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In May Shalom criticized one of the popular dailies, 24 Hours, for publishing ahead of Orthodox Easter an article blaming Jews for the death of Jesus Christ. The organization also accused the author of the article, Rosen Tahov, of instilling intolerance and inciting religion-based hatred.
According to Jewish community leaders and the Office of the Grand Mufti, incidents of vandalism continued, including painted swastikas, offensive graffiti, and broken windows in their respective places of worship. For example, on July 2, unidentified individuals desecrated the historic Kursunlu Mosque in Karlovo with Nazi symbols, including the swastika, and offensive inscriptions.
On July 4, an unidentified person broke the front door windows of the Office of the Grand Mufti in Sofia. Police subsequently identified the man and detained him; however, police concluded he was mentally unstable and did not press charges. How can everyone unite? It is not possible to unite the light and the darkness. Representatives of the Christian and Jewish communities, local government officials, foreign diplomats, and representatives of civil society attended the event, intended to improve relations among religious groups.
The National Council of Religious Communities, whose members include representatives of Bulgarian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Muslim, evangelical Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish communities, continued its efforts to promote religious tolerance.
It served as a platform for the largest religious groups to organize joint events and defend a common position on religious issues, such as certain legislative proposals, anti-Semitic actions, and acts of defacement. On September 19, in partnership with Sofia municipality, the council held the fourth Festival of Religions, organizing a concert by performers from different religious communities and a tour of different places of worship in Sofia.
Congregation members reported they had been effectively evicted, with no access to the church building due to a series of bureaucratic administrative rulings. Denominations or divisions within the recognized religious groups Shia Islam, Reform Judaism, or Lutheranism, for example do not receive support or recognition separate from their parent religious group. In addition, some notifications were duplicate reports of the same incident, and not all online hate speech notifications were linked to religion. The government was still processing restitution claims made between and for confiscated land and other real and personal property. The agency lacks legal powers to enforce resolution of cases but may refer them to the courts.
In April the council conducted an interfaith discussion in Belitsa. A Muslim scholar from the High Islamic Institute who participated in a Department of State-funded exchange program on religious pluralism in Philadelphia applied his U. From September 25 to September 27, he partnered with the Forum for Interreligious Dialogue and Partnership to provide a workshop in which imams and Christian clergy from the whole country shared common values, goals, and challenges. On May 9, the Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom met with Minister of Foreign Affairs Zaharieva and with leaders of the BOC, the Muslim community, the Catholic community, the United Evangelical Churches, the Armenian community, the Jewish community, and representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ to discuss the importance of religious freedom in combating violent extremism and religious persecution.

Ambassador and other embassy officials continued discussions with representatives of the National Assembly, Directorate for Religious Affairs, Office of the Ombudsman, Commission for Protection against Discrimination, local government administrations, and law enforcement agencies about cases of religious discrimination, harassment of religious minorities, and legislative initiatives restricting religious freedom.
On February 15, the Ambassador spoke about the importance of tolerance and expressed support for the manifesto against hate speech signed at the Council of Ministers; the embassy amplified the message on Facebook. Embassy officials also met with human rights groups, such as the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, Marginalia, Amalipe, Inforoma Center, Sofia Security Forum, and academics to discuss these issues.
In February , armed forces of the Russian Federation seized and occupied Crimea. Occupation authorities continue to impose the laws of the Russian Federation in the territory of Crimea. The Russian government reported there were religious communities registered in Crimea, including Sevastopol, compared with in , a number that dropped by over 1, since the occupation began in , the last year for which Ukrainian government figures were available. Occupation authorities continued to subject Muslim Crimean Tatars to imprisonment and detention, especially if authorities purportedly suspected the individuals of involvement in the Muslim political organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in Russia but is legal in Ukraine.
There were 24 prosecutions for such activity, compared with 23 in , 17 of which ended in convictions with a monetary fine. Greek Catholic leaders said they continued to have difficulty staffing their parishes because of the policies of occupation authorities. The OCU reported continued seizures of its churches. Crimean Tatars reported police continued to be slow to investigate attacks on Islamic religious properties or refused to investigate them at all. Religious and human rights groups continued to report Russian media efforts to create suspicion and fear among certain religious groups, especially targeting Crimean Tatar Muslims, whom media repeatedly accused of links to Islamist groups designated by Russia as terrorist groups, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir.
On November 6, the website Crimea-news reported that unidentified individuals destroyed crosses at a cemetery in Feodosia. Embassy officials, however, continued to meet in other parts of Ukraine with Crimean Muslim, Christian, and Jewish leaders to discuss their concerns over actions taken against their congregations by the occupation authorities, and to demonstrate continued U. According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine estimates the most recent , the total population of the peninsula is 2,, There are no recent independent surveys with data on the religious affiliation of the population, but media outlets estimate the number of Crimean Tatars, who are overwhelmingly Muslim, at ,, or 13 percent of the population.
According to the information provided by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture in the most recent year available , the UOC-MP remains the largest Christian denomination.
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There are several Jewish congregations, mostly in Sevastopol and Simferopol. Jewish groups estimate between 10, and 15, Jewish residents lived in Crimea before the Russian occupation began; no updates have been available since the occupation began in According to the census, the most recent, there are Karaites in Ukraine; of them lived in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
According to the Ukrainian human rights organization Crimean Human Rights Group CHRG with offices in Kyiv, 86 individuals were unlawfully incarcerated or imprisoned due to politically or religiously motivated persecution in Crimea as of September 7. Thirty-four of them had received prison sentences. Krym Realii news website quoted human rights attorney Edem Semedlyaev, stating that that the three detainees had been placed in a psychiatric hospital for forced examinations due to their refusal to plead guilty to terrorism charges. Krym Realii is an independent news service focusing on human rights issues in Crimea.
On June 7, occupation authorities changed his pretrial detention to house arrest.
Seytsomanov said authorities applied physical and psychological pressure to force him into giving false testimony. His lawyer said the occupation authorities toughened the charge against Seytosmanov, stating he was an organizer rather than a participant in a Hizb ut-Tahrir cell. Human rights activists linked the verdict to his reporting on the human rights situation in Crimea. Occupation authorities detained Memedeminov on terrorist charges in , citing his involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir.
The suspects were arrested in a series of armed raids in February by Russian occupation authorities. The court found them guilty of organizing or participating in the activities of a terrorist organization and sentenced them to high security prison terms of 17 years for Teymur Abdullaev, 14 years for Rustem Ismailov, and 13 years for Uzeir Abdullaev. Aider Saledinov and Emil Dzhemadenov each received year sentences. They then kicked him and forced him to his knees. The report made no mention of Aivazov having been seized at the crossing point.
Aivazov signed a confession stating he was a member of a Hizb ut-Tahrir cell, along with the recently arrested men. According to an OHCHR quarterly report issued in September, since the beginning of the Russian occupation, at least 33 Crimean residents were arrested for alleged ties with radical Muslim groups. According to CHRG, on December 24, Inna Semenets, magistrate of the Evpatoriya Judicial District, fined the Karaite Jewish religious community for failing to place an identifying sign on the building of a religious organization.
According to Forum 18, the cases involved Protestants, Muslims, adherents of the Society of Krishna Consciousness, Falun Gong, as well as groups with unspecified affiliations. Occupation authorities made both of them sign a pledge not to leave the area. The FSB required him to sign a pledge not to leave the city.
That same day, FSB officers raided at least nine local homes. Another raid occurred on July 7. There were 24 prosecutions for such activity, compared with 23 in , 17 of which ended in convictions with some type of monetary fine. Many of those prosecuted had been sharing their faith on the street or holding worship at unapproved venues. Forum 18 reported that occupation authorities brought 11 cases against individuals and religious communities for failing to use the full legal name of a registered religious community.
The other five cases involved no punishment.
According to Krymska Solidarnist and Forum 18, local authorities continued the ban on the Tablighi Jamaat Muslim missionary movement in Crimea under a ruling by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The movement is legal in Ukraine. The court sentenced Suleymanov to four years in prison.
Andurakhmanov, Mustafayev, and Kubedinov each received two-and-a-half-year suspended sentences. According to the directorate, the mosque had not provided information on the contents of its sermons, as required by law. According to data collected by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture in the most recent year available , there were 2, religious organizations a term including parishes, congregations, theological schools, monasteries, and other constituent parts of a church or religious group in the ARC and in Sevastopol.
The numbers included organizations both with and without legal entity status. According to a OHCHR report, religious communities indicated more than 1, religious communities recognized under Ukrainian law had not reregistered. According to the OHCHR, stringent legal requirements under Russian legislation continued to prevent or discourage reregistration of many religious communities. Human rights groups reported occupation authorities continued to require imams at Crimean Tatar mosques to inform them each time they transferred from one mosque to another. The Roman Catholic Church reported it continued to operate in the territory as a pastoral district directly under the authority of the Vatican.
Polish and Ukrainian Roman Catholic Church priests were permitted to stay in the territory for only 90 days at a time and required to leave Crimea for 90 days before returning. UGCC representatives said it could still only operate as a part of the pastoral district of the Roman Catholic Church. Only six of the 15 churches, identifying as OCU but required to register as independent following the separation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Patriarchate, were functioning at the end of the year, compared with five in and eight in Volodymyr of Kyiv and Olga parish as an independent Orthodox congregation.
Congregation members reported they had been effectively evicted, with no access to the church building due to a series of bureaucratic administrative rulings. On March 3, police in Simferopol briefly detained Archbishop Klyment as he was boarding a bus to visit Ukrainian political prisoner Pavlo Hryb, who was held in Rostov-on-Don. The Russian government released Hryb during a prisoner swap in September.
Workers unearthed human remains at the site during preparatory excavations for the project. After receiving complaints from the Muslim community, authorities suspended the excavations to allow reburial of the remains. On November 6, the website Crimea-news. Krym Realii news website, in May unidentified individuals destroyed newly installed slabs etched with the names of 64 fallen Soviet Army soldiers, including 57 Crimean Tatars, at a World War II memorial in Orlovka Village, in Sevastopol. Despite his subsequent release, this kind of harassment is unacceptable.
We expect Russia to respect freedom of religion and stop detaining innocent Ukrainians in Crimea. Residents of Crimea deserve to be able to worship freely, without intimidation, if they so choose. We call upon Russia to end its occupation of Crimea. Although embassy and other U. The leaders discussed their concerns over actions taken against congregations by the occupation authorities and reassured the religious leaders of continued U.
Embassy officials told religious leaders the United States would continue to support religious freedom in Crimea and press the occupation authorities to return confiscated property and release prisoners incarcerated for their religious or political beliefs. The Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, a supplement to the constitution, guarantees freedom of religious conviction and states everyone has the right to change, abstain from, and freely practice religion. The Ministry of Culture MOC registered one religious group and rejected the registration applications of two groups.
The Constitutional Court rejected an appeal of a lower court conviction of Path of Guru Jara PGJ leader Jaroslav Dobes and another PGJ member whom the lower court sentenced to prison in absentia for rape; a lower court reopened proceedings against the two PGJ officials on seven other counts of rape. The government stated that in it returned 1, properties confiscated from religious groups during the communist period. In October the Constitutional Court struck down a law parliament had approved in May, which was scheduled to come into effect in , taxing compensation the government paid to religious groups for unreturned confiscated properties.
The government reported 15 anti-Semitic and three anti-Muslim incidents in , compared with 27 and three, respectively, in the previous year. The Federation of Jewish Communities FJC reported anti-Semitic incidents in — including two physical attacks — an increase of percent over Most incidents involved internet hate speech. According to a European Commission EC survey, 28 percent of respondents believed anti-Semitism was a problem in the country. In March the Czech Muslim Communities Center ousted the lay chairman who headed the Prague Muslim community for posting a video urging Muslims to arm themselves following mosque mass shootings in New Zealand.
Embassy officials met with Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant religious leaders and members of the Muslim community to reaffirm U. According to the census, of the 56 percent of citizens who responded to the question about their religious beliefs, approximately 62 percent held none, 18 percent were Roman Catholic, 12 percent listed no specific religion, and 7 percent identified with a variety of religious faiths, including the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, other Christian churches, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism.
Academics estimate there are 10, Jews, while the FJC estimates there are 15, to 20, Leaders of the Muslim community estimate there are 10, Muslims, most of whom are immigrants.