Scientology-Fakten.de

While those accusations are outstanding, continued Pobjie, the Salvation Army is unable to challenge the 2002 publication of a Moscow school textbook, "The Basics of Living Safely", which draws upon the July 2000 local court verdict. Endorsed by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, the textbook's chapter on terrorism counts the Salvation Army among "pseudo-religious organisations seeking all possible methods of using the Russian education system to spread their so-called religious teachings". "Posing as an evangelical Protestant Church," it continues, "the Salvation Army is in essence a militarised formation with a strictly hierarchical system, military ranks, uniforms and commands, as well as unflinching subordination of juniors to seniors."

Meanwhile, German Lutheran Bishop Siegfried Springer, the head of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in European Russia who was recently denied entry to Russia (see F18News 18 April 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=545), has been told he can make a brief return visit after the General Synod of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Russia and Other States wrote to President Vladimir Putin calling for his return. Bishop Springer told Forum 18 from the German town of Bad Sooden-Allendorf on 4 May that the German embassy in Moscow and the Russian consulate in Berlin both indicated on 28 April that the Russian authorities would grant him a one-week visa. "They also intimated that a decision would be taken at the end of May as to whether I will then be given a one-year visa, although there is no firm promise of this yet." He has now applied for a one-week visa for mid-May.

Bishop Springer is unhappy that Russian officials have still not told him why his valid one-year visa was abruptly annulled at Moscow's Domodedovo airport on 10 April. "I keep asking for the reason, as I don't want to get a new visa without knowing this," he told Forum 18. "Otherwise a shadow will remain on me and my office - I want truth and clarity."

For more background see Forum 18's Russia religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=509

A printer-friendly map of Russia is available at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=russi

Quellennachweis

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=555

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