The Government has considered the draft federal law, which proposes supplementing the Criminal Code with Article 2431, stipulating liability for the abuse of personal faith and religious sentiments and convictions or the desecration of sacred objects and the sites of religious rites and pilgrimages, and to amend Articles 3.5 and 5.26 of the Code on Administrative Offences, by increasing the upper limit of the fine for violating the laws on the freedom of conscience and faith and on religious communities. The draft law also establishes liability for the public desecration or destruction of religious or liturgical literature and religious and philosophical symbols or emblems.
At the same time, the abuse of religious sentiment, which Article 2431 concerns, might qualify as disorderly conduct in certain instances, the liability for which is stipulated by Article 213 of the Criminal Code. At the same time, liability for the desecration of sacred objects and the sites of pilgrimages, liturgies, and other religious rites performed by religious communities, and for the damage to or destruction of such objects stipulated by Article 2431, Part 2, is also stipulated by Articles 214, 243 and 244 of the Criminal Code.
The concurrence of these legal norms with the norms suggested by the draft law can be removed by supplementing the articles with the relevant qualifications and by toughening the punishment of these acts.
The acting legislation also does not define the categories of “religious and philosophical symbolism” and “religions forming an inalienable part of the historical heritage of the ethnic entities of Russia”, which the draft law contains.
The Government intends to take these remarks into consideration to further improve the draft.