Russian MPs plan move against occult practices

Russian politicians are preparing legislation with Orthodox church backing to restrict magicians, shamans and faith-healers, after claims that one in five citizens have paid extortionate sums for their services. 

 

"We're not planning to prohibit witchcraft, only to protect people from individuals seeking to profit from their so-called extra-sensory abilities", Sergei Vostretsov, a representative of the State Duma's Committee on Labour and Social Policy, told Russia's Pravda daily. "Many people hope for healing or the reconciliation of family relationships. It's shameful to take advantage of their weaknesses and accumulate disproportionate gains without any sense". 

 

The MP spoke after preparing amendments to the Russian Federation's Criminal Code which will equate paid "magic services" with fraud and extortion. He said over 10,000 internet sites were currently advertising witchcraft operations, magical protections and release from curses, while one in five Russians would turn to fortune-tellers, sorcerers and faith-healers at some stage in their lives. 

 

Parliamentarians hoped to deal with issues of religion and spirituality in a "more systematic way", Vostretsov added, by restricting access to television for purveyors of miraculous cures, and prescribing jail terms of up to three years for individual scammers and fraudsters, and 5-10 years for organised groups. 

 

The new measures are expected to extend recent curbs on religious sects, including an April Supreme Court ban on "illegal activities" by the 175,000-member Jehovas Witnesses, whose 395 branches are currently having their properties and places of worship seized nationwide. The outlawing of the Witnesses, whose St Petersburg community had 16 buildings and land holdings worth one billion roubles (GBP 12.7 million) seized in November, was condemned by human rights groups and the US, British and German governments, as well as by Russia's small Catholic Church, whose spokesman, Mgr Igor Kovalevsky, said Catholics feared similar "acts of discrimination". 

 

However, it was welcomed by Russia's predominant Orthodox church, whose foreign relations director, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, described the Witnesses in a statement as a "totalitarian, harmful sect" propagating "false teachings", whose members "do not believe in Jesus Christ as God and Saviour, or recognise the doctrine of the Trinity".

 

The Gazeta Rossiyskaya daily said the Orthodox church was also backing the crackdown on shamans and faith-healers, in the hope of restricting the influence of "paganism and superstition" in Orthodox communities. However, it added that occult practices were widespread among well-educated citizens and had also been reported among Russia's Olympic athletes, who face being barred from the winter games in Korea for using banned drugs.