Oppressive court decision overturned in Russia

It is interesting how, in the 60 year history of Dianetics and Scientology, you will see a repeating pattern: a court comes out with a ruling against Scientology, the Church appeals, the appeals court throws out the lower court decision and the corruption involved in the lower court decision is then revealed.

Some examples are Spain, Italy and Australia. In those cases it took many years to get the oppressive decision overturned, so the fact that it only took a few months to get such a court ruling thrown out in Russia is a sign of how far that country has come on the path towards a free society.

Here is the English translation of the story:

Surgut city court ruling that Scientology materials are extremist overturned

October 12, 2010

On October 12, the Khanty-Mansi district court overturned the decision of the Surgut city court, which ruled as extremist works of L. Ron Hubbard containing the basics of the teachings of the Church of Scientology.

The March 26, 2010 decision of the Surgut city court was made behind closed doors. No one representing the Scientologists was allowed into the process. The prosecutor, and then the judge, decided that the fundamentals of the doctrine of the Church of Scientology are extremist. The prosecutor later acknowledged in an interview that he did not read the materials and relied on expert analysis. An expert was recommended by Galina Vydrina, an adviser to the governor of Khanty-Mansi who has long been fighting against non-traditional religions. The expert was anti-cult specialist Evgeny Volkov, who, instead of answering the court’s questions, summarized his “scientific” theories without even browsing through half of the materials submitted for analysis. The court as well did not familiarize itself with the materials by Ron Hubbard. The entire judicial process lasted 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Believers in the local community (whose representative is Alexander Ilyin) feel that this decision was taken in retaliation for the recognition by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that local authorities had violated the rights of Surgut Scientologists to freedom of conscience.

Despite the fact that the decision of the Surgut city court had not yet taken effect legally, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation illegally added these materials to the list of extremist materials. Since the publication of this list, law enforcement agencies have been on the hunt for these materials across the country from Blagoveshchensk to Krasnodar, conducting searches and raids, unsealing materials at customs, calling citizens to administrative proceedings.

“The Surgut decision is a disgrace to the judicial system. As a citizen of the Russian Federation and as a lawyer, I’m glad it has been overturned. Even though it would have been excellent grounds for an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, I believe that the ability of the court of appeal to make decisions independently of religious preferences and of the political situation bears witness to the triumph not only of law but of common sense,” said lawyer Galina Krylova.

The head of the chief Scientology Center in Russia, Natalia Dvoryadkin, explained that the works of R. Hubbard have for over 50 years been distributed worldwide in 165 countries. The total circulation of the published materials today exceeds 81 million copies. For more information about the Scientology religion visit the sites Scientology Russia, Church of Scientology Moscow, Facts on Scientology in Russia.

(Here is the original: Surgut city court ruling that Scientology materials are extremist overturned) .