Chaos in Russia as the new “anti-missionary” low is used arbitrarily to restrict the Hare Krishna movement
By Victoria Arnold, Forum 18
Report published yesterday, 20 December 2016. Before Puchkov's conviction, Frolov told Forum 18 on 7 December that his client had been playing an Indian drum in the procession and had not spoken to anyone. Video footage of the event, seen by the court, showed people only singing Vedic mantras, not engaging in conversation with passers-by and not distributing literature. "No words were used apart from Hare, Krishna, Rama," Frolov insisted. "This was a public act of worship which was not missionary activity, since no information about beliefs was disseminated and nobody involved anybody else in the religious association." Documents in the case seen by Forum 18 appear to show that the absence of verbal interaction and religious literature had little bearing on the decision to bring charges. Prosecutors cite as their grounds for prosecution an 11 October "expert report" by Anatoly Gurin, a theology lecturer at Tver State University, and Andrei Bezrukov, the director of the university's theology students' society. Their conclusion that the event constituted "missionary activity" is based solely on an assessment of its religious character and the fact that it took place in public.