Editorial column_image

Editorial column

Our freedom is in our hands

03.11.2010, 12:56
If someone offends our religious feelings, if someone is infringing on our freedom of conscience - we should be able to protect ourselves

Perhaps, everyone could see that this year the number of violations of religious freedom at various levels has increased dramatically. It is mostly manifested by various forms of non-constitutional, biased approach of officials to certain denominations. In particular, it is about allocation of land plots for construction of churches and right to organize public events.

The top leadership of the state publicly proves that it cares only about problems of one of the denominations and that it has no time or wish to meet with representatives of all the other ones.We repeatedly register incidents when representatives of the ruling party pressurize religious communities and force them to convert to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate.

If the community resists, parallel structures are established and the church building is seized.

The editorial staff is increasingly often approached by representatives of the aggrieved communities asking for information support and protection. Sometimes, we ourselves initiate information campaign regarding obvious violations of religious freedom. For one of the lines of our activity is information protection of the rights of believers to the freedom of worship and religious activity. We can see that this work yields positive results as communities, about the problem of which we wrote, inform us about it.

If you know about violations of religious freedom, write to our editorial office: [email protected]

By uncovering violations of our rights and the rights of others, we will protect ourselves and our neighbours. For our freedom is in our hands!