Russian Church Blames Racism on Liberalism

[sonz]

MOSCOW, April 4, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Russia's Orthodox Church on Tuesday, April 4, blamed rising racism in the country on liberalism and tolerance regarding homosexuality, abortion and euthanasia.

"You can't complain about a rise in xenophobia at a time when we allow a person to destroy the sacred, spit on his fatherland, destroy his own culture without being stopped by right-thinking people," Metropolitan Kirill was quoted by Reuters as saying.

"This person will go and kill someone else, on the basis of race, or of faith," he added in an emotional speech to politicians and religious leaders aired on primetime television.

A nine-year-old girl from the Central Asian state of Tajikistan was recently killed by teenagers using chain, baseball bats and knives.

However, the teenagers were cleared of racism and murder and found guilty of "hooliganism", receiving sentences of between 18 months and five-and-a-half years in prison.

Racist violence has been on the rise in Russia in recent years, mainly targeting immigrants from the former Soviet republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as people from Asia and Africa.

Dozens of foreigners have been killed in such attacks, but police have failed to trace their perpetrators.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called racism an "infection" afflicting Russia, and called on society to unite against it.

A 2005 report by the independent Sova group found that murders officially classified as racists more than doubled in Russia between 2003 and 2004.

Liberalism Blamed

Kirill heaped the blame on liberalism.

"We cannot accept the mocking of the sacred, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, exploitation of national feelings and other such kinds of behavior that are often defended as a human right."

He maintained that the conception of human rights is to defend human values "not to let the genie out of the bottle."

Kirill singled out the curators of a 2003 exhibition called "Beware, Religion", which linked religious and capitalist symbols as examples of the decay afflicting Russian society.

The curators were convicted of offending the public, a ruling blasted by rights activists as a violation of freedom of expression.

The Orthodox Church is considered the guardian of conservative Russian values at a time of flux following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Putin frequently meets church leaders and appears at church ceremonies although he does not publicly support its approach.