The U.S. government estimates the population at 21.5 million (July 2018 estimate).  According to a 2011 government census, ROC adherents constitute 86.5 percent of the population and Roman Catholics almost 5 percent.  According to the census, there are approximately 151,000 Greek Catholics; however, Greek Catholics estimate their numbers at 488,000.  Other religious groups include Old Rite Russian Christians; Protestants, including Reformed Protestants, Pentecostals, Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Evangelical Lutherans, Evangelical Augustans; Jews; Muslims; Jehovah’s Witnesses; Baha’is; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Zen Buddhists; the Family (God’s Children); the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (Unification Church); the Church of Scientology; and the International Society of Krishna Consciousness.  Atheists and nonbelievers represent less than 1 percent of the population.

According to the 2011 census, Old Rite Russian Christians are mainly located in Moldavia and Dobrogea.  Most Muslims live in the southeast around Constanta.  Most Greek Catholics reside in Transylvania.  Protestants of various denominations and Roman Catholics reside primarily in Transylvania.  Orthodox and Greek Catholic ethnic Ukrainians live mostly in the north.  Orthodox ethnic Serbs are primarily in Banat.  Members of the Armenian Apostolic Church are concentrated in Moldavia and the south.  Virtually all members of the Protestant Reformed and Unitarian Churches of Transylvania are ethnic Hungarians.  More than half of the Roman Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Churches in Transylvania are composed of ethnic Hungarians.  Approximately 40 percent of the country’s Jewish population of 3,400 resides in Bucharest.

Legal Framework

The constitution prohibits restricting freedom of thought, opinion, conscience, or religious beliefs, as well as forcing individuals to espouse a religious belief contrary to their convictions.  It stipulates all religions are independent from the state and have the freedom to organize “in accordance with their own statutes” under terms defined by the law.  The law specifies the state’s recognition of the “important role of the Romanian Orthodox Church” as well as the role of “other churches and denominations as recognized by the national history” of the country.

The constitution states religious denominations shall be autonomous and enjoy state support, including the facilitation of religious assistance in the army, hospitals, penitentiaries, retirement homes, and orphanages.  The law forbids public authorities or private legal entities from asking individuals to specify their religion, with the exception of the census.

The provisions of the law devoted to religion stipulate a three-tier system of religious classification with “religious denominations” at the highest level, followed by “religious associations,” and “religious groups” at the most basic level.  Organizations in the top two tiers are legal entities, while religious groups are not.  Civil associations established under separate provisions of the law governing associations and foundations may also engage in religious activities and have the status of legal entities.

By law, there are 18 religious organizations recognized as “religious denominations,” all of which were in existence at the time the specific law on religion was enacted in 2006.  They include the ROC, Orthodox Serb Bishopric of Timisoara, Roman Catholic Church, Greek Catholic Church, Old Rite Russian Christian (Orthodox) Church, Reformed (Protestant) Church, Christian Evangelical Church, Romanian Evangelical Church, Evangelical Augustan Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Unitarian Church, Baptist Church, Pentecostal Church, Seventh-day Adventist Church, Armenian Apostolic Church, Federation of Jewish Communities, Muslim Denomination (Islam), and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

For additional organizations to obtain recognition as religious denominations, the law specifies they must demonstrate 12 years of continuous activity since the law’s passage, which could not occur before 2018.  A religious association is then eligible to apply for the status of religious denomination if it has a membership of at least 0.1 percent of the population (approximately 21,500 persons).

The law defines a religious association as an organization of at least 300 citizens who share and practice the same faith and that has attained legal status through registration with the Registry of Religious Associations in the office of the clerk of the court where the main branch of the association is located.  To register, religious associations must submit to the government their members’ personal data (e.g., names, addresses, personal identification numbers, and signatures), which the law says the government may not share with other public institutions or use in any other way.  To operate as religious associations, organizations also require approval from the National Secretariat for Religious Denominations, which is under the authority of the Office of the Prime Minister.

The law defines a religious group as a group of individuals sharing the same beliefs.  Religious groups do not have to register to practice their religion and do not need approval from the national secretariat to operate.

Civil associations engaged in religious activities function like secular associations and foundations; however, they do not receive the same benefits as religious denominations or religious associations.  Civil associations may not qualify under the numerical/administrative criteria (300 members) for recognition as religious associations or may choose not to apply for such recognition.  These associations do not require approval from the National Secretariat for Religious Denominations to operate.  Their registration falls under the provisions of law governing the establishment of foundations, associations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which require a minimum membership of three individuals.  Such civil associations are not required to submit their members’ personal data.

Religious denominations are eligible for state financial and other support.  They have the right to teach religion classes in public schools, receive government funds to build places of worship, partially pay clergy salaries with state funds, broadcast religious programming on radio and television, and apply for broadcasting licenses for their own stations.  Under the law, the amount of state funding a denomination receives is determined by the number of adherents reported in the most recent census, as well as by “the religious denomination’s actual needs.”

Religious associations do not receive government funding, but both they and religious denominations receive tax exemptions on income and buildings used for religious, educational, or other social purposes.  Religious groups do not receive either government funding or tax exemptions.

Both religious denominations and religious associations may own or rent property, publish or import religious literature, proselytize, establish and operate schools or hospitals, own cemeteries, and receive tax exemptions on income and buildings used for religious, educational, or other social purposes.  Religious groups have no legal status to engage in such activities; however, they may practice their religious beliefs, including in public.

Civil associations engaged in religious activities may engage in religious worship.  While they do not receive the same tax exemptions or other benefits granted to religious denominations and religious associations, they may receive the tax advantages and other benefits accruing to civil associations and foundations.

Legal provisions allow local authorities to fund places of worship and theological schools belonging to religious denominations, including providing funding for staff salaries and building maintenance, renovation, and conservation or construction of places of worship.  No similar provisions exist for religious associations or other associations engaged in religious activities; however, these associations may receive funding through legal provisions for civil associations and foundations.

The law entitles all types of religious organizations to bury their deceased members in cemeteries belonging to other religious organizations – with the exception of Jewish and Muslim cemeteries – in localities where they do not have cemeteries of their own and where there is no public cemetery.  Public cemeteries must have separate sections for each religious denomination if requested by the denominations operating in the locality.

The law allows clergy from recognized religious denominations to minister to military personnel.  This includes the possibility of clergy functioning within the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior, Intelligence Service, Foreign Intelligence Service, Protection and Guard Service, Special Telecommunications Service, and General Directorate for Penitentiaries.  Under various other arrangements, clergy of recognized religious denominations, and in some cases religious associations, may enter hospitals, orphanages, and retirement homes to undertake religious activities.  Religious denominations and religious associations may undertake activities in penitentiaries, subject to approval by the director of the detention facility.

The law provides for the restitution of religious properties confiscated between 1940 and 1989, during World War II (WWII) and the ensuing communist regime, as long as the properties are in the possession of the state.

Under the law, if a confiscated property is used “in the public interest,” such as for a school, hospital, or museum, and is returned to its previous owner, the current occupants are allowed to stay in it for 10 years after the restitution decision and pay a capped rent.  The law does not address the general return of properties currently used as places of worship by another religious group.  Although the provisions of the law on restitution state a separate law would be adopted to address such cases, as of year’s end there was no such law.

A separate statute on the reinstatement of the Greek Catholic Church regulates the restitution of properties to the Greek Catholic Church from the ROC.  Restitution decisions are made by a joint commission representing the two Churches and based on “the will of the believers from the communities that possess these properties.”  The Greek Catholic Church may pursue court action if attempts to obtain restitution of its properties through dialogue are unsuccessful.

The law establishes a points system of compensation in cases where in-kind restitution is not possible.  Religious groups may use the points only to bid on other properties in auctions organized by the National Commission for Real Estate Compensation (NCREC).  The NCREC also validates compensation decisions of other local or central authorities, including those of the Special Restitution Commission (SRC), which decides on restitution claims filed by religious denominations and national minorities.  The law establishes a 240-day deadline by which claimants must submit additional evidence in their cases at the specific request of the entity in charge of resolving their restitution claim.  If a claimant does not meet the deadline, the administrative authority may reject the case.  The authority may extend the deadline by an additional 120 days if the claimants prove they made a concerted effort to obtain the evidence, usually in the possession of other state authorities, but were unable to do so.

The law nullifies acts of forced “donations” of Jewish property during WWII and the communist era and lowers the burden of proof for the previous owners or their heirs to obtain restitution.  The law designates the present-day Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania as the legitimate inheritor of forfeited communal Jewish property and accords priority to private claims by Holocaust survivors.  The law does not address heirless or unclaimed property left by Holocaust victims.

By law, religious education in schools is optional.  Each of the 18 legally recognized religious denominations is entitled to offer religion classes, based on its own religious teachings, in schools.  A denomination may offer classes regardless of the number of students adhering to the denomination in a school.  The law allows for exceptions where the right of students to attend religion classes cannot be implemented “for objective reasons,” without specifying what these reasons may be.

Under the law, parents of students under 18 years of age are required to request their children’s participation in religion classes, while students 18 and older may themselves ask to attend religion classes.  Although a student normally takes a school course based on the religious teachings of the denomination to which the student belongs, it is also possible for a student to take a religion course offered by his or her denomination outside the school system and bring a certificate from the denomination to receive academic credit.

Religion teachers are government employees, but each religious denomination approves the appointment and retention of the teachers of its religion classes.

The law forbids religious proselytizing in schools.  If teachers proselytize, the school management decides the punishment based on the conclusions of an internal committee.

The law states the religion of a child who has turned 14 may not be changed without the child’s consent, and from age 16 an individual has the right to choose her/his religion.

The law bans discrimination on religious grounds in all areas of public life.  It also bans religious defamation and stirring conflict on religious grounds, as well as public offenses against religious symbols.  Penalties may include fines varying from 1,000 to 100,000 lei ($250 to $24,600), depending on whether the victim is an individual or a community.

A law that went into effect in July counters anti-Semitism and criminalizes the promotion of anti-Semitic ideas and the establishment of anti-Semitic organizations.  Under this law, anti-Semitism is defined as a perception about Jews expressed in the form of anti-Jewish hatred, as well as speech and physical acts motivated by hatred against Jews that target Jews, non-Jews or their belongings, Jewish community institutions, or Jewish places of worship.  Penalties for publicly promoting anti-Semitic ideas and doctrines or manufacturing and disseminating anti-Semitic symbols range from three months’ to three years’ imprisonment and the loss of certain rights.  Penalties for establishing anti-Semitic organizations range from three to 10 years’ imprisonment and the loss of certain rights.

A law passed in 2015 prohibits the establishment of fascist, Legionnaire, racist, or xenophobic organizations, which it defines in part as groups that promote violence, religiously motivated hatred, or extremist nationalism, the latter term undefined.  Reference to anti-Semitism in the 2015 law was removed following the implementation of an anti-Semitism law in July.  Penalties for establishing such organizations range from three to 10 years’ imprisonment and the loss of certain rights.  Criminal liability is waived if the person involved in establishing such an organization informs authorities before the organization begins its activity; penalties are halved if the individual helps authorities with the criminal investigation.  Legislation also makes manufacturing, selling, distributing, owning with intent to distribute, and using racist, fascist, xenophobic, and Legionnaire symbols illegal.  Penalties range from three months’ to three years’ imprisonment.

Publicly denying the Holocaust, or contesting, approving, justifying, or minimizing it in an “obvious manner” as determined by a judge, is punishable by six months’ to three years’ imprisonment or by a fine, depending on circumstances, of up to 200,000 lei ($49,200).  Publicly promoting the cult of persons convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes may incur fines and prison terms ranging from three months to three years and from six months to five years if done online.  The same penalties apply to publicly promoting anti-Semitic, fascist, Legionnaire, racist, or xenophobic ideas, worldviews, or doctrines.

The law allows religious workers from legally recognized religious organizations to enter and remain in the country under an extended-stay visa.  Visa applicants must receive approval by the State Secretariat for Religious Affairs and submit evidence they represent religious organizations legally established in the country.  The secretariat may extend such visas for up to five years.

The country is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Government Practices

By year’s end, the government had approved two applications for religious association status during the year, both of which were Christian – the “Philadelphia” Roma’s Union of Pentecostal Assemblies and God’s Union of Pentecostal Churches.  As of October, 35 entities with diverse religious affiliations were registered as religious associations, up from 33 in 2017.

Baha’i leaders continued to seek options for the burial of deceased persons in accordance with their religious burial practices, including requesting the State Secretariat for Religious Denominations to help them establish a cemetery.  Baha’is continued to be registered as a religious association and not as a denomination.

Religious groups continued to state they viewed the 300-person membership requirement and the need to submit their members’ personal data for registration as a religious association as discriminatory because other types of associations required only three members and did not have to submit the personal data of their members. They also continued to criticize the three-tier classification system for religious organizations.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses reported that in several areas of the country, some members continued to encounter opposition to their activities and threats from public authorities and ROC priests.  They said the mayor of Mogosesti village in Iasi County threatened representatives of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in August with violence.  Following a complaint filed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the county prefect and the State Secretariat for Religious Denominations instructed the mayor to respect the law on religious freedom.  ROC priests from the village of Valea Calugareasca in Prahova County and Calugareni in Giurgiu County threatened to use physical violence against Jehovah’s Witnesses representatives in March and October, respectively.  Following complaints submitted by the religious denomination, police fined the priests.

On November 23, the Bucharest Court of Appeal ruled as no longer valid a request filed in 2016 by Catalin Berenghi, a former candidate for mayor of Bucharest, to annul a 2015 decision to transfer land in Bucharest to the Muslim community for a mosque.  According to the court, the decision to transfer the land was no longer relevant because the Grand Mufti’s Office had notified the government it had renounced its right to use the land.

The National Authority for Property Restitution (NAPR), the government agency responsible for overseeing the restitution process, reported the SRC had approved 17 requests for the restitution of “immovable properties” (land or buildings) to religious denominations, approved compensation in 35 cases, and rejected 609 other claims during the year.  All of the claims were submissions before the 2006 deadline.  In 94 cases, the filers withdrew their claims.  According to data provided by NAPR and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the number of cases NAPR reviewed decreased from 1,227 in 2017 to 1,212.

According to NAPR, religious denominations appealed 53 decisions the SRC submitted to the courts during the year.  The Roman Catholic Church made 12 appeals; the ROC made nine; the Greek Catholics made 13; the Evangelical Augustinian Church made two; and the Jewish community made 12.  Information concerning court decisions on these cases was unavailable.  In April 2015 NAPR rejected a claim submitted by Caritatea Foundation, the NGO the Federation of Jewish Communities and the WJRO established to oversee Jewish communal property claims.  The claim concerned a building and a land plot in the city of Piatra Neamt owned by the Jewish community that the city government forced the community to donate in 1953.  NAPR stated that Caritatea was not able to submit a copy of the donation agreement within the 120-day deadline.  Caritatea representatives said the foundation encountered significant delays in obtaining the document from the National Archives.  NAPR, however, did not take into consideration the delay caused by the National Archives’ response, stating the 120-day deadline to submit new documents had already passed.  Caritatea Foundation appealed NAPR’s decision in court.  In December 2015, the Bacau Court of Appeal invalidated NAPR’s original decision and ruled the SRC should issue a new favorable decision.  NAPR challenged the court ruling, arguing that the Caritatea Foundation had not filed the requested document within the 120-day deadline.

During the year, NAPR reviewed 490 claims submitted by the Greek Catholic Church but did not restore any property to the Church or grant it compensation in any cases.  Church officials reported that NAPR rejected most of their claims because the properties now belonged to the ROC and were subject to a different law, making restitution possible through a joint commission representing the two Churches and based on “the will of the believers from the communities that possess these properties.”  During the communist regime, all places of worship and parish houses were transferred to the ROC and most other properties (land and buildings) to the state.

The Greek Catholic Church continued to report court delays on restitution lawsuits.  Representatives of the Church stated there were no court decisions on Greek Catholic restitution cases during the year.

Restitution of a property in Bixad, previously restored to the Greek Catholic Church by the government and confirmed by earlier court decisions, continued to be delayed while courts considered the case anew, following a 2016 decision by the Alba Tribunal, a county-level court, allowing the Satu Mare County Council to revive its claim for ownership of the property.  At year’s end, the case was still pending.

Two cases filed in 2016 by the Greek Catholic Church with the European Court of Human Rights for restitution of churches in Bistrita and Breb remained pending.  In each case, the Church’s complaint concerned court decisions awarding Greek Catholic property to the ROC based on census data showing Greek Catholics as a minority.

Although the government did not issue regulations for implementing new property restitution legislation passed in 2016 that prioritizes cases involving Holocaust survivors, NAPR approved priority status for 160 such applications it had received.  Since the legislation passed, NAPR awarded compensation to Holocaust survivors in 28 cases, rejected the claims in two cases, and requested additional documents for 90 cases.

The SRC had approved 10 pending claims from previous years by the Jewish community as of October – nine through compensation and one through restitution in kind – and rejected 16 others.  In 54 other cases, claimants withdrew their requests.  Religious groups said it was difficult to obtain required documentation from the National Archives demonstrating proof of ownership in time to meet the 120-day deadline to submit the appeal.  Caritatea Foundation stated the SRC continued to avoid assuming responsibility for restitution, preferring to pass decisions on to the courts.  The foundation also continued to state the claims procedure was overly bureaucratic and unreasonable, in particular because the SRC often requested the submission of numerous additional documents, which sometimes were found only in government-managed archives, giving Jewish claimants little time to meet the final extended 120-day deadline for document submission.  Caritatea stated that access to government-managed archives holding the required documents for the restitution process was difficult.

According to Caritatea Foundation, the NCREC issued final approval on two decisions during the year, and 64 decisions issued before 2013 were pending final approval.  According to NAPR, a high workload and insufficient staff and resources were the reasons for the delays

The Reformed, Roman Catholic, Unitarian, and Evangelical Lutheran Churches said the government continued to reject their restitution claims on the grounds the entities registered as the former property owners were not the contemporary churches.  Church leaders said the communist regime had dismantled the former church entities while confiscating their property, meaning the former property owners no longer existed as such but the contemporary churches, as the successors to the dismantled churches, were in effect the same entities whose property the communist regime had seized.  Twelve claims submitted by the Roman Catholic Church were resolved as of year’s end.  The government granted compensation or restitution in kind in five cases and denied seven claims.  The government reviewed five claims submitted by the Reformed Church and denied two others.  During the year, the government reviewed three pending claims of the Unitarian Church.  In one case, the Unitarian Church received compensation; in another case, it received restitution in kind.  The government rejected the third claim.

On July 4, the court rejected the Roman Catholic Church’s appeal of the SRC’s 2015 rejection of its claim for restitution of the Batthyaneum Library and an astronomical institute in Alba Iulia in a preliminary ruling.

The percentage of schoolchildren opting to take religion classes remained at almost 90 percent and, according to media, NGOs, and parents’ associations, continued to be the result of manipulation and pressure by the ROC as well as the failure of school directors to offer parents alternatives to religion classes.  A ministerial order issued in February established that initial requests to take religion classes were valid for the entire study cycle or until students or their legal representatives submitted an alternate request.  A previous ministerial order mandated annual submission of requests to take religion classes.

Minority religious groups, including the Christian Evangelical Church, continued to report authorities allowed only the ROC to play an active role in the annual opening ceremonies at schools and other community events throughout the country and usually did not invite other religious groups to attend such ceremonies.  According to the Christian Evangelical Church, this happened also in cities where their followers had a significant presence such as Sibiu, Suceava, Iasi, and Piatra-Neamt.

Greek Catholic officials and believers stated that during the celebration events dedicated to the country’s centennial celebrations, some local governments had marginalized the Greek Catholic Church and attempted to minimize its role in the country’s history.  In several online petitions, Greek Catholic believers stated that the ROC and government authorities tried to revise the history of the Greek Catholic Church.  In September a group of Greek Catholic believers protested against the dedication of Iuliu Hossu’s bust by a ROC official during an event organized by the local government of Milas Village and the Bistrita Nasaud County Council, and Greek Catholics requested that the inscription on the bust mention Iuliu Hossu’s affiliation with the Greek Catholic Church.  Iuliu Hossu was a Greek-Catholic bishop who had a major role in the unification of Romania and Transylvania in 1918.  Protesters also criticized the decision by the mayor of Cosbuc Village and the Bistrita Nasaud County Council to commemorate Greek Catholic writer George Cosbuc without inviting Greek Catholic priests to attend the event and to have ROC priests dedicate the writer’s bust.

Religious groups reported military chaplains continued to be ROC priests with the exception of one Roman Catholic priest and one pastor from the Evangelical Alliance.

The government-established Wiesel Institute reported prosecution of anti-Semitic speech and Holocaust denial continued to be infrequent.  According to statistics released by the government for the entire year, the national-level Prosecutor General’s Office compiled a list of 42 unresolved cases.  Many of the cases included anti-Semitic elements.  Of those cases, the office sent one case to trial.  Following a complaint by the Wiesel Institute, in 2014 the Bucharest Sector 2 Prosecutor’s Office started the prosecution of the self-declared leader of the Legionary Movement for the public use of fascist, racist, and xenophobic symbols.  He had previously gone to the Wiesel Institute dressed in a uniform of the Legionary Movement, a Romanian fascist interwar organization, and performed the fascist salute while standing in the institute’s courtyard.  According to the Wiesel Institute, the file was still pending before the Prosecutor’s Office at year’s end.

According to the Wiesel Institute, the delay in the prosecution of cases continued due to lengthy investigations.  In February NGO Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism (MCA) received a notification from the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Targu Jiu Court stating the 2014 case based on a complaint from the MCA concerning a lampshade posted for sale online and advertised as being made of “Jewish skin” had been closed in May 2017.  According to forensic investigators, the lampshade was not made of human skin.  The MCA stated in November that it was unacceptable that there were no consequences for the person who posted the advertisement even if the lamp was not made of human skin.

The Wiesel Institute reported local authorities continued to name streets, organizations, schools, and libraries after persons convicted of Nazi-era war crimes or crimes against humanity and to allow the erection of statues and busts depicting persons convicted of war crimes.  By year’s end, the local government in Cluj-Napoca had not changed the name of a street named in 2017 for Radu Gyr, a commander of the Legionnaire movement and apologist for anti-Semitism, who was convicted of war crimes for “contributing to the political aims of Hitlerism and Fascism.”  The Wiesel Institute had asked city authorities to rename the street.  In April 2017, the Wiesel Institute notified the Ministry of Interior about streets, schools, and busts depicting or named after persons convicted for war crimes and requested the ministry to have county prefects take the necessary measures to stop the public worship of war criminals.  At the time, the Ministry of Interior stated they had requested each prefect to analyze each case and take the necessary measures in accordance with the law banning the public worship of war criminals.

In March Romfilatelia, a public company under the national post office, issued a commemorative stamp depicting Patriarch Miron Cristea, who led the ROC between 1925 and 1939 and was prime minister from 1938 to 1939.  As prime minister, Cristea was responsible for revising the citizenship law and stripping approximately 225,000 Jews of their citizenship.  Many of these persons subsequently died during the Holocaust.  The Wiesel Institute publicly asked Romfilatelia to withdraw the stamp, but the company did not respond to the request.

Several government officials made comments that were widely viewed by Jewish organizations as “trivializing” the Holocaust.  Agriculture Minister Petre Daea stated in July on Antena 3 news channel that the incineration of pigs in response to a swine flu outbreak was similar to what happened at Auschwitz.  In a press statement, the Wiesel Institute said Daea’s statement “was a trivializing comparison between the slaughter of pigs and the extermination of Jews during WW2.”  The minister did not retract his comment, stating in a press release, “I respect all the members of the Jewish community and I want to point out that I just wanted to present the very difficult situation that swine breeders are facing because of the African swine fever.”

On September 2, an advisor to Prime Minister Darius Valcov posted a video clip on his Facebook page depicting the German Democrat Forum, an organization of ethnic Germans in the country, as a National Socialist organization and compared the country’s president, Klaus Iohannis, to Adolf Hitler.  The ethnic German and Jewish communities, the Wiesel Institute, several NGOs, and opposition political figures condemned Valcov’s behavior, and some called for his resignation.  The president of the Jewish community issued a press statement that stated, “We cannot accept a comparison between Mr. President Klaus Werner Iohannis and one of the greatest criminals in history.  Mister Iohannis is the opposite of a person with Nazi, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic beliefs.”

The government continued to implement the recommendations of the 2004 International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania (Wiesel Commission) Report and to cooperate with the USHMM in promoting Holocaust education.  The Wiesel Institute continued to organize training sessions for history teachers, carry out educational activities for students, and inform the public about the Holocaust.

The government continued to state its commitment to cooperate with the USHMM to promote Holocaust education; however, observers said the general history curricula continued not to provide a mandatory class on the country’s Holocaust history.  The high school course “History of the Jews – The Holocaust” remained optional.

The government also facilitated USHMM access to the country’s national archives.  Archival institutions such as the Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives continued implementing cooperation agreements with the USHMM and provided the museum copies of historical records.

On December 6, the Bucharest Tribunal rescinded the Bucharest City Council’s decision to transfer a building to the Wiesel Institute for the future Museum of Jewish History and the Holocaust.  An individual challenged the council’s decision, stating that the council had not met procedural criteria and the intended museum lacked merit.  In September the Wiesel Institute had launched a public tender for the design of the new Jewish history museum’s permanent exhibition.  In 2017 the Wiesel Institute took possession of a building in central Bucharest transferred to it by the Bucharest General Council to build the museum.

Pursuant to its pledge to implement the recommendations of the Wiesel Commission report, the government again commemorated the annual National Holocaust Remembrance Day on October 9, marking the day when Romanian authorities began deporting the country’s Jews to Transnistria, with a wreath-laying ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial in Bucharest.  In his remarks, the president referred to anti-Semitism and Holocaust-era legislation, stating, “Such policies are today unconceivable for a society strongly attached to democratic principles and rule of law.  Discrimination against a minority who does not hold the same beliefs, values, religion, or origin as the majority is an approach that reminds us of the dark years of dictatorships….Many European democracies are facing extremism, populism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia and for this reason, our country will act against these toxic scourges.”

The Wiesel Institute continued to organize training courses on the history of the Holocaust for teachers, police officers, and other professionals.  In September the Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched a project called “The Romanian National Expert Network on Genocide Prevention and Multidisciplinary Research on Mass Graves,” aimed at bringing together prosecutors, criminal investigators, police officers, forensic experts, historians, and other professionals to promote research of mass graves and genocide prevention.  In July the president promulgated the law on countering anti-Semitism, criminalizing the promotion of anti-Semitic ideas and the establishment of anti-Semitic organizations.  ActiveWatch NGO asked the president not to promulgate the law, arguing that it does not focus on prevention, duplicates current legislation that prosecutors have never adequately enforced, and does not respect the proportionality between the restriction on free speech and the need to counter anti-Semitism.  Jewish organizations said they favored the new law.  Self-defined far-right groups criticized the law and argued there was no antisemitism in the country.

The country is a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

According to non-Orthodox religious groups, ROC priests continued not to allow them to bury their dead in ROC or public cemeteries or otherwise continued to restrict such burials by requiring the burials take place in isolated sections of a cemetery or follow Orthodox rituals during the funeral services.  The Seventh-day Adventist Church reported two such cases in villages in Moldova and Oltenia historical regions where the ROC priests did not allow them to bury the deceased in the local cemetery, forcing them to find another cemetery.  The Christian Evangelical Church said such cases continued; however, they said local contacts would not provide the details because they feared ROC reprimands.  Non-Orthodox religious groups continued to report difficulties in obtaining land to establish cemeteries.

According to Greek Catholic leaders, the ROC, in conjunction with local authorities, continued to deny the Greek Catholic Church access to the ROC cemetery in Sapanta, which had previously belonged to the Greek Catholic Church.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church reported the Body of Expert and Licensed Accountants of Romania continued to schedule exams on Saturdays without providing the option for Seventh-day Adventist students to take the exams on another day.

A study released by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in October, based on a survey carried out among middle school and high school teachers, found that 32.4 percent of the teachers did not want persons belonging to a different religion as neighbors.  Twenty-two percent of the respondents rated Marshall Ion Antonescu’s efforts to help his country as “good to very good.”  Antonescu was the country’s leader during most of the Second World War and the primary individual responsible for implementing the Holocaust in the country.

On November 5, in the village of Tataraseni, Botosani County, 25 students from the Tataraseni public school participated together with three teachers at a wreath-laying ceremony on the bust of Antonescu located on private property.  The Elie Wiesel Institute filed a complaint before the country school inspectorate; at year’s end, the Institute had not received a response from the government.

According to UNHCR, local media outlets depicted largely Muslim refugees as a threat because of their religion.  Conspiracy theories and antagonistic speech against Muslims appeared frequently on social networks.

Material promoting anti-Semitic views and glorifying Legionnaires also appeared in media, including on the internet.  In February the Justitiarul.ro news website published an article claiming that Zionist Jews had a secret plan to colonize the country.

On August 3, an individual painted anti-Semitic and other offensive messages on the childhood home of Auschwitz survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel in Sighetu Marmatiei, including, “The Nazi kike rests in hell together with Hitler.”  The local office of the national police and the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Court of Sighetul Marmației started an investigation of the incident for the destruction of property and anti-Semitic acts.  By year’s end, authorities identified one suspect and ordered his psychiatric evaluation.  Police did not release the name of the suspect, but according to press reports, the individual, Iustin Creanga, was schizophrenic.

At year’s end, the case involving the destruction in 2017 of 10 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in Bucharest was still pending before the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Sector 4 Bucharest Court.  According to the MCA, in April 2017, vandals destroyed the tombstones.  Police identified three juveniles allegedly responsible for the crime.  Although the vandalism took place on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the police investigation found the perpetrators had acted without a specific motive.  Jewish organizations did not publicly comment on the case.

At year’s end, an investigation regarding anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial messages painted on the external wall of a synagogue in Cluj-Napoca remained pending before the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Court of Cluj-Napoca.  In June 2017, the Jewish community in Cluj-Napoca notified police about the messages painted on a wall of the Memorial Temple of Deported Jews synagogue.

According to a Pew survey, 29 percent of respondents were willing to accept Muslims as family members, while 39 percent would accept Jews as family members.  Seventy-four percent of respondents said it was very important or somewhat important to be a Christian to be truly part of the country’s national identity.

Verbal attacks during the year holding a foreign Jewish philanthropist responsible for domestic problems had anti-Semitic connotations.  Politicians and the media ascribed negative actions to him, such as controlling an “invisible army” and paying for activities of opposition parties.

The U.S. government estimates the total population at 142.2 million (July 2018 estimate).  A 2015-2016 poll by the Pew Research Center reported 71 percent of the population is Orthodox, while 10 percent identify as Muslim.  Religious groups constituting less than 5 percent of the population each include Buddhists, Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, members of the Church of Jesus Christ, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus, Baha’is, members of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), pagans, Tengrists, Scientologists, and Falun Gong practitioners.  The 2010 census estimates the number of Jews at 150,000; however, the RJC stated in October that the actual Jewish population is nearly one and a half million, most of whom live in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  Immigrants and migrant workers from Central Asia are mostly Muslim.  The majority of Muslims live in the Volga Ural region and the North Caucasus.  Moscow, St. Petersburg, and parts of Siberia also have sizable Muslim populations.

Legal Framework

The constitution stipulates the state is secular and provides for religious freedom, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religious worship, including the right to “profess, individually or jointly with others, any religion, or to profess no religion.”  It provides the right of citizens “to freely choose, possess, and disseminate religious or other beliefs, and to act in conformity with them,” and provides equality of rights and liberties regardless of attitude toward religion.  The constitution also bans any limitation of human rights on religious grounds and prohibits actions inciting religious hatred and strife.  The constitution states all religious associations are equal and separate from the state.  The law acknowledges Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism as the country’s four “traditional” religions, constituting an inseparable part of the country’s historical heritage.  The law recognizes the “special contribution” of Russian Orthodox Christianity to the country’s history as well as to the establishment and development of its spirituality and culture.

The law states the government may restrict religious rights only to the degree necessary to protect the constitutional structure and security of the government; the morality, health, rights, and legal interests of persons; or the defense of the country.  It is a violation of the law to force another person to disclose his or her opinion of a religion, or to participate or not participate in worship, other religious ceremonies, the activities of a religious association, or religious instruction.

The law states those who violate religious freedom will be “held liable under criminal, administrative, and other legislation.”  The administrative code and the criminal code both punish obstruction of the right to freedom of conscience and belief with imprisonment of up to three years and fines of up to 200,000 rubles ($2,900) or 500,000 rubles ($7,200), depending upon which code governs the offense.

Incitement of “religious discord” is punishable by up to four years in prison.  Under the criminal code, maximum fines and prison sentences for “actions directed to incite hatred or enmity” on the basis of religion may be punished by fines of 300,000 to 500,000 rubles ($4,300 to $7,200), compulsory labor for up to four years, or imprisonment for up to five years.  If these actions are committed with violence by a person with official status (a term which applies to anyone working for the government or state-owned entities, as well as people in management roles at commercial or nongovernment entities), or by a group of individuals, the punishment is 300,000 to 600,000 rubles ($4,300 to $8,600), compulsory labor for up to five years, or imprisonment for up to six years.

The law criminalizes offending the religious feelings of believers; actions “in public demonstrating clear disrespect for society and committed with the intent to insult the religious feelings of believers” are subject to fines of up to 300,000 rubles ($4,300), compulsory labor for up to one year, or imprisonment for up to one year.  If these actions are committed in places of worship, the punishment is a fine of up to 500,000 rubles ($7,200), compulsory labor for up to three years, or a prison sentence of up to three years.

By law, officials may prohibit the activity of a religious association on grounds such as violating public order or engaging in “extremist activity.”  The law criminalizes a broad spectrum of activities as extremism, including incitement to “religious discord” and “assistance to extremism,” but the law does not precisely define extremism or require that an activity include an element of violence or hatred to be classified as extremism.

Being a member of a banned religious association designated as extremist is punishable by up to six years in prison for individuals and up to 12 years for persons with official status.  First time offenders who willingly forsake their membership in banned religious organizations are exempt from criminal liability if they committed no other crimes.

Local laws in several regions, including Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan, ban “extremist Islamic Wahhabism” in the territories of these republics but do not define the term.  Administrative penalties are applied for violating these laws.

A Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling criminalized the activity of Jehovah’s Witnesses as “extremist” and banned their activities.  The court’s ruling says that the constitution guarantees freedom of religious beliefs, but this right is limited by other rights, including the “existing civil peace and agreement.”

The law creates three categories of religious associations with different levels of legal status and privileges:  groups, local organizations, and centralized organizations.  Religious groups or organizations may be subject to legal dissolution or deprivation of legal status by a court decision on grounds including violations of standards set forth in the constitution or public security.

The “religious group” is the most basic unit and does not require registration with the state; however, when a group first starts its activities, it must notify authorities in the “location of the religious group activity,” typically the regional Ministry of Justice (MOJ) office.  A religious group may conduct worship services and rituals (but the law does not specify where or how) and teach religion to its members.  It does not have legal status to open a bank account, own property, issue invitations to foreign guests, publish literature, receive tax benefits, or conduct worship services in prisons, state-owned hospitals, or the armed forces.  Individual members of a group may invite foreigners as personal guests to engage in religious instruction, and may import religious material.  According to the law, a religious group may use property bought for the group’s use by its members, or residential property owned or rented by its members, or public spaces rented by its members, to hold services.

A “local religious organization” (LRO) may register with the MOJ if it has at least 10 citizen members who are 18 or older and are permanent local residents.  LROs have legal status and may open bank accounts, own property, issue invitation letters to foreign guests, publish literature, receive tax benefits, and conduct worship services in prisons, hospitals, and the armed forces.  “Centralized religious organizations” (CROs) may register with the MOJ at the regional or federal level by combining at least three LROs of the same denomination.  In addition to having the same legal rights as LROs, CROs also may open new LROs without a waiting period.

To register as an LRO or CRO, an association must provide the following:  a list of the organization’s founders and governing body, with addresses and passport information; the organization’s charter; the minutes of the founding meeting; certification from the CRO (in the case of LROs); a description of the organization’s doctrine, practices, history, and attitudes towards family, marriage, and education; the organization’s legal address; a certificate of payment of government dues; and a charter or registration papers of the governing body in the case of organizations whose main offices are located abroad.  Authorities may deny registration for reasons including incorrect paperwork, failure to meet different administrative requirements, national security reasons, or placement on the list of extremist or terrorist organizations.  Denial of registration may be appealed in court.  The law imposes reporting requirements on CROs and LROs receiving funding from abroad.  They are required to report an account of their activities, a list of leaders, the source of foreign funding, and plans for how the organization intends to use any funds or property obtained through foreign funding.  Reports are annual by default, but the MOJ may require additional ad hoc reports.

Foreign religious organizations (those created outside of the country under foreign laws) have the right to open offices for representational purposes, either independently or as part of religious organizations previously established in the country, but they may not form or found their own religious organizations in the country and may not operate houses of worship.  Foreign religious organizations able to obtain the required number of local adherents may register as local religious organizations.

The government (the MOJ or the Prosecutor General’s Office) oversees a religious organization’s compliance with the law and may review its financial and registration-related documents when conducting an inspection or investigation.  The government may send representatives (with advance notice) to attend a religious association’s events, conduct an annual review of compliance with the association’s mission statement on file with the government, and review its religious literature to decide whether the literature is extremist.  The law contains ongoing reporting requirements on financial and economic activity, funding sources, and compliance with antiterrorist and anti-extremist legislation.  The government may obtain a court order to close those associations that do not comply with reporting or other legal requirements.

The law allows the government to limit the places where prayer and public religious observance may be conducted without prior approval.  LROs and CROs may conduct religious services and ceremonies without prior approval in buildings, lands, and facilities owned or rented by these associations, as well as in cemeteries, crematoria, places of pilgrimage, and living quarters.  Baptism ceremonies in rivers and lakes, as well as services conducted in parks, open spaces, or courtyards, do not fall under this exemption.  In these cases, LROs and CROs must seek government approval at least one week in advance and provide the government with the names of organizers and participants as well as copies of any written materials to be used at the event.

A Ministry of Defense chaplaincy program requires members of a religious group to comprise at least 10 percent of a military unit before an official chaplain of that group is appointed.  Chaplains are not enlisted or commissioned, but are classified as assistants to the commander.  Chaplains are full-time employees of the Ministry of Defense, paid out of the defense budget.  The program allows for chaplains from the four traditional religions only, and calls for at least 250 chaplains.

Federal law, as amended by the so-called Yarovaya Package passed in 2016, defines missionary activity as the sharing of one’s beliefs with persons of another faith or nonbelievers with the aim of involving these individuals in the “structure” of the religious association.  According to the law, in order to share beliefs outside of officially sanctioned sites (which include buildings owned by a religious organization, buildings whose owners have given permission for activities to take place, pilgrimage destinations, cemeteries and crematoria, and indoor spaces of educational organizations historically used for religious ceremonies), an individual must have a document authorizing the individual to share beliefs from a religious group or registered organization.  This letter must be provided to the authorities and the individual must carry a copy of it.  The law explicitly bans any beliefs from being shared in residential buildings without such documentation (unless in the form of a religious service, rite, or ceremony), or on another organization’s property without permission from that organization.  Materials disseminated by missionaries must be marked with the name of the religious association providing the authorization.

Engaging in missionary activity prohibited by law carries a fine of 5,000 to 50,000 rubles ($72 to $720) for individuals and 100,000 to 1,000,000 rubles ($1,400 to $14,400) for legal entities (which includes both LROs and CROs).  Foreign citizens or stateless persons who violate restrictions on missionary activities may be fined 30,000 to 50,000 rubles ($430 to $720) and are subject to administrative deportation.

Several regional governments have their own restrictions on missionary activity.

Republics in the North Caucasus have varying policies on wearing the hijab in public schools.  Hijabs are banned in public schools in Stavropol and Mordovia, rulings that have been upheld by the Supreme Court.  The law in Chechnya permits schoolgirls to wear hijabs.

The law does not provide precise criteria on how written religious materials may be classified as “extremist.”  Within the MOJ, the Scientific Advisory Board reviews religious materials for extremism.  Composed of academics and representatives of the four traditional religions, the board reviews materials referred to it by judicial or law enforcement authorities, private citizens, or organizations.  If the board identifies material as extremist, it issues a nonbinding advisory opinion, which is then published on the MOJ website and forwarded to the prosecutor’s office for further investigation.  In addition to the Scientific Advisory Board, regional experts also may review religious materials for extremism.  In 2009 the MOJ established the Expert Religious Studies Council and gave it wide powers to investigate religious organizations.  Some of the council’s powers include reviewing organizations’ activities and literature and determining whether an organization is “extremist.”  The council also advises the MOJ on the issue of giving religious organization status to a religious group.

Prosecutors may take material to a court and ask the court to declare it extremist, but materials introduced in court during the consideration of administrative, civil, or criminal cases may also be declared extremist sua sponte (i.e., of the court’s own accord).  By law, publications declared extremist by a federal court are automatically added to the federal list of extremist materials.  Courts may order internet service providers to block access to websites containing materials included on the federal list of extremist materials.  There is no legal procedure for removal from the list even if a court declares an item no longer classified as extremist, but lists are reviewed and re-issued on a regular basis and publications may be dropped from lists.  The law makes it illegal to declare the key texts (holy books) of the four traditional religions – the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, Quran, and Tibetan Buddhist Kangyur (Kanjur) – to be extremist.

According to the administrative code, mass distribution, production, and possession with the aim of mass distribution of extremist materials by private individuals may result in 15 days’ imprisonment or a fine of 1,000 to 3,000 rubles ($14 to $43), or 2,000 to 5,000 rubles ($29 to $72) for public officials, as well as the confiscation of these materials.  Courts may suspend for 90 days the operations of legal entities found to be in possession of extremist materials and fine them 100,000 to 1,000,000 rubles ($1,400 to $14,400).  Individuals who produce materials later deemed extremist may not be punished retroactively but must cease production and distribution of those materials.

The law allows the transfer of state and municipal property of religious significance to religious organizations, including land, buildings, and movable property.  The law grants religious organizations using state historical property for religious purposes the right to use such state property indefinitely.  The law prohibits the transfer of living quarters for religious use and the use of living quarters for missionary activity, unless the activity is a part of a “religious service, rite, or ceremony.”

In July the State Duma adopted, and on August 3 the president signed, a new law allowing religious organizations to use buildings that were not originally authorized for religious purposes to be used as such if they were part of a property which served a religious purpose.  The law allows, for example, a group to establish a Sunday school in a warehouse on the property of a church.  If a structure (i.e. the warehouse) does not meet legal requirements and is not made legal by submitting proper paperwork by 2030, it would be destroyed.

Religious education or civil ethics classes are compulsory in all public and private secondary schools.  Students may choose to take a course on one of the four traditional religions, a general world religions course, or a secular ethics course.  Regional and municipal departments of education oversee this curriculum at the local level in accordance with their capacity to offer the courses, and according to the religious makeup of the given location.  There is no requirement for representatives of religious organizations to be licensed to conduct religious education in Sunday schools and home schooling.  Religious instructors in any other state or private school must be licensed to teach religious courses.

The Office of the Director of Religious Issues within the Office of the Federal Human Rights Ombudsman handles complaints about the government’s actions on religious freedom.  The ombudsman may intercede on behalf of those who submit complaints; however, the ombudsman may not compel other government bodies to act or directly intervene in complaints not addressed to the government.

The law entitles individuals and organizations to take religious freedom cases to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.  The state must pay compensation to a person whose rights were violated as determined by the ECHR and ensure his or her rights are restored to the extent possible.  The Constitutional Court determines whether judgments by international and regional courts, including the ECHR, are consistent with the constitution.

There is compulsory military service for men, but the constitution provides for alternative service for those who refuse to bear arms for reasons of conscience, including religious belief.  The standard military service period is 12 months, while alternative service is 18 months in a Ministry of Defense agency or 21 months in a nondefense agency.  Failure to perform alternative service is punishable under the criminal code, with penalties ranging from an 80,000 ruble ($1,100) fine to six months in prison.

By law, religious associations may not participate in political campaigns or the activity of political parties or movements, or provide material or other aid to political groups.  This restriction applies to religious associations and not to their individual members.

The ROC and all members of the Public Chamber (a state institution established in 2005 and made up of representatives of public associations) are granted the opportunity to review draft legislation pending before the State Duma on a case-by-case basis.  No formal mechanism exists for permanent representation of religious organizations in the Public Chamber, but individuals from both traditional religions and others may be selected to serve on the Chamber, first by the president, then subsequently the selectees themselves select additional members to serve in the group.  The Duma passed legislation in 2007 barring any member of an organization who had been accused of extremism from serving on the Public Chamber.

The law states foreigners or stateless individuals whose presence in the country is deemed “undesirable” are forbidden to become founders, members, or active participants in the activities of religious organizations.  The same is true for individuals whose activities are deemed extremist by the courts or who are subject to prosecution under the law on combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism.  The Duma passed a bill in September restricting any foreign citizen or person without citizenship from entering the country if he or she “participates in the activities of the organizations included in the list of organizations and individuals in respect of whom there is information about their involvement in extremist activities or terrorism[.]”

Religious work is not permitted on humanitarian visas, nor are there missionary visas.  Those engaging in religious work require both a contract with a legally registered religious organization and a work visa.

Under the criminal code, an individual convicted of committing an act of vandalism motivated by religious hatred or enmity may be sentenced to up to three years of compulsory labor or prison.

The country is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Government Practices

Reports indicated authorities continued to physically abuse individuals on account of their religious beliefs or affiliation.  For instance, authorities detained Eduard Nizamov, the purported head of the Russian branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, in Kazan on October 11, and, according to Memorial, beat and verbally abused him while in pretrial detention.  He was charged with organizing a terrorist organization.  Hizb ut Tahrir remained banned by the government as a terrorist organization, but according to Memorial, it was a “non-violent international Islamic organization.”  On October 12, the Vakhitovsky District Court of Kazan ordered Nizamov detained until November 21.  Nizamov refused to testify, and remained in detention at year’s end.  At the same time, authorities arrested Ildar Akhmetzyanov and Raisa Gimadeev as alleged leaders of the Hizb ut-Tahrir regional group in Tatarstan, and also charged them with organizing a terrorist organization, according to Memorial.

According to Memorial, in December the North Caucasian Military District Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Crimean Tatar Remzi Memetov to 17 years in a penal colony.  The court also sentenced Crimean Tatar Enver Mamutov, Rustem Abiltarov, and Zevri Abseitov to nine years each in a penal colony.  The four were arrested in Crimea, Ukraine in 2016, accused of belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir and “preparing for the violent overthrow of the constitutional order,” and transported to Russia.  Human Rights advocates noted that the case appeared to be retaliation against these men for their opposition to Russia’s occupation of Crimea.

Memorial reported that in December Babushkinsky district court in Moscow found eight Muslims guilty of “organization and participation in an extremist organization” for their involvement in Tablighi Jamaat, an organization designated by the Supreme Court as “extremist” which Memorial characterized as an international Islamic missionary movement.  The district court sentenced the men to prison terms ranging from four to six and a half years.

In its annual October report, Memorial published a list of political prisoners in the country, which included 177 persons persecuted for their religious beliefs or affiliation (meaning they were in custody or under arrest and being criminally prosecuted) – more than double the previous year’s figure of 70.  The report stated that none of the persons on the list used violence, called for violence, or planned violent acts.  The majority of persons included in Memorial’s list were Muslims.  Memorial also published a separate list of approximately 240 people in detention as of the end of the year for alleged involvement with the banned organization Hizb ut-Tahrir.

According to the international religious freedom NGO Forum 18, the government continued to restrict the exercise of freedom of religion during the year.  Forum 18 found that authorities continued to pursue multiple cases against Muslims on extremism charges for reading the works of the Turkish theologian Said Nursi, many of which were banned as extremist.  On August 21, the NGO reported that three Muslims were on trial or under investigation, and another three were sentenced to prison terms for being members of “Nurdzhular,” an organization reportedly based on Nursi’s teachings banned as extremist by the authorities.  Experts from the SOVA Center continued to maintain that “Nurdzhular” did not actually exist in the country.

Forum 18 reported that on August 14, a Krasnoyarsk court handed Sabirzhon Kabirzoda a two-year suspended sentence for “extremism” after participating in a meeting to study Nursi’s works.  FSB (Federal Security Service) “experts” said he had incited religious hatred by comparing Muslims to non-Muslims.  According to the NGO, a suspended sentence could include a travel ban and voting restrictions.  District court staff, however, told Forum 18 they were not “authorized” to specify the conditions of the court’s decision.  In the town of Sharypovo, criminal cases against Andrei Rekst in Krasnoyarsk and Yevgeny Sukharev in connection with reading Nursi’s teachings were ongoing at year’s end.  Andrei Dedkov of Krasnoyarsk, also an alleged member of Nurdzhular, was released in July after paying a 250,000 ruble ($3,600) fine for organizing the activity of a banned religious organization in connection with extremism.  Prosecutors lodged an appeal in June and argued for a longer jail sentence.

The ECHR found in August that court decisions to prohibit Nursi’s books violated the guarantee of the right to freedom of expression contained in the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.  It ruled that the country’s courts did not provide sufficient and relevant grounds for interfering with the applicants’ right to freedom of expression and that their intervention could not be considered necessary in a democratic society.  The court further ruled that the government should pay one of the plaintiffs 7,500 euros ($8,600) in compensation for non-pecuniary damages.  As of year’s end, the government had not acted on the ECHR ruling.

The SOVA Center, Memorial, and the media reported that during the year at least six Muslims were serving prison terms on charges connected to reading Nursi’s work:  Ziyavdin Dapayev was serving a four-year term; brothers Sukhrab and Artur Kaltuyev three year terms; Yevgeny Lvovich Kim, a three year, nine-months term; Ilgar Aliyev an eight-year term after losing his appeal in July.  On June 29, a court sentenced Komil Odilov to two years in prison.

The media reported official harassment against Muslims.  In October police officers wearing masks and fatigues surrounded approximately 100 Muslims exiting a mosque in Mytishi, Moscow Oblast.  The police told the crowd they were not arresting anyone, but detained them on a bus for five hours.  The worshipers were subsequently released without explanation.

In December the NGO Free Russia Forum said that during the year “the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses reached mass levels.”  A report by Jehovah’s Witnesses stated that police, Special Purpose Police Unit (OMON) forces, and Federal Security Service (FSB) personnel raided the homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses during the year.  During these raids authorities reportedly entered homes, sometimes by forcing the door open; conducted unauthorized and illegal searches; failed to declare their purpose or show a court order; ordered people (including children and the elderly) around at gunpoint and pushed them to the floor or against the wall; seized personal belongings, including mobile phones, tablets, Bibles and Bible-related literature, documents, and money; brought adults and children to police stations for interrogation; and charged some with extremist activity and held them in pretrial custody.

According to Jehovah’s Witnesses, at 7:00 A.M. on July 4 in Omsk, police forces raided the homes of at least four Witnesses and searched their houses, land plots, outbuildings, and vehicles until the late afternoon.  In one instance, a couple was asleep when the police invaded their home.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses stated that although the husband offered no resistance, the police beat him severely.

From January through April authorities raided the homes of more than 45 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Shuya, Vladivostok, Polyarny, Zaton, Oryol, Belogorod and Kemerovo, according to the official Jehovah’s Witnesses’ website jw.org.  This was twice the number reported during the corresponding period in 2017.  In May Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that a Jehovah’s Witnesses spokesman said that 150 law enforcement personnel raided more than 20 Witnesses home in Birobidzhan in the Jewish Autonomous Region on May 16.

The Investigative Committee, the FSB, and officers of the Interior Ministry’s Center for Countering Extremism carried out raids on Jehovah’s Witnesses in 22 regions between January and August.  As of year’s end, 79 Jehovah’s Witnesses were subject to criminal investigations, according to Forum 18.  Of these, 22 were in pretrial detention, 17 were under house arrest, and 30 were under travel restrictions.  According to Jehovah’s Witnesses, authorities detained 72 individuals during the year, including minors.

According to the SOVA Center, in October alone, authorities arrested two Jehovah’s Witnesses in Smolensk and another five in Kirov, ordered two who had been arrested in April in Murmansk to remain in detention, and told seven not to leave Orenburg.  In the same month, authorities began auctioning Jehovah’s Witnesses’ properties in Krasnodar, Tatarstan, and Buryatia, and voided initiatives by Jehovah’s Witnesses to transfer properties to foreign affiliates.

International media reported that Denis Christensen, a Danish citizen and elder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Oryol Congregation who was detained in May 2017, remained in detention and on trial in Oryol’s Railway District Court at year’s end for “extremist activity.”  According to Forum 18, between October 2017 and September 2018 Christensen appeared in court 38 times.

On February 14, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Ruslan Sokolovsky, a blogger from Yekaterinburg, who was arrested in 2016 for “inciting enmity and hatred” and “offending the feelings of believers” by playing the game Pokemon Go in an Orthodox church and posting antireligious videos online.  In 2017, the Sverdlovsk District Court on appeal upheld his conviction of incitement to hatred and offense of religious feelings but overturned his convictions on other charges and reduced his suspended prison sentence to two years and three months.

According to COS representatives and media, in October authorities extended through February 2019 the detention of Ivan Matsitsky and Sahib Aliyev, director and accountant, respectively, of the St. Petersburg branch of the COS.  Matsitsky and Aliyev were arrested in June 2017 along with three other COS St. Petersburg leaders as part of a probe into what police said was possible “illegal entrepreneurship” (i.e., selling religious books), incitement of hatred, and organizing an extremist conspiracy.  As of the year’s end, two other defendants in the case remain under house arrest, and one was released from house arrest in June but remained under investigation.  Authorities continued to refuse to register the St. Petersburg and Moscow COS branches as religious organizations despite a 2014 ECHR ruling that the government’s refusal was a violation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

According to the Russian Legal Information Agency, the government opened a criminal case in April against one of the COS leaders in St. Petersburg, who was alleged to have laundered 17 million rubles ($244,000), but the agency did not name the individual.

Imam Makhmud Velitov of Moscow’s Yardam Mosque filed a case with the ECHR in October 2017 related to his conviction in 2017 on terrorism charges for advocating the “doctrine of political Islam” of the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization.  The ECHR communicated the complaint to the government in January and in October the government asked the ECHR to reject the case.  The ECHR’s decision remained pending at year’s end.

In January the Kurgan Regional Court dismissed a prosecutor’s appeal of the acquittal of Imam Ali Yakupov of the Kurgan Mosque, who was charged in 2015 with inciting hatred for comments he allegedly made saying God would punish Chinese Communists for prohibiting hijabs.  According to the SOVA Center, the court found that the case had already been thoroughly investigated by lower courts.

In January the Magistrate Court of Sochi dismissed a case against Viktor Nochevnova, who was found guilty in 2017 of insulting the feelings of believers and fined 50,000 rubles ($720) for reposting seven cartoon depictions of Jesus on his social media VKontakte page.

Maria Motuznaya, from Barnaul, was put on trial on August 6 for publishing two side-by-side images on her VKontakte page, one depicting Jesus Christ expelling cigarette smoke through a hole in his palm, and another depicting a religious procession along a broken road, accompanied by the comment, “Two main evils of Russia.”  The government charged her with “demeaning the dignity of race and insulting the feelings of believers.”  On October 9, a court returned the case to the prosecutor for further development.  The case remained pending at year’s end.  According to the SOVA Center, Motuznaya said in October she had left the country for Ukraine, and intended to seek political asylum abroad.

According to the Ministry of Justice, at the end of the year there were 31,054 registered religious organizations in Russia, most of which were ROC-affiliated.

In some cases it was difficult for minority religious organizations to obtain state registration.  In September the SOVA Center reported that the parish of St. Maria Gatchinskaya in the Leningrad Region convinced the city court to invalidate the MOJ’s opinion blocking its registration as a religious organization.  While the court directed the MOJ to reconsider the registration, it refused to require the MOJ to register the parish.  The parish belonged to the Suzdal Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church, which is not affiliated with the ROC.

Media, NGOs, and religious minorities reported continued efforts by authorities to dissolve minority religious associations, often on the grounds they were conducting “extremist” activity.

The SOVA Center, the NGO Human Rights Without Frontiers International, and religious groups said the Expert Religious Studies Council members lacked appropriate academic and religious credentials to advise the MOJ about which groups should be permitted to register as religious organizations or to review an organization’s literature and activities to determine whether the organization was “extremist.”  In June the Expert Religious Studies Council recommended the MOJ deny religious organization status to the “Community of Slavic Faith on Vyatka (Kirovskaya).”

The government continued to restrict missionary activity, with officials often citing concerns about missionaries being sources of foreign influence.  For example, according to the SOVA Center, in July in Bryansk Region, Vitaly Boksha, a Baptist layperson, was fined for “illegal” missionary work occurring on May 15, when the court said he gave neighbors literature describing evangelical Baptist beliefs.  Neighbors stated that they received the literature, but did not attend a service at the church.  On July 3, the Mglinsky District Court convicted Boksha and fined him 5,000 rubles ($72).  Boksha filed an appeal with the regional court, and in August the higher court vacated the conviction and fine.

Representatives of minority religious associations and NGOs continued to state that the Yarovaya Package, enacted for the stated purpose of enhancing the country’s antiterrorism capability, was employed by authorities to limit religious freedom.  They said the broad definition of “missionary activity” in the legislation meant it included not only proselytizing, but also disseminating religious materials, preaching, and engaging in interfaith discussions about religion, including in private residences, without prior authorization.  In April Forum 18 said the legal framework for an individual exercising his or her beliefs outside a designated place of worship was unclear and that the authorities applied the law inconsistently.  Forum 18 stated, “This imposes a large burden on individuals and organizations in fines, legal costs, and bureaucratic hurdles – particularly for smaller religious communities.”  In April ISKCON attorney Mikhail Frolov told Forum 18, “The fines are large, and where the boundaries of lawful behavior lie is incomprehensible….  [E]veryone has become much more cautious in their public actions.  The public activity of religious associations has decreased noticeably.”  In April Pentecostal Union attorney Vladimir Ozolin told Forum 18 that “religious associations are also worried because they do not know how to profess their religion now and share it with others without violating the law.  Churches face extra problems here, because no one knows what the permission to carry out missionary activity should look like – its form has not been established by law.  In addition, state bodies do not conduct explanatory work and do not use warnings, but immediately issue fines.”

Forum 18 said authorities were pursuing more cases under the missionary provisions of the Yarovaya Package and fewer cases using laws regarding procedures for “gathering, meeting, demonstration, procession or picket” during the year, thus yielding potentially larger fines of up to 50,000 rubles ($720).  According to the SOVA Center, the government prosecuted 42 legal entities and 105 individuals during the first six months of the year for missionary activity.  In its December report, Free Russia Forum said that in 2017 (the most recent data available) the courts received approximately 488 cases of illegal missionary activity, sentenced 274 people, and imposed fines totaling 3,594,700 rubles ($51,600).  According to Forum 18, in 2017 (the most recent data available) religious communities and individuals prosecuted for missionary activity included Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Baptist Union, the Council of Churches, ISKCON, Muslims, individuals associated with the Bible distribution organization the Gideons, Seventh-day Adventists, Hindus, a Kabbalah teacher, the New Apostolic Church, and the ROC Abroad.  Authorities reportedly charged individuals with unauthorized missionary activity for activities such as holding prayer meetings at home, posting worship times on a religious community’s website, and giving a lecture on yoga.  Forum 18 reported courts often imposed the minimum fines for first time offenses and larger fines for repeat offenses.

Free Russia Forum said that in 2018 authorities began using new means to restrict so-called missionary activity, including confiscating and demolishing Protestant houses of worship and restricting leaders of certain religious communities from entering the country.  According to the SOVA Center, in one instance the Russian Border Service denied entry to Evgeny Peresvotov, a Ukrainian national and pastor of the Russian Christian Center “Vosstanovleniye.”

According to Forum 18, in March the Constitutional Court issued a partial clarification of the Yarovaya Package amendment on missionary activity.  The court ruled that providing information about religious events would constitute an “offense” only if it were aimed at attracting people who were not already members of the religious organization.

Religious minorities said local authorities continued to use the country’s anti-extremism laws to ban sacred religious texts and other books relating to religion, other than the four holy books recognized by law – the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, Quran, and Kanjur.

According to the SOVA Center, during the first half of the year, authorities added several Islamic and Jehovah’s Witnesses texts to the MOJ’s list of extremist materials.  The list grew to 4,514 entries by October, reflecting a slightly smaller increase than in 2017.  During the first six months of the year, authorities imposed 1,133 sanctions for distribution of extremist materials, compared to 1,846 imposed in all of 2017.  The SOVA Center also noted 24 cases through November 1 of prosecutors sanctioning library staff of schools, training centers, and prisons for being noncompliant with the Federal List of Extremist Materials.  According to Forum 18, in some cases, those in charge of places of worship and other public or semipublic spaces were often held responsible for distribution of banned religious publications, which could have been left at the site by anyone at any time, even before the ban.

In February the SOVA Center reported that the local prosecutor’s office in Kabardino-Balkaria Republic sent four cases to the court in order to restrict access to Jehovah’s Witnesses’ websites.  The office noted that the sites included “various sections, publications, magazines, books, videos, [and] news about the religious organization.”  Seventh-day Adventist lawyer Vasily Nichik told Forum 18 a month later that Nizhny Novgorod was “among the foremost in terms of persecution in the field of religious freedoms,” and added, “In these matters, very often everything depends on the personalities within the system.”

According to Forum 18, since 2017 authorities levied several fines or imposed other rulings against Jesus Embassy, a Pentecostal church in Nizhny Novgorod, and its members.  During the year a court fined the church for not specifying its full name in videos of worship services, the posting of which was also alleged to constitute “missionary activity,” resulting in more fines.  Authorities also fined and ordered deported two Pentecostal African students for unauthorized “missionary activity.”  Kudzai Nyamarebvu, a medical student from Zimbabwe, faced prosecution three times in six months, first for posting a video inviting fellow African students to a “welcome party” at the church, which her attorney maintained was a secular event; second, for reposting a video of another African student talking about how God had helped her recover from an illness; and third, for an interview she gave discussing her first two prosecutions, which was published on the Pentecostal Union’s website.  Forum 18 said that in June a Prioksky District Court judge found her guilty of “hidden missionary activity, not expressed in either words or gestures.”

According to Forum 18, an unknown person removed a church sign showing a Seventh-day Adventist church’s full official name in Nizhny Novgorod and replaced it with one bearing an incomplete name.  In the morning, a group of police officers arrived, and the community, primarily composed of retirees, was fined 30,000 rubles ($430) for incorrect signage.

Reports persisted that local officials fined members of religious groups for using land, including their homes, “not for its intended purpose” (i.e., for religious services), continued to prevent minority religious organizations from obtaining land, and continued to deny construction permits for houses of worship.  In a March report, Forum 18 stated that, within a contradictory and unclear legal framework, officials increased the numbers of fines for meeting for worship on land designated for residential or commercial use only.  Forum 18 reported one defense lawyer said inspections and punishments were like “a lottery.”

In April a senior member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights and Development of Civil Society said there was a new tendency among regional authorities to restrict the construction or restoration of houses of prayer and churches on residential lands.  In two separate cases in March, authorities demolished residences on private land that were being used as churches, one in Novorosijsk and one in Abinsk.

Forum 18 reported that after two rounds of appeals, on January 25, a court upheld a 10,000-ruble ($140) fine imposed on Oleg Leshchenko, owner of a house in the Rostov Region town of Volgodonsk in which the Rebirth of the Don Missionary Society of Evangelical Christians held services three times per week.  The court fined Leshchenko for conducting religious services on premises that were not designated for religious services (his own house).

According to the SOVA Center, in September the ECHR informed the government that it had accepted the complaint of the Trinity Parish of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) in the Moscow Region concerning a federal court decision to demolish its church in Noginsk.  Authorities ordered the church, which was erected in 2015, be demolished after an ROC priest reportedly convinced local officials to bring suit against the church in a local court in 2016.  The complaint was pending in the ECHR at year’s end.

The SOVA Center said in January that monks in a Buddhist monastery on Kachkanar Mountain (approximately 125 miles north of Yekaterinburg) challenged the findings of a study commissioned by the regional governor that found it was not a legitimate religious community.  These developments were part of a long-running case in which a metallurgical company sought the demolition of the monastery, which had been tentatively scheduled to occur during the winter of 2017-18 but had not begun by year’s end.

According to a November article in World Religion News, the government continued to criticize the Enlightenment Stupa in Moscow.  In September local authorities tried to remove the stupa but backed down due to protests.  Authorities denied Buddhists access to the stupa in 2017, resulting in it falling into disrepair.  The article stated that the International Center of the Roerichs, an art museum, tried to fix the stupa, but authorities prevented its repair.  The article said the shrine continued to await possible repair or relocation.

As in years past, according to NGOs, the government continued to cooperate more closely with the ROC than with other religious organizations.  Although neither the constitution nor the law explicitly accorded privileges or advantages to the ROC, they said the ROC continued to benefit from a number of formal and informal agreements with government ministries, giving it greater access than other religious organizations to public institutions such as schools, hospitals, prisons, the police, and the military.  The government also continued to provide the ROC patriarch with security guards and access to official vehicles, a privilege accorded to no other religious organization.

In October the Ecumenical Patriarchate released a statement agreeing to grant autocephalous (independent) status to a new unified Ukrainian Church.  According to a September 30 article in The Wall Street Journal, the Russian government had pressed Patriarch Bartholomew not to take this step.  Prior to Patriarch Bartholomew’s decision, a group of government-connected hackers, indicted in the United States in July, reportedly stole thousands of email messages from his aides.  According to article, the government also “resorted to traditionally bullying, issuing unspecified threats and denouncing Patriarch Bartholomew as an agent of the U.S. and the Vatican.”

Members of the Jewish community reported President Vladimir Putin stated during an interview in March that interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections came from “Ukrainians, Tatars, and Jews.”

On December 11, at a Kremlin meeting with the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, political scientist Yekaterina Shulman told President Putin,  “Of the 489 entries on the list of extremist organizations, 404 of them were Jehovah’s Witnesses chapters even though they do not incite violence or carry it out.”  President Putin responded, “Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians, too.  I don’t quite understand why they are persecuted.  So this should be looked into.”  According to the state-run news agency TASS, on December 18, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters, “Here we need to analyze each particular case.”  TASS quoted Peskov as saying, “It is impossible here to solve this problem conceptually because there are various pros and cons, but an additional study on this issue will be carried out at least.”

In January the ECHR informed the government that it had accepted Pentecostal pastor Victor-Immanuel Mani’s challenge of a fine levied against him under the Yarovaya Package for missionary activity.  According to Forum 18, Mani, an Indian national with a Russian-citizen wife and child, had held religious meetings in rented premises in Naberezhnye Chelny and advertised them on the church’s social network VKontakte page without necessary authorization documents from the local religious organization.  In November 2017, the Supreme Court overturned a deportation order of the lower court but left a 30,000-ruble ($430) fine in place.

Novaya Gazeta and international media reported that in October the Supreme Court upheld the deportation of Chief Rabbi of Omsk Asher Krichevsky, an Israeli-born U.S citizen.  In January officials revoked his residency permit, along with those of his wife and six children, after the FSB accused him of planning or supporting “terrorist activity.”  In May a lower court ordered him deported for “threatening national security and the constitutional order.”  Krichevsky was the ninth foreign-born rabbi deported in the past 10 years, according to The Jewish Chronicle.

According to the SOVA Center, in August the Borisoglebsk City Court of the Voronezh Region discontinued proceedings in the case of the pastor of the local religious organization, the Restoration Christian Center.  In 2017, authorities filed a criminal case against organizers of the center, alleging they illegally held six drug addicts and kidnapped two others, despite other drug addicts at the center testifying they were there voluntarily.  Authorities detained five of the center’s Russian employees, three of whom were later released and placed under house arrest.

According to Jehovah’s Witnesses, on May 3, the St. Petersburg Court upheld a 2017 ruling by the district court ordering the confiscation of the St. Petersburg headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Jehovah’s Witnesses said that on August 3, the property was officially registered in the name of the government.

In January the ECHR accepted complaints from Jehovah’s Witnesses related to, among other things, the seizure of properties valued at 79.2 million euros ($90.8 million).  On September 17, Deputy Minister of Justice Mikhail Halperin requested an additional three months to respond to ECHR questions.  At end of year, the case was still pending.

Although it lacked legal status as a religious organization, COS of Moscow was able to provide various services such as assistance to drug addicts throughout the country.

On September 17, two passengers on a subway stabbed a man in the back after they argued with him about Christianity and allegedly took offense at how he wore a cross, according to the SOVA Center.  The man was hospitalized.

Reports indicated that hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses had fled the country in fear of persecution since the start of the government’s crackdown and related societal violence.  Since the 2017 Supreme Court ruling that the religion is “extremist,” Jehovah’s Witnesses have reported beatings and arson attacks on their homes.  According to Jehovah’s Witnesses, adherents were increasingly harassed at their workplaces and in some cases dismissed or forced to resign when their coworkers became aware of their religious beliefs.  For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses said two members were forced to resign in Saint Petersburg and the Sverdlovsk Region, and four were fired, two in the Murmansk region and two in the Smidovichskiy Region.

On July 19 in Razdolnoye, Primorskiy Territory, seven people, including three armed men wearing masks, reportedly broke into the apartment of an elderly Jehovah’s Witness couple and their ill daughter.  The assailants shouted, “Lie down!  Hands behind your back!”  They forced the husband’s hands behind his back, knocked him down, and bruised his nose and cheek.  The 52-year-old daughter lost consciousness during the attack, and the mother suffered severe shock.

The SOVA Center reported 21 incidents of religiously motivated vandalism in 14 regions of the country during the year.  These included vandalism in December of the obelisk commemorating concentration camp victims in St. Petersburg and the Church of Elijah the Prophet in Petrozavodsk in the Republic of Karelia.  According to the SOVA Center, on November 6, a temporary structure housing the Orthodox Church of St. John the Divine in Moscow was burned beyond repair, with damage estimated at 1 million rubles ($14,400).  In October in Pervouralsk, vandals twice damaged a foundation stone for a church dedicated to a figure revered by the ROC.  The local priest said he believed the vandals opposed the building of a church at the site.  In the same month, unknown individuals knocked down a cross in Stavropol and painted a swastika and other symbols on it.  In August unknown persons left graffiti, including “Jews get out of Russia,” on the fence of a Hassidic cemetery in Lyubavichi, Smolensk Region.  Several graves were desecrated at a Jewish cemetery in Voronezh in June, as were tombstones in three others in Skopin in April.  In March vandals cut down a cross in the Artemye-Verkolsky Monastery, Arkhangelsk.  In January unknown individuals set fire to an Orthodox church and a trailer used to teach Sunday school in Mytishchi.  In the same month, the vehicle of a Jewish leader in Murmansk was set on fire twice in three days.

According to a study published in May by the SOVA Center and the NGO Fare Network, during the 2017-18 soccer season, the display of discriminatory banners, some of which included neo-Nazi symbols, continued to decline.  The number of discriminatory chants, however, including neo-Nazi songs, increased considerably.  The report noted soccer league and law enforcement agencies were making efforts to curb the presence of far-right symbolism at matches.

The U.S. government estimates the total population at 6 million (July 2018 estimate).  Of the four million individuals the local government counts as citizens or permanent residents, 81.5 percent stated a religious affiliation in the General Household Survey.  According to 2015 data, approximately 33.2 percent of the population of citizens and permanent residents are Buddhist, 18.8 percent Christian, 14 percent Muslim (predominantly Sunni), 10 percent Taoist, and 5 percent Hindu.  Groups together constituting less than 1 percent of the population include Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Jains, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Unification Church.  Although estimates varied widely, the government estimated there were 2,500 members in the Jewish community.

According to a 2018 report by the Department of Statistics, 74.3 percent of the resident population is ethnic Chinese, 13.4 percent ethnic Malay, 9.0 percent ethnic Indian, and 3.2 percent other, including Eurasians.  Nearly all ethnic Malays are Muslim.  According to a 2016 national survey, among ethnic Indians, 59.9 percent are Hindu, 21.3 percent Muslim, and 12.1 percent Christian.  The ethnic Chinese population includes Buddhists (42.3 percent), Christians (20.9 percent), and Taoists (12.9 percent).

Legal Framework

The constitution states every person has a constitutional right to profess, practice, or propagate his or her religious belief as long as such activities do not breach any other laws relating to public order, public health, or morality.  The constitution also prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion in the administration of any law or in the appointment to or employment in any office under a public authority.  It states every religious group has the right to manage its own religious affairs and it does not prohibit restrictions on employment by a religious institution.  The constitution states no person shall be required to receive instruction or take part in any ceremony or act of worship other than his or her own.

The government maintains a decades-long ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Unification Church.  The government banned Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1972 on the grounds it nation was prejudicial to public welfare and order because it objected to national service, reciting the national pledge, or singing the national anthem.  A 1996 decision by the Singapore Appeals Court upheld the rights of individual members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to profess, practice, and propagate their religious beliefs.  The government does not arrest Jehovah’s Witnesses for attending or holding meetings in private homes; however, it does not allow them to hold public meetings or publish or import their literature.  The government banned the Unification Church in 1982 on grounds it was a “cult” that could have detrimental effects on society.

The Presidential Council for Religious Harmony reports on matters affecting the maintenance of religious harmony and considers cases referred by the minister for home affairs or by parliament.  The president appoints the council’s members on the advice of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights.  The law requires two-thirds of Council for Religious Harmony members to be representatives of the major religions in the country, which according to law are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

The law authorizes the minister of home affairs to issue a restraining order against any person in a position of authority within a religious group if the minister ascertains the person causes feelings of enmity or hostility between different religious groups, promotes political causes, carries out subversive activities, or excites disaffection against the government under the guise of practicing religion.  Restraining orders are at the discretion of the minister, depending on the situation, and prevent a person in a position of authority within a religious group from making or participating in additional statements.  Failure to comply can result in criminal action.  Any restraining order issued must be referred to the Council for Religious Harmony, which recommends to the president that the order be confirmed, cancelled, or amended.  Restraining orders lapse after 90 days, unless confirmed by the president.  The minister must review a confirmed restraining order at least once every 12 months and may revoke such an order at any time.  The law prohibits judicial review of such restraining orders.  In addition, under the penal code, “wounding the religious or racial feelings of any person” or knowingly promoting “disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred, or ill will between different religious or racial groups” can result in detention and or imprisonment.

The constitution states Malays are “the indigenous people of Singapore” and requires the government to protect and promote their interests, including religious interests.  The MUIS, established under the Ministry for Culture, Community, and Youth (MCCY), administers affairs for all Muslims in the country such as the construction and management of mosques, halal certification, fatwa issuances, preparation of Friday sermons, and the Hajj.  The MUIS includes representatives from the Sunni majority as well as Muslim minority groups, including Shia.  Use of MUIS sermons is not compulsory, but imams who use their own content are responsible for it and may be investigated if there are complaints.

The government appoints all members of the MUIS and the Hindu Endowments Board, and nominates four of the 11 members of the Sikh Advisory Board.  These statutory boards manage various aspects of their faith communities, ranging from managing properties and endowments to safeguarding customs and the general welfare of the community.

The law requires all associations of 10 or more persons, including religious groups, to register with the government.  Registration confers legal identity, which allows property ownership, the ability to hold public meetings, and the ability to conduct financial transactions.  Registered religious groups may apply to establish and maintain charitable and humanitarian institutions, which enable them to solicit and receive funding and tax benefits, such as income tax exemptions.  Registered societies are subject to potential deregistration by the government on a variety of grounds, such as having purposes prejudicial to public peace, welfare, or good order.  Deregistration makes it impossible to maintain a legal identity as a religious group, with consequences related to owning property, conducting financial transactions, and holding public meetings.  A person who acts as a member of or attends a meeting of an unregistered society may be punished with a fine of up to 5,000 Singapore dollars (SGD) ($3,700), imprisonment of up to three years, or both.

Prisoners, including those in solitary confinement, are allowed access to chaplains of various faiths.

Citizens need a permit to speak at indoor public gatherings outside of the hearing or view of nonparticipants if the topic refers to race or religion.  Indoor, private events are not subject to the same restrictions.  Organizers of private events, however, must prevent inadvertent access by uninvited guests, or they could be cited for noncompliance with the rules regarding public gatherings.

By law, a publication is objectionable if it describes, depicts, expresses or deals with, among other things, matters of race or religion in such a manner that the availability of the publication is likely to cause feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will, or hostility between racial or religious groups.  The government may prohibit the importation of publications, including religious publications, under the law.  For offenses involving the publication of objectionable material, an individual may be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding 5,000 SGD ($3,700) or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or both.  A person in possession of a prohibited publication may be fined up to 2,000 SGD ($1,500) and jailed for up to 12 months for a first conviction.  All written materials published by the International Bible Students Association and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, publishing arms of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, remain banned by the government.

The Ministry of National Development and the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) establish the guidelines on land development and use of space for religious activities.  The URA regulates all land usage and decides where organizations may be located.  Religious buildings are primarily classified as places of worship.  A group seeking a new place of worship must apply to the URA for a permit.  The Ministry of National Development and the URA determine whether a religious institution meets the requirements as a place of worship, such as being located in an allotted zone and meeting the maximum plot ratio and building height.  URA guidelines regulate the use of commercially and industrially zoned space for religious activities and religious groups, and apply equally to all religious groups.  Commercial or industrial premises that host religious activities but are not zoned as places of worship must be approved by the URA.  They may not be owned by or exclusively leased to religious organizations or limited to religious use and must also be available to rent out for nonreligious events.  They may not display signage, advertisements, or posters of the religious use; be furnished to resemble a worship hall; or display any religious symbols, icons, or religious paraphernalia when the premises are not in use by the religious organization.  Use of the space for religious purposes must not cause parking, noise, or other problems.

Registration with the MUIS is compulsory for all religious teachers and centers of learning.  Registration requires adherence to minimum standards and a code of ethics, as well as fulfilment of certain training requirements.

The government does not permit religious instruction in public schools, although it is allowed in the country’s 57 government-subsidized religiously affiliated schools (mostly Christian but including three Buddhist schools).  Religious instruction in these schools is provided outside of regular curriculum time and must not include proselytization; students have a right to opt out and be given alternatives such as civics and moral education in lieu of religious instruction.  Religious instruction is allowed in private schools not aided by the government.  At the primary level, however, the law allows only seven designated private schools (six Sunni madrassahs and one Seventh-day Adventist school) to educate Singaporean citizen students; these schools must continue to meet or exceed public school performance benchmarks in annual national exams.  Other Muslim minority groups may operate part-time schools.  Public schools finish early on Fridays, which enables Muslim students to attend Friday prayers, or they allow Muslim students to leave early to attend prayers.  Secondary school students learn about the diversity of Singapore’s religious and cultural practices as a component of their character and citizenship education.

The law empowers the Ministry of Education (MOE) to regulate primary and secondary schools.  MOE rules prohibit students (but not teachers) in public schools from wearing anything not forming part of an official school uniform, including hijabs or headscarves.  Schools have discretion to grant a child dispensation from wearing the official uniform based on health but not religious requirements.  International and other private schools are not subject to the same restrictions.  For example, in madrassahs, which are all under the purview of the MUIS, headscarves are part of the uniform.  Headscarves are not banned at institutions of higher learning.

The law allows the Muslim community, irrespective of school of Islam or ethnicity, to have personal status issues governed by Islamic law, “as varied where applicable by Malay custom.”  Ordinarily the Shafi’i school of law is used, but there are provisions for use of “other accepted schools of Muslim law as may be appropriate.”  Under the law, a sharia court has nonexclusive jurisdiction over marriage issues where both parties are or were married as Muslims, including disposition of property upon divorce, custody of minor children, and inheritance.

The law permits a person involved in a sharia court divorce case to apply for permission to begin civil proceedings concerning division of property or custody of children.  Orders of the sharia court are enforced by the ordinary civil courts.  Appeals within the sharia system go to an appeal board, which is composed of three members of the MUIS, selected by the president of the MUIS from a panel of seven individuals nominated every two years by the president of the country.  The ruling of the appeal board is final and may not be appealed to any other court.  The law allows Muslim men to practice polygamy, but the Registry of Muslim Marriages may refuse requests to marry additional wives after soliciting the views of existing wives and reviewing the husband’s financial capability.

Under the law, certain criminal offenses apply only to those who profess Islam.  This includes publicly teaching or expounding any doctrine relating to Islam in a manner contrary to Islamic law, which carries a maximum fine of 2,000 SGD ($1,500), maximum imprisonment of 12 months, or both.  It is also a criminal offense for Muslims to cohabitate outside of marriage, but that law has not been enforced in decades.

Amendments to the Administration of Muslim Law Act that took effect on October 22 stipulate Muslim couples where one or both parties are under the age of 21 must complete a marriage preparation program and obtain parental or guardian consent before applying for marriage.  Each party to the marriage must be at least 18.

According to legal experts in inheritance, Islamic law governs Muslims regarding inheritance issues by default, but under certain circumstances civil law will take precedence when it is invoked.  Islamic law may result in a man receiving twice the share of a woman of the same relational level.  A man may also incur financial responsibilities for women under Islamic inheritance law.

The law does not recognize a right to conscientious objection to military service, including for religious reasons.  Male citizens or second-generation permanent residents are required to complete 24 months of uniformed national service upon reaching age 18, with no alternative provided to national service.

The Presidential Council for Minority Rights, an advisory body that is part of the legislative process, examines all legislation to ensure it does not disadvantage particular religious groups.  The council also considers and reports on matters concerning any religious group the parliament or the government refers to it.

The country is not a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Government Practices

The Jehovah’s Witnesses official website reported as of December nine Jehovah’s Witnesses were detained in the armed forces’ detention facility for refusing to complete national service on religious grounds.  Conscientious objectors were generally court martialed and sentenced to detention, typically for 12 to 39 months.  Although they remained technically liable for national service, men who had refused to serve on religious grounds were generally not called up for reservist duties.  They did not, however, receive any form of legal documentation that officially discharged them from reservist duties.

A court convicted three Hindus in February of disorderly behavior and insulting a Muslim police officer’s religion during the Hindu festival of Thaipusam in 2015.  The trio was charged with assaulting several policemen after the officers stopped a musical troupe from playing traditional Indian drums in the Thaipusam religious procession.  At that time, the government banned musical instruments from all religious processions on foot.  The men were fined from 8,000 SGD ($5,900) to 8,500 SGD ($6,200) and one was additionally sentenced to one year and one week’s imprisonment.  While he accepted his sentence, one convicted man attributed the group’s actions to the way authorities handled and spoke to them.

A group of Hindu participants in the Thaipusam foot procession in February said police officers and a representative from the Hindu Endowments Board had attempted to stop them from singing during the procession.  Police said although the government has permitted singing religious hymns since 2011, the group’s portable loudspeakers were not permissible.

Minister for Home Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam met with Hindu community leaders in March and addressed dissatisfaction over limitations on the use of live music at Thaipusam processions after police had permitted music at an event for St. Patrick’s Day.  The minister said that other than three exemptions granted for Hindu processions on foot, only secular processions on foot were permissible.  Authorities allowed the St. Patrick’s Day event to play live music because it was a secular event and religious elements, including attire, symbols, and music, were not allowed at the event, according to the minister.  The minister stated he welcomed community proposals to increase the number of live music points along the Thaipusam procession route beyond the three that the government allowed, and the Hindu Endowments Board stated it was committed to working with authorities to achieve this objective.  The minister’s comments followed online discussion by some individuals who questioned whether the government applied “double standards” on playing musical instruments to the two events.  One person wrote on Facebook that saying St. Patrick’s Day was not religious was “a huge injustice” to the Irish Catholic community.

Media reported that MUIS counseled a couple in August after they were said to have started a new religion known as the Yayi faith.  Yayi founder Paridah Jayos reportedly instructed her followers to treat her as a god and to ignore the tenets of Islam such as fasting during Ramadan and compulsory alms giving.  Some individuals questioned online why Jayos was counselled under Islamic law, rather than being treated as a practitioner of a new religion.

Home Affairs Minister Shanmugam stated in parliament in January and March that it was important that no foreign religious preacher who could “spread ill-will towards other religions, whether in Singapore or elsewhere,” be granted permission to speak in Singapore.  He said that the government would individually assess each foreigner’s request, based on his or her previous statements as well as his or her proposed talk.  The government website said at least two months were required for processing.  The Ministry of Home Affairs told media in April that foreign religious preachers could be issued an advisory to remind them of their legal obligations.

In January the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) banned a documentary, Radiance of Resistance, which was to be shown as part of the Singapore Palestinian Film Festival.  The IMDA stated, “the skewed narrative of the film is inflammatory and has the potential to cause disharmony amongst the different races and religions in Singapore.”

Media reported that during a retreat in March for the Muslim religious counseling organization the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG) Shanmugam said, “younger self-radicalized individuals tend to rely heavily on the internet and social media for information, including religious teachings.”  Shanmugam expressed his support for RRG launching a youth awareness program for individuals aged 16 to 25 that aims to engage, educate, and provide Muslim youth with a better understanding of Islam.

Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim announced in parliament on March 8 the expansion of a project to combat religious extremism among Muslim youth.  He also stated the government would stand against Islamophobia.

Although government policy prohibited the wearing of hijabs by certain public sector professionals, such as nurses and uniformed military officers, many statutory boards within government agencies continued to allow Muslim staff to wear the hijab while the government continued to evolve its stance “gradually and carefully.”  Some in the Muslim community continued to quietly petition for a change in government policy.

The government assisted religious groups in locating spaces for religious observance in government-built housing, where most citizens lived.  In September the authorities introduced changes to the process for acquiring long-term leases on government-owned sites that were designated for exclusive use as “places of worship.”  The authorities said they aimed to reduce the cost and increase the availability of such leases, including for smaller religious organizations.  The changes allowed certain sites to be used for multistory developments by multiple religious organizations “belonging to the same religion,” increased the number of sites to be designated for exclusive religious use, and restricted commercial entities from bidding on them.  The government said religious groups would have to prove they had additional space needs, had adequate and sustainable local funding to finance the lease and development of the site, would not use foreign donations for the transactions, and would actively contribute to the community.  The government said at least two church and two Chinese temple sites would be made available each year for the next “few years.”  The government continued to enforce the maintenance of ethnic ratios in public housing and prevent the emergence of religious enclaves in concentrated geographic areas.

As part of the MOE’s National Education Program, the official primary and secondary public school curricula encouraged religious harmony and tolerance.  All schools celebrated the annual racial harmony day in July, which promoted understanding and acceptance of all religions within the country.  Children wore traditional clothing and celebrated the country’s racial and religious diversity.  Students were encouraged to recite the “Declaration of Religious Harmony.”

While the government did not formally prohibit proselytization, it continued to discourage its practice through the application of laws regarding public speech and assembly as it reportedly deemed proselytizing might offend other religious groups and upset the balance of intergroup relations.

The MUIS continued to operate the Harmony Center, which was set up to promote greater religious understanding.  The Harmony Center housed artifacts and information about Islam, as well as nine other major religions in Singapore.  It also organized interfaith programs, including dialogues with leaders from different religions.  In March the Harmony Center and the Archdiocesan Catholic Council for Interreligious Dialogue held a seminar entitled, “Religion, Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity.”

President Halimah Yacob, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and government ministers regularly stressed the government’s commitment to the country as a multiracial and multi-religious society and cited religious harmony as an important policy goal.  In May the president called for the government to host an international high-level interfaith dialogue.  The president’s proposal, made during an interreligious iftar at An-Nahdhah Mosque, received support from local religious leaders and commentators.

Prime Minister Lee and four government ministers attended the consecration of the Hindu Sri Srinivasa Perumal temple in April.  Minister for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran said the event provided “an opportunity to reinforce the multi-racial, multi-religious nature of Singapore.”

Ministers gave speeches on strengthening religious pluralism.  At the IRO Day in March, MCCY Minister Grace Fu called on religious communities to continue strengthening religious harmony by fostering interreligious social mixing, discussions on faith, and community service projects.  (The IRO includes leaders of the 10 major religions in the country and has the stated objective of inculcating a spirit of friendship among various religious groups by conducting interreligious prayer services, seminars, and public talks throughout the year.)

Local government and government-affiliated organizations advocated for interreligious understanding and support for people of other religions.  The country’s five district mayors launched a national interfaith initiative called Common Senses for Common Spaces in February, which included activities such as community dialogues on Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.

The government continued to support the operation of an “Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence Circle” (IRCC) in each of the country’s 27 electoral constituencies.  Under the auspices of the MCCY, the IRCCs conducted local interreligious dialogues, counseling and trust-building workshops, community celebrations, and similar activities.

The government continued to engage religious groups through the community engagement program (CEP), and trained community leaders involved in the CEP in emergency preparedness and techniques for promoting religious harmony.

The government’s BRIDGE initiative, Broadening Religious/Racial Interaction through Dialogue and General Education, started in 2017 with funding of 3 million SGD ($2.2 million) for three years, continued to provide financial support for community-based initiatives that fostered understanding of different religious practices and beliefs.

During a Christian evangelical conference in March, a visiting U.S. preacher reportedly said he would raise up a church to “push back a new modern Muslim movement” in Spain and “Muslims are taking over the south of Spain.”  Cornerstone Church, which had invited the preacher, initially called the report on the preacher a “scurrilous attack” and lodged a complaint with police, but Pastor Yang Tuck Yoong of the Church offered a public apology to Muslim leaders one week later.  Mufti of Singapore Fatris Bakaram accepted the apology and said Muslims “want to move on and look forward to more constructive and healthy relationships.”  The Church committed to be more vigilant in its selection of foreign speakers, and in what Pastor Yang stated was an effort to improve its relations with Muslims, in July it hosted Imam Syed Hassan Al-Attas and a delegation from Ba’alwie Mosque.  The minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs wrote on Facebook he appreciated the pastor’s apology because “words that sow discord and ill will among the various communities have no place in Singapore.”  Police asked that the visiting preacher return to the country for an interview, but as of year’s end he had not.

Members of the public spoke out against reported instances of religious discrimination, such as when national football coach Fandi Ahmad commented about a Sikh journalist’s turban, and when Muslim Sephia Farid reported on Facebook that an interviewer at a government agency would not permit her to wear a hijab to work.

Sandwich chain Subway eliminated pork products and became halal certified in September.  While some individuals threatened a boycott, other non-Muslims expressed support for Subway, and some Muslims argued against the move to become halal.

A group of approximately 50 churches launched the Alliance of Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches of Singapore (APCCS) in April.  Chairman Reverend Dominic Yeo said the body would serve as a “unified and collective front” for talks with the authorities in relation to the needs of the churches, government-led initiatives, or “when there is a need to address various societal issues and concerns.”  Some commentators and members of the public expressed concern religion could intrude in the public space, but Yeo said, “The APCCS is a strong advocate of racial and religious harmony in Singapore.”

Shia and Sunni Muslims continued to cooperate and to share Sunni mosques, and held intrafaith iftars during Ramadan.

Community-led programs to build understanding of others’ religions included the Ask Me Anything series, which encouraged younger individuals to raise sensitive issues related to religious practices.  The Interfaith Youth Circle and Roses for Peace provided “safe spaces” in which young people could discuss race and religion.

Religious groups and humanists continued to promote interfaith tolerance.  The Nanyang Confucian Association hosted lectures on links between Confucianism and other faiths; the United Hebrew Congregation held interfaith celebrations during Jewish festivals; and the Humanist Society Singapore collaborated to organize a multi-religious panel discussion on “Inter-Belief in a Secular Society.”

Buddhists, Taoists, and Hindus cooperated at the local level.  A group of Buddhists gave 12,000 free drinks each weekend in September to Hindu devotees at Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple and devotees were permitted to carry statues of the Chinese goddess of mercy, as well as of the Buddha, during the Tamil Hindu religious procession of Thaipusam.

Hash.peace organized Heritage Saturdays, during which tours were organized of religious sites such as a Jewish synagogue or the Baha’i Center, so the public could learn more about the history of different communities.

The U.S. government estimates the population at 5.5 million (July 2018 estimate).  According to the 2011 census, the most recent available, Roman Catholics constitute 62 percent of the population, Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession 5.9 percent, and Greek Catholics 3.8 percent; 13.4 percent did not state a religious affiliation.  Other religious groups present in small numbers include the Reformed Christian Church, other Protestant groups, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Orthodox Christians, Jews, Bahai’s, and Muslims.  During the 2011 census, approximately 1,200 individuals self-identified as followers of Islam, while representatives of the Muslim community estimate their number at 5,000.  According to the census, there are approximately 2,000 Jews.

Greek Catholics are generally ethnic Slovaks and Ruthenians, although some Ruthenians belong to the Orthodox Church.  Most Orthodox Christians live in the eastern part of the country.  Members of the Reformed Christian Church live primarily in the south, near the border with Hungary, where many ethnic Hungarians live.  Other religious groups tend to be spread evenly throughout the country.

Legal Framework

The constitution guarantees freedom of religious belief and affiliation, as well as the right to change religious faith or to refrain from religious affiliation.  The constitution states the country is not bound to any particular faith and religious groups shall manage their affairs independently from the state, including in providing religious education and establishing clerical institutions.  The constitution guarantees the right to practice one’s faith privately or publicly, either alone or in association with others.  It states the exercise of religious rights may be restricted only by measures “necessary in a democratic society for the protection of public order, health, and morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

The law prohibits establishing, supporting, and promoting groups dedicated to the suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms as well as “demonstrating sympathy” with such groups.  These crimes are punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment.

The law requires religious groups to register with the Department of Church Affairs in the Ministry of Culture in order to employ spiritual leaders to perform officially recognized functions.  Clergy from unregistered religious groups do not officially have the right to perform weddings or to minister to their members in prisons or government hospitals.  Unregistered groups may not establish religious schools or receive government funding.

A 2017 legislative amendment increased the minimum number of adherents from 20,000 to 50,000 for organizations seeking official registration as religious groups.  The 50,000 individuals must be adults, either citizens or permanent residents, and must submit to the Ministry of Culture an “honest declaration” attesting to their membership, knowledge of the articles of faith and basic tenets of the religion, personal identity numbers and home addresses, and support for the group’s registration.  All groups registered before these requirements came into effect were grandfathered as officially recognized religions; no new religious groups have attained recognition since the amendment passed.  According to the law, only groups registered as churches may call themselves churches, but there is no other legal distinction between registered churches and other registered religious groups.

Registration confers the legal status necessary to perform economic functions such as opening a bank account or renting property and civil functions such as presiding at burial ceremonies.  The 18 registered churches and religious groups are:  the Apostolic Church, Baha’i Community, The Brotherhood Unity of Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Brotherhood Church, Czechoslovak Hussite Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, Evangelical Methodist Church, Greek Catholic Church, Christian Congregations (Krestanske zbory), Jehovah’s Witnesses, New Apostolic Church, Orthodox Church, Reformed Christian Church, Roman Catholic Church, Old Catholic Church, and Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities.  Registered groups and churches receive annual state subsidies.  All but the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, Greek Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, Reformed Christian Church, and Roman Catholic Church have fewer than 50,000 members, but they registered before this requirement came into effect.

The Department of Church Affairs of the Ministry of Culture oversees relations between religious groups and the state and manages the distribution of state subsidies to religious groups and associations.  The ministry may not legally intervene in the internal affairs of religious groups or direct their activities.

A group without the 50,000 adult adherents required to obtain status as an official religious group may seek registration as a civic association, which provides the legal status necessary to carry out activities such as maintaining a bank account or entering into a contract.  In doing so, however, the group may not call itself a church or identify itself officially as a religious group, since the law governing registration of citizen associations specifically excludes religious groups from obtaining this status.  To register a civic association, three citizens are required to provide their names and addresses and the name, goals, organizational structure, executive bodies, and budgetary rules of the group.

A concordat with the Holy See provides the legal framework for relations between the government and the domestic Catholic Church and the Holy See.  Two corollaries cover the operation of Catholic religious schools, the teaching of Catholic religious education as a subject, and Catholic priests serving as military chaplains.  A single agreement between the government and 11 of the 17 other registered religious groups provides similar status to those 11 groups.  The unanimous approval of the existing parties to the agreement is required for other religious groups to obtain similar benefits.

The law does not allow burial earlier than 48 hours following death, even for religious groups whose traditions mandate an earlier burial.

All public elementary school students must take a religion or ethics class, depending on personal or parental preferences.  Schools have some leeway in drafting their own curricula for religion classes, but these must be consistent with the National Educational Program (an official Ministry of Education document).  Representatives of registered religious communities are involved in the preparation of the National Program.  Although the content of the religion classes in most schools is Catholicism, if there is a sufficient number of students, parents may ask a school to open a separate class focusing on the teachings of one of the other registered religious groups.  Alternatively, parents may request that teachings of different faiths be included in the curriculum of the Catholic religion classes.  Private and religious schools define their own content for religion courses.  In both public and private schools, religion class curricula do not mention unregistered groups or some of the smaller registered groups, and unregistered groups may not teach their faiths at schools.  Teachers from a registered religious group normally teach about the tenets of their own faith, although they may teach about other faiths as well.  The government pays the salaries of religion teachers in public schools.

The law criminalizes issuance, possession, and dissemination of extremist materials, including those defending, supporting, or instigating hatred, violence, or unlawful discrimination against a group of persons on the basis of their religion.  Such criminal activity is punishable by up to eight years’ imprisonment.

The law requires public broadcasters to allocate airtime for registered religious groups but not for unregistered groups.

The law prohibits the defamation of a person’s or group’s belief as a criminal offense punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment.

The law prohibits Holocaust denial, including questioning, endorsing, or excusing the Holocaust.  Violators face sentences of up to three years in prison.  The law also prohibits denial of crimes committed by the prior fascist and communist regimes.

The country is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Government Practices

As of year’s end, the Supreme Court continued to evaluate a motion submitted in 2017 by the prosecutor general to dissolve the LSNS, which experts generally considered a far-right extremist party.  The motion said the LSNS was in violation of the constitution and other laws prohibiting support for groups and movements aimed at the suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms and defamation of race, nation, or religious belief.

There continued to be no resolution to the registration application of the Christian Fellowship.  By year’s end, the Ministry of Culture had not concluded its consideration of additional expert opinions regarding whether it should reverse its 2007 rejection of the original application, which was based on expert opinion saying the group promoted hatred toward other religious groups.

Some members of registered Christian churches said stringent registration requirements limited religious freedom by preventing dissent within churches.  Dissenting members stymied in attempts to reform official theological positions might normally split off to form their own church, but the difficulty in registering a new religious group prevented such an action.

The government allocated approximately 42.5 million euros ($48.7 million) in annual state subsidies to the 18 registered religious groups.  The basis for each allocation was the number of clergy each group had, and a large portion of each group’s subsidy continued to be used for payment of the group’s clergy and operating costs as stipulated by law.  The Expert Commission on Financing of Religious Groups and Societies, an advisory body within the Ministry of Culture, continued discussions with representatives of registered religious groups about changes in the model to be used for their future funding and reportedly considered a model allocating funding on the basis of the number of adherents, rather than on the number of clergy.  Some members of religious groups said their groups’ reliance on direct government funding limited their independence and religious freedom, and they said religious groups self-censored potential criticism of the government on sensitive topics to avoid jeopardizing their finances.

Muslim community leaders stated prisons and detention facilities continued to prevent their spiritual representatives from gaining access to their adherents.  Muslim leaders had no legal basis to appeal to the government and request access because Islam is not an officially recognized religion.

Members of the Muslim community also continued to report the lack of official registration made obtaining the necessary construction permits for prayer rooms and religious sites more difficult, although there was no law prohibiting unregistered groups from obtaining such permits.  Representatives of the community said local officials feared opposition from the wider public, which may view unregistered groups as “sects,” and would seek technical grounds, such as zoning regulations, to reject their applications.  There were no reported cases of revoked construction permits for unregistered religious communities.

The Ministry of Culture’s cultural grant program continued to allocate funding for the upkeep of religious monuments and cultural heritage sites owned by religious groups.  In 2017, the ministry allocated 3.2 million euros ($3.67 million) for these purposes.

The three highest constitutional officials – President Andrej Kiska, Speaker of Parliament Andrej Danko, and Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini – agreed during an August meeting with political, social, and academic institutions and religious communities that the state would adopt a “zero-tolerance approach toward extremism” and would crack down on the spread of hatred and insults over the internet.  UZZNO representatives welcomed the meeting of the top constitutional officials and said they were satisfied with concrete proposals raised in the meeting to fight anti-Semitism.

Many political parties, including the largest party represented in parliament, Direction – Social Democracy (Smer), continued to express anti-Muslim views in their public statements.  In January then Prime Minister Fico stated that he rejected the creation of Muslim communities in the country.  On another occasion, Fico said that tourists came to Slovakia because they did not have to “fear explosions” and would not be “bothered” by Muslims, given the small Muslim population.

In a February public debate, Richard Sulik, the leader of Freedom and Solidarity, the second-largest political party in parliament and the largest opposition party, said he perceived Islam as a threat to Slovak society.  He stated Islam was an “incompatible ideology” for the European way of life.

During a parliamentary debate on legislation dealing with abortion, LSNS Member of Parliament (MP) Stanislav Mizik likened Muslims to barbarians and stated legislative changes would be necessary to prevent the country from becoming a “caliphate” in the future.

UZZNO representatives said the number of anti-Semitic comments and hate speech on the internet and social media increased following March statements by then Prime Minister Fico in which he indirectly accused a Jewish American philanthropist of staging a “coup” and destabilizing his government.  Fico suggested the philanthropist aided in the organization of large-scale antigovernment protests held across the country in reaction to the February killing of an investigative journalist and his fiancee, calling NGO protest organizers the philanthropist’s “children.”

Representatives of the LSNS party continued to make anti-Semitic statements and faced criminal prosecution for past statements.  Party members and supporters frequently glorified the Nazi-allied World War II-era fascist Slovak state and its leaders and downplayed the role of that regime in wartime atrocities.

In July the Special Prosecutor’s Office indicted LSNS leader and MP Marian Kotleba for his charitable donation of 1,488 euros ($1,700) to three families at a 2017 event marking the founding of the Nazi-allied wartime Slovak state.  Experts stated the amount was a symbolic representation of a 14-word white supremacist phrase and the numeric representation of a salute to Hitler.

Also in July the Specialized Criminal Court acquitted LSNS MP Stanislav Mizik of extremism charges in a case concerning a January 2017 Facebook post which criticized President Kiska for giving state awards to people of Jewish origin and to defenders of “gypsies and Muslims.”  The judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove it was actually Mizik who wrote the post and dismissed the charges.  The case remained pending as the Special Prosecutor’s Office appealed the verdict.

In August the LSNS party sponsored the release of a film called Rejected Testimonies, which historians said was revisionist, and planned to premiere the film on August 8 in the city of Poprad.  The premiere was canceled due to opposition by the Poprad city council, because the film was suspected of breaking laws on defamation of race and religious belief, or on support of groups and movements aimed at the suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms.  Experts considered the choice of date and place a reference to Nazi symbolism.  The documentary focuses on the positive memories of people who lived under the World War II-era Slovak state without mentioning the victims of that regime, particularly the 70,000 Slovak Jews deported by the regime and murdered in Nazi death camps.

In February LSNS MP Milan Mazurek verbally attacked an expert witness during Mazurek’s trial on extremism charges, saying the witness was “not impartial, since he is a Jew.”  In April the Specialized Criminal Court found Mazurek guilty and fined him 5,000 euros ($5,700).  Speaking to supporters after the verdict, LSNS leader Marian Kotleba stated the current “regime” was “completely equal to the Nazi regime in the thirties” for silencing critics through legal proceedings.

As of October criminal proceedings for Holocaust denial remained pending against Marian Magat, who ran as an LSNS candidate in the 2016 parliamentary elections and was described by the press as a far-right radical.

In November parliament passed an amendment proposed by Speaker of Parliament Danko (Slovak National Party) to codify a new definition of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, which had been developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.  Danko stated the new definitions closed loopholes and would facilitate prosecution of hate crimes and hate speech.

During an official state visit to Israel in July, Danko stated it was “high time to start fighting against intolerance and Holocaust denial in Slovakia.”  Danko also said he would fight politically to show that the LSNS was a “bunch of crazies” who have “no business being in parliament.”

In commenting on LSNS-proposed legislation, the Episcopal Conference of Slovakia, which represents the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, said it was regrettable there had been no progress in implementing stricter prolife legislation and said the fact a party without a “consistent approach to protecting human dignity” [LSNS] was putting forward such legislation was a reason for all religious politicians to “examine their conscience.”

In September Prime Minister Pellegrini and Culture Minister Lubica Lassakova commemorated Slovak Holocaust and Ethnic Violence Remembrance Day by opening a new exhibition wing at the Holocaust Museum in Sered, which was subsidized through a one million euro ($1.15 million) government grant.  Pellegrini said on the occasion the state had the responsibility to “create a place where the young generation could come to see the horrors people had to endure between 1941 and 1945.”  The prime minister warned against historical revisionism and downplaying the wartime suffering of persecuted groups.  Government representatives, including the deputy prime minister, also participated at wreath-laying ceremonies organized by the Jewish community in Sered and Bratislava.

In April the prime minister and the minister of culture met with representatives of the Roman Catholic, Augsburg Lutheran, Greek Catholic, and Reformed Christian Churches, as well as UZZNO, to discuss mutual efforts to combat social exclusion and possible changes to the state financial subsidy to religious groups.  Religious leaders publicly stated they were worried about increasing extremism and anti-Semitism in Slovak society.

In August the Islamic Foundation in Slovakia reported an incident in which a young man verbally assaulted and pushed an Iraqi woman wearing a headscarf while walking her children to preschool in Bratislava.  The man reportedly asked the victim whether she was an Arab and demanded to know what she was doing in the country.  The victim did not report the incident to the police, and there was no official investigation.  NGOs and unregistered religious groups reported they continued to have difficulties altering negative public attitudes toward smaller, unregistered religious organizations because of the social stigma associated with not having the same legal benefits accorded to registered religions.  Representatives of unregistered religious groups said the public tended to view their activities with mistrust and perceive them as fringe “cults” because of their lack of official government recognition as religious communities.

NGOs reported continued online hate speech toward Muslims and refugees, which they attributed mostly to the social controversy surrounding the 2015 European migration crisis and inflammatory public statements by local politicians portraying Muslim refugees as an existential threat to Slovak society and culture.  Muslim community leaders said they continued to keep their activities and prayer rooms low profile to avoid inflaming public opinion.

As of August the police reported three cases of defamation of race, nation, or religious belief and two cases of incitement of national, racial, and ethnic hatred.  In the same period in 2017, there were three cases in each of the two categories.

A survey conducted by the Sociological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, published in February, showed that more than 54 percent of Slovaks would not want to have a Muslim neighbor, up from 20 percent in the same survey 10 years prior.  Similarly, approximately 23 percent of respondents indicated objections to having a Jewish neighbor, up from 11 percent in 2008.  The same survey also found that people’s trust toward churches and religious groups had declined from 65 percent in 1999 to 34 percent in 2017.

In September UZZNO filed a criminal complaint after media reported that the village of Zlate Klasy (in the western part of the country) organized its annual village fair at the local Jewish cemetery, with an inflatable bouncy castle, draft beer dispensaries, and picnic tables interspersed among tombstones and memorials to Holocaust victims.  UZZNO stated the organization of a festivity at the burial ground demonstrated a complete disregard for Jewish religious traditions and elementary principles of decent behavior and said it constituted a criminal offense according to the law, which prohibits desecrating or vandalizing a place of “eternal rest.”

Some Christian groups and other organizations characterized in media as far right continued to issue statements praising the World War II-era fascist government responsible for the deportation of thousands of Jews to Nazi death camps, and they continued to organize gatherings where participants displayed symbols of the World War II fascist state.  While there were no media reports of direct Holocaust denial by these groups, organizers often included photographs showing World War II symbols in online posts promoting their events.  On April 18, the Slovak People’s Party, described by media as a neofascist party, used such symbols during a protest march commemorating the anniversary of the execution of the president of the Nazi-allied wartime Slovak state, Jozef Tiso.

The Ecumenical Council of Churches continued to be the only government-recognized association for interreligious dialogue.  In February the Parliament of the World’s Religions, a local NGO, organized a series of public debates and school lectures to promote interfaith dialogue and tolerance.  The events hosted Catholic and Lutheran clergy, an imam, and a rabbi and aimed to debunk popular myths about the represented religions and demonstrate how religious diversity contributes to society.

The U.S. government estimates the total population at 2.1 million (July 2018 estimate).  According to the 2002 census (the last one in which the Slovenian government asked about religious affiliation), 57.8 percent of the population is Catholic, 2.4 percent Muslim, 2.3 percent Serbian Orthodox, 0.9 percent “other Christian,” and 10.1 percent atheist.  In addition, 23 percent identified as “other” or did not declare a religion, and 3.5 percent declared themselves “unaffiliated.”  According to Secretary-General of the Islamic Community of Slovenia Nevzet Poric, the Muslim population numbers approximately 100,000.  The head of Slovenia’s Serbian Orthodox Church, Reverend Aleksandar Obradovic, estimates his community at 30,000.  The Jewish community estimates its size at 300 persons.  The Office for Religious Communities said the Catholic population was steadily declining but did not provide any estimates of its numbers.  The Orthodox and Muslim communities include a large number of immigrants from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, respectively.

Legal Framework

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion and the right of individuals to express their beliefs in public and private.  It declares all religious communities shall have equal rights and provides for the separation of religion and state.  The constitution guarantees equal human rights and fundamental freedoms to all individuals irrespective of their religion; it also prohibits incitement of religious discrimination and inflammation of religious hatred and intolerance.  The constitution recognizes the right of conscientious objection to military service for religious reasons.

The law states individuals have the right to freely select a religion; freedom of religious expression (or rejection of expression); to express – alone or in a group, privately or publicly – their religious beliefs freely in “church or other religious communities,” through education, religious ceremonies, or in other ways; and not to be forced to become a member or to remain a member of a religious group, nor to attend (or not attend) worship services or religious ceremonies.  The law guarantees the right to refuse to comply with legal duties and requirements that contradict an individual’s religious beliefs, provided such refusals do not limit the rights and freedoms of other persons.

The law requires churches and other religious communities to register with the government to obtain status as legal entities, but it does not restrict the religious activities of unregistered religious groups.  Unregistered religious groups are not permitted by law to purchase property in their name.  According to the law, the rights of religious groups include autonomy in selecting their legal form and constituency; freedom to define their internal organization and name and define the competencies of their employees; autonomy in defining the rights and obligations of their members; latitude to participate in interconfessional organizations within the country or abroad; authority to provide religious services to military, police, prisons, hospitals, and social care institutions (the state pays the salaries of chaplains providing services at these institutions); and freedom to construct buildings for religious purposes.  The law states religious groups have a responsibility to respect the constitution and the legal provisions on nondiscrimination.

As legal entities, registered religious groups are also eligible for rebates on value-added taxes and government cofinancing of social security contributions for their religious workers.

To register legally with the government, a religious group must submit an application to the MOC providing proof it has at least 10 adult members who are citizens or permanent residents; the name of the group in Latin letters, which must be clearly distinguishable from the names of other religious groups; the group’s address in the country; and a copy of its official seal to be used in legal transactions.  It must pay an administrative tax of 22.60 euros ($26).  The group must also provide the names of the group’s representatives in the country, a description of the foundations of the group’s religious beliefs, and a copy of its organizational act.  If a group wishes to apply for government cosponsorship of social security for clergy members, it must show it has at least 1,000 members for every clergy member.

There are 54 registered religious groups, including the Catholic Church, Evangelical Church, Jewish Community of Slovenia, Serbian Orthodox Church, and Islamic Community of Slovenia.

The government may only refuse the registration of a religious group if the group does not provide the required application materials in full or if the MOC determines the group is a “hate group” – an organization engaging in hate crimes as defined by the penal code.

By law, MOC’s Office for Religious Communities monitors and maintains records on registered religious communities and provides legal expertise and assistance to religious organizations.  The MOC establishes and manages the procedures for registration, issues documents related to the legal status of registered communities, distributes funds allocated in the government’s budget for religious activities, organizes discussions and gatherings of religious communities to address religious freedom concerns, and provides information to religious groups on the legal provisions and regulations related to their activities.

The government has an agreement with the Holy See covering relations with the Catholic Church.  Subsequent to that agreement, the government concluded similar agreements with several other groups.  None of the agreements offer rights or privileges beyond those accorded religious groups in the constitution.

In accordance with the law, citizens may apply for the return of property nationalized between 1945 and 1963.  The state may provide monetary compensation to former owners who cannot receive restitution in kind; for example, the state may authorize monetary compensation if government institutions are using the property for an official state purpose or public service such as education or healthcare.

According to the constitution, parents have the right to provide their children with a religious upbringing in accordance with the parents’ beliefs.  The government requires all public schools to include education on world religions in their curricula, with instruction provided by a school’s regular teachers.  The government allows churches and religious groups to provide religious instruction in their faiths in public schools and preschools on a voluntary basis outside of school hours.  The law prohibits religious instruction in public schools as part of the curriculum or during school hours but does not prescribe penalties for violations.  Private schools may offer religious classes during or after school hours.

The law mandates Holocaust education in schools.  This instruction focuses on the history of the Holocaust inside and outside of the country.  Schools use a booklet published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of the Holocaust education curriculum to create awareness of the history of Jews and anti-Semitism in Europe before World War II and of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust.  The booklet emphasizes the responsibility of everyone to remember the victims of the Holocaust.

The constitution provides for an independent Office of the Ombudsman for the Protection of Human Rights to investigate and report on alleged human rights violations by the government.  The national assembly appoints the ombudsman and allocates the office’s budget, but otherwise the ombudsman operates independently of the government.  Individuals have the right to file complaints with the ombudsman to seek administrative relief regarding abuses of religious freedom committed by national or local authorities.  The ombudsman’s office may forward these complaints to the state prosecutor’s office, which may then issue indictments, call for further investigation, or submit the claims directly to a court, whereupon the complaints become formal.  The ombudsman also submits an annual human rights report to the national assembly and provides recommendations and expert advice to the government.

The Council of the Government of the Republic for Dialogue on Religious Freedom under the auspices of the MOC’s Office for Religious Communities is responsible for promoting transparency and explaining national and EU legislation pertinent to religious groups through workshops and other events, and encouraging dialogue on issues of concern among the country’s religious communities.  Its members include representatives of the minister of culture, director of the Office for Religious Communities, commissioner for the principle of equality, and representatives of the Catholic Church, Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovenia, Islamic Community of Slovenia, Serbian Orthodox Church, and smaller religious communities.

The law allows for circumcision, but some hospitals believe it is illegal and do not offer the procedure.  The Ombudsman for the Protection of Human Rights has issued a nonlegally binding opinion that, based on the constitution and the law, “circumcision for nonmedical reasons is not permissible and constitutes unlawful interference with the child’s body, thereby violating his rights.”

The law requires that animals be stunned prior to slaughter.

The penal code’s definition of hate crimes includes publicly provoking religious hatred and diminishing the significance of the Holocaust.  Punishment for these offenses is imprisonment of up to two years, or, if the crime involves coercion or endangerment of security – defined as a serious threat to life and limb, desecration, or damage to property – imprisonment for up to five years.  If an official abusing the power of his or her position commits these offenses, he or she may be subject to imprisonment of up to five years.  Members of groups that engage in these activities in an organized and premeditated fashion – hate groups, according to the law – may also receive a punishment of up to five years in prison.

The country is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Government Practices

The government approved the registration of four new religious groups:  the Slovene Islamic Community of Grace, Community of Zandernatis, Monastery Awam Gesar, and Slovene Daoists Temple of Highest Harmony.  It did not reject any registration applications.

In July the WJRO and Ministry of Justice agreed to launch a joint research project to establish the scope of heirless properties in the country seized by the Nazis or their collaborators.  The research teams commenced research in September and planned to complete their study in 2019.  Restitution efforts for property seized during the Holocaust were complicated by the period (1945-63) covered by the law on property nationalization claims, which excluded, with some exceptions, property seized from Jewish families prior to 1945.

The Office for Religious Communities reported the Muslim community had requested the government to reserve special locations in cemeteries for Muslim graves and allow gravestones to face Mecca.  Only some cemeteries allowed this practice, and some Muslim families buried their dead outside of the country.  Muslims may establish their own cemeteries, but there were no reports they had done so.  The Muslim community also requested the government make pork-free meals readily available in hospitals, schools, prisons, and other public institutions.  The Office of Religious Institutions said it planned to convene a meeting in 2019 of the Council of the Government of the Republic for Dialogue on Religious Freedom to address food service practices in public institutions.

According to the Office for Religious Communities, an inability to provide spiritual care in the military, hospitals, and other public institutions remained a problem for some minority religious communities.  While many hospitals had Catholic chapels, members of other faiths had more limited opportunities to attend collective religious services while hospitalized.  The armed forces (SAF) employed full-time Catholic and Protestant clergy to provide religious services but no Muslim imams, Orthodox priests, or Jewish rabbis.  While Muslims and Orthodox Christians in the SAF had access to their local religious communities while serving domestically, such opportunities were not always available during deployments or training abroad.  Head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the country Obradovic attributed the SAF’s lack of Orthodox clergy to low numbers of qualified Orthodox priests in the country, rather than inadequate government support.  The Orthodox community said it was preparing two candidates for service as chaplains in the SAF by 2023.  The Ministry of Defense said the Muslim community had not made any requests for it to employ imams in the SAF.  The Jewish community did not have any rabbis in the country; a rabbi in Trieste in Italy was responsible for Slovenia.  Catholic officials said they requested the government employ an ordained bishop as a military ordinary in the SAF and expected this issue to be resolved in a future amendment to the agreement between the government and the Holy See.

According to the Slovenian Press Agency (STA), in April Igor Vojtic, Vice Chair of the Jewish Community of Slovenia, said the community was unable to receive compensation for a synagogue in Murska Sobota the communist government demolished in 1954 or secure a building for a synagogue and cultural center in Ljubljana.  Ministry of Justice officials stated it had not received any restitution claims for the Murska Sobota synagogue and the property identified by the Jewish community in Ljubljana was prime real estate with no historic ties to that community.

In April the Constitutional Court upheld the law prohibiting the slaughter of animals without prior stunning.  The Slovene Muslim Community, not affiliated with the larger Islamic Community of Slovenia, had filed a case in 2014 alleging this law violated religious freedom.  The Islamic Community of Slovenia continued to provide certificates to companies producing meat from stunned animals, confirming the meat was halal.  The country permitted imports of halal meat products.  The Jewish community also raised concerns over the prohibition and reported it imported kosher meat from neighboring countries.  The government defended the law as necessary to comply with EU regulations to prevent unnecessary suffering to animals.

Continuing confusion over the legal status of circumcision resulted in many hospitals not offering the procedure.  As a result, some Muslims and Jews continued to have the procedure performed in Austria.

Mufti Nedzad Grabus of the Islamic Community of Slovenia criticized the government’s treatment of Muslims in June at the community’s prayer for Eid al-Fitr, stating Muslims are “always being pushed towards the margins of this society.”  Among other issues, Grabus mentioned the restrictions on ritual slaughter of animals and circumcision.  He also stated the government prioritized Christian holidays over those of other faiths.

In November Janez Jansa, leader of the opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), which won a plurality of votes in June parliamentary elections, said in a speech in Helsinki that Europe faced an external threat from radical Islam.  SDS national assembly member Branko Grims said during an election campaign debate in May the EU’s future would not be dictated by the budget but rather by “illegal migrations, the process of Europe’s radical Islamization, questions of identity, preserving European culture, civilization.”

The Office for Religious Communities continued to hold workshops and other events for religious communities to address their questions and foster interfaith cooperation.  Events included hosting a state prosecutor to explain technical details of hate speech legislation and a discussion of the UN’s Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes.

In July the government approved an agreement between the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Culture Ministry to grant museum representatives access to, and allow the museum to reproduce, material in Slovenia’s archives.

The government is a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Muslim groups and NGOs said Muslims faced obstacles in obtaining access to halal food, spiritual care, time off for Islamic holidays, and in circumcising their male children.

There were some manifestations of anti-Islamic sentiment through public events and protests and on the internet.  In November the widely described as far-right-wing magazine Demokracija argued against the government’s adoption of the UN Global Compact for Migration, commenting, “The native population tried to preserve their customs and traditions, but the political authorities did not demand of the immigrants to integrate in the western society, but rather let the Muslim immigrants, joined by blacks from Africa, to create their territories (little Eurabias) where they live by their rules…the Marrakesh Declaration will legalize all that.”

In April STA reported that Vice Chair of the Jewish Community of Slovenia Vojtic expressed concern about what he described as a negative disposition towards Jews, especially among left-leaning citizens.  The report cited Vojtic as saying, “There is a new anti-Semitism prevailing in Slovenia, one that is in fact covert because of historical experience, so it is manifested through hatred to Israel.”  Also in April, online news site Total Slovenia News reported Vojtic expressed concern that immigrants from Syria and Iraq would bring the country “face to face with aggressive Islamic anti-Semitism.”

Hate speech, especially online, was prevalent and often targeted members of the Islamic community through anti-immigrant rhetoric.  The group Generation Identity Slovenia was particularly active in posting anti-Islamic comments on social media.  The Ministry of Culture reported Demokracija to the media inspectorate for its August cover showing a photo of seven black hands groping and touching a white woman with the title, “With Migrants Comes the Culture of Rape.”  The inspectorate referred the case to police; an investigation remained pending at year’s end.  Because religion and ethnicity are often closely linked, it was difficult to categorize many incidents as being solely based on religious identity.

The general state prosecutor did not provide an update on the status of an investigation he announced in 2017 regarding why a local prosecutor had declined to prosecute Bernard Brscic, who had served as an adviser to a former prime minister, on charges of Holocaust denial for statements he made during a television interview earlier that year.

Construction of the country’s first mosque continued in Ljubljana, following delays.  According to press reports and the Islamic Community of Slovenia, the delays were due a shortage of funding, three-quarters of which came from the government of Qatar.  The Islamic Community of Slovenia said it expected the mosque to open in 2019.  In the interim, it said it rented places for worship, including large sports halls for major events.

The Orthodox community’s only church is located in Ljubljana, but Orthodox representatives said they planned to build two churches in Koper and Celje.  Catholic churches around the country routinely granted access for local Orthodox communities to host events and religious ceremonies.  Representatives of the Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, and Protestant communities reported excellent relations among members of different religious groups, including an active dialogue at workshops and conferences.  They also reported good relations with the government.