F.S.B. ARRANGES DEPORTATION OF FOREIGN STUDENT FOR SONGS
Antiterrorism Yarovaya amendments produce a stream of deportation of Christians who came from abroad to study
by Elena Apelskaia
Moskovskii Komsomolets, 30 May 2018
Russia is continuing the "struggle with terrorists." A series of scandals on religious grounds has swept through Nizhny Novgorod. A future physician, and medical student, who came from an African country, is being deported from Russia because she . . . sang in church! According to a judge, her student visa does not permit such liberties. The girl is generously being allowed to defend her diploma and to depart for her homeland immediately after that. We have also discovered that other students have also fallen into the crosshairs of the F.S.B.
Nosisa Shiba arrived in Nizhny Novgorod from the African kingdom of Swaziland. The girl dreamed of studying to be a physician and therefore she matriculated in the for-profit division of the Nizhny Novgorod Medical Academy.
Like many other Africans, Nosisa regularly attended a local protestant church, the "Embassy of Jesus" Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith. The institution is completely legitimate; it is registered in the Ministry of Justice. It has been functioning since 1995.
Why is it this church that foreign students choose? Because since childhood in their homeland they have professed protestantism. After arriving in Russia the young people naturally are drawn to the familiar religious establishment, since they know that they will find like-minded people there. Let's imagine a Russian student in their place, who leaves for study in Europe. There is nothing strange if he selects an Orthodox church out of the multitude of churches there. Nevertheless, in all likelihood, someone up above saw something very dangerous for Russia in the Africans' interest in the Pentecostals.
For Nosisa, her quiet student life ended abruptly. Some time back she was summoned to the dean's office.
"I was assured that nothing terrible had happened. They simply have some questions for me," the sixth-year student explains. "I went to the dean's office. From there they immediately sent me to the police and a report was drawn up."
It turned out that in the opinion of the law enforcement personnel, Nosisa had engaged in missionary activity on the territory of Russia. According to the antiterrorism amendments to the federal law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations," this is permitted only for members of a religious organization who have appropriate permission. Following upon this the girl was accused of noncompliance with the declared purposes on the basis of which she came to Russia: Shiba is in the RF on a student visa.
Let's sort out what horrible thing Nosisa did. From the stage she sang a song at a weekly Sunday worship service in the protestant church. This is quite in the spire of protestant traditions: parishioners sing gospel, evangelical music. Naturally, the lyrics praise the Lord. However, consider that all of this is occurring in a church, what questions can there be in context?
However, the servants of Justice turn out to have a different opinion. In his order the judge noted that Shiba "by means of participation in a public event by performing religious songs was conducting the distribution of information about her own belief to an unlimited circle of persons." That is, she was engaged in missionary activity. Just think—she sang about her faith in church!
Such an interpretation creates a dangerous precedent. Does it turn out that now not everyone may open his mouth in church? At least foreign students are only permitted to sit and not stand out. They came to study. In other words, an ordinary worship service has been transformed in the language of law into a "Christian conference." On paper it sounds like this: "with her fellow believers she participated in a Christian conference with the aims of joint prayer and confession of faith."
"Indicators of missionary activity in Nosisa's actions are absent even from the point of view of the Yarovaya law," says the church's press secretary, Yulia Ermoshina. "However the court did not even investigate this question. All decisions were made on the basis of the personal convictions of the judge. After all, how is one to correlate the fact that for changing the charter of the church and including in its name the word "Pentecostal" the Ministry of Justice needed three months and a religious studies expert analysis, but in order to understand that in Nosisa's actions there is missionary activity containing information about the teachings of the church the judge needed only ten minutes. The prejudice of law enforcement personnel with regard to protestants, including foreign students, is obvious to the naked eye!
According to ministers of the Nizhny Novgorod church, their student parishioners also complain about threats coming from the dean's office.
"I know about this personally from students who attend our church," Yulia Ermoshina says. "In the dean's office they were told that it would be better not to come to our church; then there would be no problems either in their studies or with the administration."
The show trials of foreign students have done their job. As of the present, of the 150 Africans who were attending the church, about 30 are left. The young people fear for their future and they fear even to speak about their faith. Although this aspect is very important for them. Persecution has led to the point where students are afraid to take shelter in the dormitory.
Believe and keep quiet
When the judge announced his decision, Nosisa could not hold back the tears. Six years one studies in Russia, one pays a lot of money for this, and what does one get in the end? Expulsion to the homeland as a law violator. The punishment provided by the article (part 2, article 18.8 of the Code of Administrative Violations of Law of the RF) in the form of a fine of from two to five thousand, with or without expulsion. That is, the student could have not been expelled. But the servants of Justice considered that punishment in the form of a fine without expulsion from the RF will not correspond to the degree of public damage caused by her violation of the law! To be sure, just what kind of damage to the society is caused by prayer in a church is not indicated in the order.
In all of this story there is a grain of common sense. Nosisa, like her fellow student Kudzai, was permitted to finish her studies and get a diploma; that is, her expulsion was postponed to 30 June.
"It is an enormous relief for me. It is important to me to finish my studies," Nosisa says with relief.
However, such a concession is hardly evoked by mercy. Foreigners have invested in the Russian state budget for almost six years. And an immediate expulsion of student "payers" who have a couple of months before receiving their diplomas would evoke a large outcry in society
"This is a Solomonic decision for the government, but naturally it is a very unpleasant decision for the foreign students who attend the Embassy of Jesus evangelical church," attorney Aleksei Vetoshkin thinks. "A person simply sang on the stage; she did not participate in religious activity. Nevertheless the court still considered this to be missionary activity. It was a simple incident of performance in a church. Now there can follow a flood of such cases involving foreign students. Because there are broadcasts and video recordings at the services. And if an F.S.B. agent sees a student he knows, then he can calmly select such material. In sum this threatens with deportation any foreign student who might visit this institution."
Neither Nosisa nor Kudzai could even imagine that attending the church would turn into a judicial prosecution for them. They acknowledge: faith in God and attending a familiar church greatly supported them during their study in a strange country. It is difficult to imagine that such natural things can be considered to be missionary activity. The girls greatly hope that the Yarovaya law will not frighten foreign students and they would stop attending churches. But today they dream of only one thing—to get their diploma as soon as possible and to work successfully as physicians in their homeland.
Meanwhile it has been learned that the security forces are continuing their "hunt" for other students. MK has at its disposal material of the F.S.B. directorate for Nizhny Novgorod oblast, which speaks of the discovery on the internet of yet another missionary video. The issue is a video recording in which African students all from the same medical academy and also the local pedagogical university invite parishioners to a religious event "Encounter." According to the press secretary of the evangelical church, at such events there is discussion of concepts of faith and love in the context of the Bible. There is the likelihood that punitive measures will be taken against persons mentioned in these materials also.
***Let us recall several other absurd cases when residents of Russia were convicted on the basis of the Yarovaya antiterrorism amendments.
In 2016 in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka, a group of yogis drank tea with pastries in premises they rented in a shopping center. At that time police burst into the building and began evacuating the people: somebody had reported a bomb. Having stumbled upon the yogis, MVD personnel decided that something illegal was happening and they composed a report. Later the prosecutor's office opened an administrative case: the yogis were charged with illegal missionary activity. The inspiration for the group, Petr Emlevsky, had to prove in court that he did not intend to attract outsiders to be adherents of the teachings. And the man was not a member of any religious association. In the end the court terminated the proceedings.
In a village in the republic of Mari El, a village elder got into hot water when he made a speech on a local holiday in which he thanked God for an increase in the birthrate. Before him, a pastor of a local evangelical church made a speech from the stage. He had permission for conducting missionary activity. However, both got into hot water—both the pastor and the elder, who had nothing to do with the church. The men were accused of violating the Yarovaya law. The elder was found guilty on the grounds that he spoke under a banner with the name of a church—at the event there was an old tablet with the text "Happy holiday, my village!" and the signature "New Generation." The court decided: once the man "made an appearance" against that background with a religious phrase, that means he is an offender. The pastor also was given a fine: although he had official permission, it did not satisfy the judge for unclear reasons.
In 2017, in Ekaterinburg, a case was launched against Grandfather Frost (Santa Claus), who led a New Year's parade of Krishnaites. While the chief winter wizard, played by Aleksei Pomazov, had permission for conducting missionary activity. But he was accused of missionary activity being conducted alongside him: several women distributed books without identification labels. Although the requirement to have identification labels on literature applies only to religious organizations, of which these women were not members. The authorities thought that Aleksei was guilty of not stopping these actions. Then the court closed the case because of the impossibility in a short time to find the chief witnesses—it turned out that the girls had come to the parade from Novorossiisk, and they had returned home long before. (tr. by PDS, posted 1 June 2018)
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