I. DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN RUSSIAN MINISTRIES ON SOFTENING OF NEW VISA RULES II. ARMENIAN PRESIDENT PLEDGES RELIGIOUS LIBERTY Tuesday 6 October DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN RUSSIAN MINISTRIES ON SOFTENING OF NEW VISA RULES By Tatiana Titova, Keston News Service Keston News Service has learned from various sources that recent amendments which seemingly soften Russia's harsh new rules on visas for foreign religious workers are being widely ignored in practice. Contrary to the impression created by the Russian Foreign Ministry, in practice many officials are still granting visas only for three-month periods. FR ANTONI GEI of Moscow's Roman Catholic parish of Ss Peter and Paul told Keston that 'for us everything is still as it was earlier: they are granting only three-month visas and not extending them'. VALENTINA LEBEDEVA of the Mormons' office in Moscow said the softening amendments had been circulated only among officials of the Foreign Ministry, who were using them to issue one-year visas. But she pointed out that it was OVIR (the Directorate for Visas and Registration), an organ of the Ministry of the Interior, that handled applications from missionaries to extend three-month visas. Although a representative of the Ministry of the Interior was present at the August session of an inter-agency commission which discussed the amendments, that Ministry has not distributed the document to its own subunits. Therefore, said Mrs Lebedeva, foreigners visiting OVIR offices to request extensions of their three-month visas in accordance with the new document were still being met with refusals. The result: as before, missionaries often find that they have to leave Russia every three months just to apply for new visas. SERGEI BUSHMARINOV, an official of the Foreign Ministry's Directorate for International Cooperation and Human Rights, told Keston that the amendments were discussed at an August session of the government's inter-agency commission on the status of foreigners. He said that this session took place on 19 August--not later in August, as stated by some other sources. In his words, 'nobody can now have doubts about the possibility of getting extensions on visas'. He left unclear just how often this 'possibility' would be realised in practice. Moscow human-rights lawyer LEV SIMKIN, who advises the Mormons on legal issues in Russia, told Keston in August that he had received the text of the amendments from the Foreign Ministry's consular directorate. In his view, he said, the amendments were being circulated specifically to improve the atmosphere during the visit to Russia of America's PRESIDENT CLINTON. Simkin gave Keston a copy of the amendments, according to which the new rules' 'Point 54' on 'Religious Affairs' is now to read as follows: '(1) Foreigners present for religious activities with the goal of missionary work, or service in religious organisations: up to three months with subsequent registration of the visa by the organs of internal affairs for a period of work exceeding three months. (2) Foreigners present for religious activities, for negotiations with religious organisations, with the goal of pilgrimages, and similar activities: (a) single-entry or double-entry up to three months. Registration by the organs of internal affairs and by hotels. (b) multiple-entry up to 12 months.' ANATOLI PCHELINTSEV of Moscow's Institute of Religion and Law gave Keston a more optimistic view. He said that an official of Russia's Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists--the Protestant umbrella organisation created during the STALIN years--had confirmed to him that for at least some missionaries, one-year visas were indeed now being granted. (END) Tuesday 6 October ARMENIAN PRESIDENT PLEDGES RELIGIOUS LIBERTY by Felix Corley, Keston News Service President ROBERT KOCHARYAN of Armenia made an unequivocal affirmation of religious liberty during a visit to California. Speaking at a press conference in Glendale on 27 September, he said that restrictions on religious groups were unseemly in a democratic country, and not a step in the right direction. He was responding to a question about whether Armenia's government should place restrictions on proselytising religions in Armenia, such as the Mormons, Hare Krishnas, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others. 'We have to be open and it is up to the Armenian Church to do its best to serve the population without restrictions imposed on others. It does not befit a democratic country to place restrictions on who and what religion the people should follow,' he said in remarks quoted by the California Courier Online. Kocharyan repeated his commitment to religious liberty at a press conference on 29 September while visiting Utah, where the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) are based. He said that Armenia was an independent country that ensured such individual freedoms as speech and religion, the Deseret News of Salt Lake City reported the following day. Kocharyan's Utah trip included a meeting with the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has provided substantial humanitarian aid to Armenia. Kocharyan's statements will be welcomed by members of Armenia's minority religious communities, who suffered state-sponsored violence and harassment under the rule of former president LEVON TER-PETROSSYAN. In particular, there was a series of violent assaults in April 1995 on Pentecostal, Evangelical, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah's Witness, Hare Krishna and Bahai communities. Armed men from the Yerkrapah paramilitary group loyal to Defence Minister VAZGEN SARKISSYAN were involved in the coordinated attacks, which caused some of these communities to abandon their work in Armenia and their members to flee the country. The Armenian Church, which has long lobbied the government for 'protection' from such 'sects', was reluctant to condemn these attacks outright. It continued to lobby for a revision to the law on religion. Such lobbying paid off in September 1997, when parliament passed a revision to the 1991 law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations. Although the final version watered down provisions of the version approved by parliament three months earlier, which Ter-Petrossyan had vetoed, many provisions still favoured 'traditional' faiths. Although baptised in the Armenian Catholic Church as a baby, Ter- Petrossyan was close to the Armenian Church leadership and, despite his veto of the June 1997 draft new law, supported restrictions on what were considered non-traditional faiths. In December 1993 he had issued a presidential decree imposing sharp restrictions on minority religious faiths. Robert Kocharyan, who was elected president in March 1998 after the surprise resignation of Ter-Petrossyan, may be changing Armenia's state policy on religion. He had already demonstrated a greater respect for religious liberty than some of his colleagues when he was the leader of the self-declared Nagorno- Karabakh Republic, an unrecognised entity run by its local Armenian population with close ties to Armenia itself. Although Kocharyan backed restrictions on pacifist religious communities, including Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists and Pentecostals, and even the imprisonment of several members in Karabakh in 1993 and 1994, he reportedly took a softer line than many in the military leadership. Although a number of Jehovah's Witnesses remain in prison in Armenia, all have apparently been sentenced for refusing military service. The Jehovah's Witness community has been repeatedly denied official registration because of its pacifist stand. Until the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh is resolved, groups that advocate an alternative to compulsory military service are likely to face continuing government and societal hostility. It is not yet known if Kocharyan is prepared to reverse the refusal to register the Jehovah's Witnesses and to allow those with conscientious objections to military service to perform an alternative, unarmed service. (END)