located in a private house owned by the Russian Muslim family, the Rusanovs, and unlike the church they want to build in Ekaterinburg on the site of a popular park, it did not disturb anyone. However, according to the «Yarovaya Laws», temples, prayer halls and religious sermons should not be held in places that are not specifically registered as places of worship. And now, on this basis, law enforcement agencies, inspired by the Russian Orthodox Church, are attacking various competitors.
For example, on June 6, in the Moscow region town of Dolgoprudny, prosecutors, the Interior Ministry’s Center «E,» the Russian Emergencies Ministry, and the FSB raided a private home where a congregation of local Pentecostal evangelists meets. The formal reason given was to check compliance with anti-terrorism legislation. Although the law enforcement officials found no evidence of terrorism in the activities of the Pentecostal evangelists, they did find a violation of fire safety regulations. In addition, the Gospel of John, the New Testament and the Psalms, as well as the Bible, were confiscated from the premises, which the authorities said indicated «illegal missionary work.
The next day, June 7, in Siberia, the Omsk Baptist congregation came under pressure. The basis was the same — the use of private property for religious meetings, for which the Omsk Baptist congregation will now have to pay a fine. It should be noted that religious persecution in Russia has exceeded that which took place in Europe during the confrontation between Protestants and Catholics. For example, in several European cities, private buildings are still preserved as memorials where Catholics, who at that time had no right to their own churches, gathered «illegally» for decades. However, since private property and life were considered inviolable, no one interfered with their meeting in their own homes. However, such «liberalism» is simply impossible in Putin-Gundyaev’s Russia, where believers are harassed even in their own homes, as the repression against them is reminiscent of that in the totalitarian Soviet Union.