Russian victory in Ukraine would be 'complete religious freedom catastrophe,' human rights leader warns

A human rights expert has warned that a Russian victory in Ukraine would prove a "catastrophe" for religious freedom, considering Russian President Vladimir Putin's record and the record of the pro-Putin breakaway regions in Ukraine.

"If Ukraine falls, it will be a complete religious freedom catastrophe for countless faith communities," Tina Ramirez, president and executive director of the Richmond, Virginia, based human rights nonprofit Hardwired Global, told Fox News Digital. "For evidence, we need look no further than what is already the case in Russia itself and in the Russia-controlled Ukraine regions Luhansk and Donetsk."

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"Media sources, religious freedom activists, the OCU, Muslims, Protestant churches, and Jehovah’s Witnesses stated that Russia-backed authorities in the Russia-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts (regions) continued to exert pressure on minority religious groups," according to a 2020 State Department report on religious freedom in Ukraine. 

Authorities in the "Luhansk People's Republic" (LPR) have perpetrated a ban on Jehovah's Witnesses as an "extremist" organization, while the "Supreme Court" in the "Donetsk People's Republic" (DPR) upheld a similar ban. LPR and DPR authorities, whom the U.S. does not recognize, implemented laws requiring all religious organizations except the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) to undergo "state religious expert evaluations" and reregister.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, most religious groups recognized under Ukrainian law continued to be unable to reregister due to stringent legal requirements under Russian law. All but one mosque remained closed in Donetsk and Russia-led forces have used the religious buildings of minority religious groups as military facilities. 

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"Through Hardwired, the non-profit I founded, I’ve worked in some of the worst religious freedom situations in the world, including Sudan, Nigeria, and Iraq," Ramirez told Fox News Digital. "The religious freedom situation in Russia, Luhansk, and Donetsk ranks right up there with these others. It’s truly abysmal."

Ramirez noted that "many religious communities, such as Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists, Pentecostals, and Muslims, have been subjected to violence, arrested, and had their congregations raided. If Russia takes Ukraine, we can fully expect this evil to continue and spread."

"Freedom of conscience is the most fundamental of our rights and liberties, and it is the foundation upon which our other rights are built," Ramirez declared. "What you think, believe, and hold sacred - these are the things that distinguish us as human individuals."

"It is imperative that we stand tall against the vicious, malevolent forces that work to deny our most basic human dignity and rights," she added.

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A 2018 survey found that about 67.3% of Ukraine's population identifies as one or another strand of Orthodox Christianity, with 28.7% part of the Kyiv-based Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), 23.4% simply "Orthodox," and 12.8% UOC-MP. Another 7.7% of the population identifies as broadly Christian, while Ukrainian Byzantine Rite Catholics make up 9.4%, Protestants make up 2.2%, Latin Rite Catholics make up 0.8%, Muslims make up 2.5%, and Judaism makes up 0.4%. Another 11% declared themselves non-religious or unaffiliated.

According to the U.S. State Department, Russia has used a "disinformation campaign to fuel further conflict" between the Moscow-leaning UOC-MP and the Kyiv-based OCU, which split off from the Russian Orthodox Church in 2019.