Russia tells U.N. Security Council it's defending religious rights of Christians and Muslims in Ukraine

"LETTER DATED 10 APRIL 2023 FROM THE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS ADDRESSED TO THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

Annex to the letter dated 10 April 2023 from the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

Decision of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on the statement by the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation in connection with violations of the rights of people of faith in Ukraine

The Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation hereby decides:
1. To adopt the statement by the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation in connection with violations of the rights of people of faith in Ukraine;
2. To transmit this statement to the parliaments of foreign States, the United Nations, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of States members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy and the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation member States;
3. That this decision shall enter into force on the date of its adoption.

V. I. Matvienko


Statement by the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation in connection with violations of the rights of people of faith in Ukraine

The Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation strongly condemns the gross violations of the rights of people of faith in Ukraine, which are a consequence of the policy of religious intolerance pursued by the Kiev regime.

The Ukrainian authorities are de facto attempting to impose on the people of Ukraine a Western-backed parapolitical entity calling itself the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”, as the official church. Meanwhile, the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church is being persecuted: its churches are being seized, communities are being illegally dissolved and members of the clergy are being stripped of their citizenship and repressed. The recent decision of the Ukrainian authorities to deprive the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of one of its holiest sites, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, was egregious.

A recent outrageous act was the desecration of the Qur’an, a holy book for Muslims around the world. This act of vandalism is a direct consequence of the official Kiev policy of discriminating against members of ethnic and religious communities living in Ukraine.

Such a policy by the Ukrainian authorities grossly violates the right of every person to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, guaranteed by fundamental international instruments of the United Nations: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.

Current developments are causing anger and resentment among all citizens of the Russian Federation.

The Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation calls on the parliaments of foreign States and on international parliamentary organizations to take a principled stance and demand that Kiev return Ukraine to compliance with its international obligations and cease its policy of discriminating against people of faith and desecrating religious sites."