Source: www.forum18.org
Date: February 6, 2020
Bailiffs have closed the building of Jesus Embassy Church in Nizhny
Novgorod due to alleged "fire safety" violations, but the changing number
of violations claimed, and the apparent hostility of the FSB security
service, raise doubts that the church building will be reopened soon. "Of
course the FSB isn't interested in fire safety," Alexander Verkhovsky of
SOVA Center commented.
RUSSIA: Will church's alleged "fire safety" violations be resolved?
http://www.forum18.org/archive
By Victoria Arnold, Forum 18
Bailiffs sealed the building of Jesus Embassy Pentecostal Church in Nizhny
Novgorod on 31 December 2019 and its congregation now has to rent places of
worship elsewhere in the city. The authorities have since summer 2018
claimed that multiple fire safety "violations" exist in the building. The
church strongly disputes that these violations – if they exist – should
have resulted in the closure of the building.
The alleged fire safety violations followed inspections initiated by the
FSB security service. The FSB was also behind seven prosecutions of the
church and its members between summer 2017 and summer 2018 for alleged
"illegal missionary activity". One of the prosecutions led to the
deportation of a Zimbabwean medical student, and is now the subject of a
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case in Strasbourg (see below).
"Of course the FSB isn't interested in fire safety," Alexander Verkhovsky
of Moscow's SOVA Center for Information and Analysis commented to Forum 18
on 15 January 2020. "Fire supervision is just an 'ideal controller': it
will always find something, and something that is difficult or impossible
to fix at that. Therefore, it is used. Rather, one should be surprised that
it is not used so often" (see below).
Alleged fire safety violations and other alleged violations - such as of
sanitation regulations - have also been used to target Protestant
theological education institutions, churches, and Muslim mosques (see
below).
The only way to have access to Jesus Embassy's building restored is to
apply through the courts, showing that the church has followed all the fire
inspectorate's orders. "We are not completely confident that this will
happen in the near future, as the authorities are scheduling new
inspections," Pastor Pavel Ryndich told Forum 18 on 19 January 2020.
"These authorities, instead of protecting their citizens, do not give them
the right to attend the church that they themselves have chosen," Pastor
Ryndich complained. "But the Constitution of the Russian Federation
promises every citizen the right to freely practise the religion that they
choose!" (see below).
Pentecostal churches facing possible closure
Jesus Embassy Church in Nizhny Novgorod is one of at least three
Pentecostal congregations in different regions of Russia which may be
barred from using their church buildings because of alleged violations of
construction, fire safety, or planning regulations. The churches insist
that these problems have either been completely eliminated, or were a
mistake by the authorities.
For periods ranging from 18 months to well over four years, the communities
– in Nizhny Novgorod, Kaluga, and Oryol – have been caught up in
Russia's labyrinthine systems of rules regulating the acquisition,
alteration, construction, and use of buildings.
The communities have had to undergo often multiple court processes in order
to assert their rights to property which they purchased entirely legally
and have used safely for years. These proceedings, which can include the
commissioning of expert analysis by technical specialists, take time and
cost money. As a result of the court proceedings, congregations may lose
access to their own places of worship for an indefinite length of time.
As of 6 February 2020, Jesus Embassy Church in Nizhny Novgorod remains
sealed. The buildings of the Resurrection Church of God in Oryol and the
Word of Life Church's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Kaluga remain
open, however, while court proceedings continue (see forthcoming F18News
article).
Complex, sometimes contradictory, and often inconsistently applied
legislation can lead religious communities to lose their places of worship
(http://www.forum18.org/archiv
officials barred a Baptist community in Novorossiysk from using its church
"for religious purposes", despite the fact that it has worshipped on the
same site for two decades. Local authorities are often unwilling to permit
the construction of purpose-built churches and mosques.
Officials have repeatedly rebuffed attempts to legalise ownership of the
land where Good News Pentecostal Church in Samara has worshipped for two
decades (http://www.forum18.org/archiv
want to demolish the church, at the congregation's expense, but in December
2019, Samara Regional Arbitration Court refused such a request from the
city's town planning department (see forthcoming F18News article).
In May 2019, officials bulldozed a mosque built on farmland near
Chernyakhovsk in Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, noting that it violated
planning regulations.
FSB-initiated prosecutions
Between summer 2017 and summer 2018, the Jesus Embassy church in Nizhny
Novgorod and its centralised regional organisation were fined four times
(http://www.forum18.org/archiv
Code Article 5.26, Part 3 ("Implementation of activities by a religious
organisation without indicating its official full name, including the
issuing or distribution, within the framework of missionary activity, of
literature and printed, audio, and video material without a label bearing
this name, or with an incomplete or deliberately false label"). They were
also fined three times under Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 4
("Russians conducting missionary activity") for posting two videos on
social media.
Two African students who appeared in one of the videos were also prosecuted
and ordered to leave the country.
(http://www.forum18.org/archiv
appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg
against the fine of 100,000 Roubles (three months' average wages), imposed
on one of the students, Zimbabwean medical student Kudzai Nyamarebvu, for
carrying out alleged "missionary activity" while on a student visa.
The ECtHR accepted the appeal (Application No. 16649/19) on 26 May 2019
under Article 9 ("Freedom of thought, conscience and religion") and Article
11 ("Freedom of assembly and association") of the European Convention for
the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
The prosecutions in Nizhny Novgorod Region appear to be driven by the FSB
security service (http://www.forum18.org/archiv
FSB is interested in Jesus Embassy itself and Protestants in general," the
Church's lawyer Aleksey Vetoshkin told Forum 18 from Nizhny Novgorod in May
2018.
These prosecutions followed amendments to the Administrative Code and
Religion Law introduced in July 2016 as part of the "Yarovaya" package of
"anti-terrorism" laws (http://www.forum18.org/archiv
Authorities across Russia almost immediately began to use these amendments
against people and communities exercising their freedom of religion and
belief. (http://www.forum18.org/archiv
"Of course the FSB isn't interested in fire safety"
On 16 August 2018, prosecutors in Nizhny Novgorod lodged a lawsuit against
Jesus Embassy seeking to prohibit use of the church's building because of
alleged fire safety violations. "The documents we have openly say that the
FSB initiated [the first safety inspections]," Pastor Pavel Ryndich told
Forum 18 on 16 December 2019.
Jesus Embassy brought a case on 6 November 2018 challenging the Emergencies
Ministry's fire inspection decisions. The Church's legal challenge was
rejected on 28 December 2018 by Nizhny Novgorod's Moscow District Court,
and on 3 April 2019 by Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court.
This legal challenge delayed a decision on the Prosecutors' suit to
prohibit the Church's use of its building. "Since 2018, there have been
numerous inspections of the church building, which was acquired in 2007,"
the church's pastor and regional bishop Pavel Ryndich wrote on Facebook on
26 November 2019.
"As a result, violations of fire safety standards were discovered. The
building, which dates from 1949, fulfils the requirements of modern fire
regulations. [It] has historical value, which is why the church has tried
in every possible way to preserve the appearance of the building in its
original form, and has paid twice as much to eliminate all violations."
On 30 May 2019, Nizhny Novgorod's Moscow District Court upheld the
Prosecutors' request that Jesus Embassy's building should not be used until
the alleged fire safety problems had been dealt with. On 26 November Nizhny
Novgorod Regional Court upheld the Moscow District Court ruling.
Jesus Embassy resolved "almost all 78" original violations and closed off
the third floor of the building, Pastor Ryndich wrote in November 2019. But
the fire inspectorate "continued to make endless demands", eventually
raising the number of alleged shortcomings to 120.
"Of course the FSB isn't interested in fire safety," Alexander Verkhovsky
of Moscow's SOVA Center for Information and Analysis commented to Forum 18
on 15 January 2020. "Fire supervision is just an 'ideal controller': it
will always find something, and something that is difficult or impossible
to fix at that. Therefore, it is used. Rather, one should be surprised that
it is not used so often."
Alleged fire safety violations and other alleged violations such as of
sanitation regulations have also been used to target Protestant theological
education institutions
(http://www.forum18.org/archiv
and mosques (http://www.forum18.org/archiv
such case, the Pentecostal Chuvash Bible Centre lost its legal personality
status in 2007, but after a long and expensive legal struggle won a
European Court of Human Rights case in Strasbourg (Application No.
33203/08) on 12 June 2014.
(http://www.forum18.org/archiv
Forum 18 asked Nizhny Novgorod Regional Prosecutor's Office and the
Regional Emergencies Ministry on 23 January 2020 what the church must do to
have its building reopened, why the building was still considered unsafe
when almost all violations had been dealt with, and what will happen if the
remaining alleged violations cannot be eliminated.
Forum 18 received no reply from the Regional Prosecutors' Office by the end
of the working day in Nizhny Novgorod on 6 February.
The Emergencies Ministry replied on 3 February, stating that to get the
building unsealed the church must "comply with Moscow District Court's
decision, specifically to eliminate fully the violations of fire safety
requirements set forth in the [prosecutor's] civil lawsuit".
The Ministry added that the two remaining violations concerned a lack of
adequate escape routes and a lack of an internal water supply for
firefighting, which "directly affect the safety of people in the building".
It added that if these are not resolved, the "judicial authorities will not
decide accordingly to permit the operation of the building".
Is it possible to "eliminate violations"?
Alexander Verkhovsky of the SOVA Center noted that the initiator of such
proceedings may not be the FSB: "It could be any official who wants to
create difficulties for one organisation or another. And in the main,
whether it is possible to 'eliminate violations' – that is, to reach an
agreement with the fire inspectorate – depends precisely on how much they
want this."
"Protestants have such stories more often, most likely because their
buildings are relatively numerous. Of course, there are even more churches
of the Russian Orthodox Church, but they have an informal defence against
checks, like mosques in Muslim regions (and not even only there)."
Verkhovsky pointed out that fire inspections can be a problem not only for
religious organisations, but also for human rights groups, against whom
they have been used "as a means of politically motivated pressure - more
than once".
Fire safety is a serious problem in Russia. A survey published in 2019 by
the International Association of Fire and Rescue Services found that Russia
had the highest number of structure and vehicle fires in 2017 out of the 34
countries surveyed, and the second highest number of fire deaths per
100,000 population between 2013 and 2017 (after Belarus, out of 54
countries surveyed).
New Year closure of Jesus Embassy building
Bailiffs sealed the building of the Jesus Embassy Bible Centre in Nizhny
Novgorod on 31 December 2019.
The church insists that its building is safe and that it has dealt with all
the issues raised by fire inspectors. Prosecutors argued in court, however,
that two violations remained unresolved – an alleged lack of adequate
escape routes, and an alleged lack of an internal water supply for
firefighting. The Church describes these claims as "debatable and minor",
lawyer Aleksey Vetoshkin told Forum 18 on 30 January 2020.
"We are working on getting the church opened," Vetoshkin added.
"We're convinced 100 per cent that our church is safe for visitors," Pastor
Ryndich told Forum 18 on 16 December 2019. "It is not about safety. We
understand there are forces against the church."
"We are not discouraged, because the Lord is more than a building. It is
written that God 'dwells in miraculous temples', and in our hearts," Pastor
Ryndich wrote on his VKontakte social network page on 3 January 2020.
While their church is closed, the Jesus Embassy congregation is worshipping
at the Seventh-day Adventists' cultural centre and other locations in
Nizhny Novgorod, Ryndich told Forum 18 on 19 January. The building remains
the property of the church and there is no prohibition on the community
meeting elsewhere.
"We continue to function as a church in complicated circumstances"
"We continue to function as a church in complicated circumstances," Pastor
Ryndich told Forum 18. "We have to follow the injunctions and this means
major financial costs, and at the same time we must rent other premises to
hold services."
Shortly after Jesus Embassy's appeal was rejected in November 2019, Pastor
Ryndich asked on Facebook "Why is there such pressure on the Protestant
church in Nizhny Novgorod?" He noted that "these authorities, instead of
protecting their citizens, do not give them the right to attend the church
that they themselves have chosen. But the Constitution of the Russian
Federation promises every citizen the right to freely practise the religion
that they choose!" (END)
Full reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Russia
(http://www.forum18.org/archiv
For more background see Forum 18's survey of the general state of freedom
of religion and belief in Russia
(http://www.forum18.org/archiv
survey of the dramatic decline in this freedom related to Russia's
Extremism Law (http://www.forum18.org/archiv
A personal commentary by Alexander Verkhovsky, Director of the SOVA Center
for Information and Analysis http://www.sova-center.ru, about the systemic
problems of Russian anti-extremism legislation
(http://www.forum18.org/archiv
Forum 18's compilation of Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) freedom of religion or belief commitments
(http://www.forum18.org/archiv
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