print this page

Amendment to Ukraine’s Law on Freedom of Worship Registered in Supreme Council

09.05.2008, [15:02] // Church-state relations //

Kyiv – On 24 April 2008, parliamentary deputy of the Our Ukraine - People’s Self-Defense bloc Hennadii Moskal registered a bill in the Supreme Council that regulates the activity of new religions. According to Moskal, the bill is aimed at improving Ukraine’s law regarding the freedom of religious activity, as it “ “prevents the activity of destructive religious cults and totalitarian sects.”

Accompanying the bill is an explanatory note: “The current law has quite a few loopholes that allow destructive religious cults to freely conduct unlawful activity, which constitutes a real threat to human rights and citizens’ freedoms in Ukraine.” This bill does not apply to the activity of traditional religious organizations.

Moskal maintains that the danger of totalitarian cults is in their authoritarian structure contradicts conventional democratic values; their leaders’ stubbornly intolerant views as to “the ways to the soul’s salvation” seduce people seeking changes and new guides and grant those leaders total control.

The bill’s objectives are: to bring the general principles of the activity of religious organizations in line with Ukraine’s Constitution, to improve control over the activities of neo-religious cults, to limit unlawful activities of religious cults, to counteract manifestations of destructive activity of religious organizations, and to account for and control missionary activity of religious organizations.