Quote from Forum Archives on July 21, 2000, 5:40 pm

Posted by: masinick <masinick@...>

This was sent to me from a missionary who has been battling to do what
he feels God has called him to do. If you are interested, read on.

From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 16:09:13 EDT
Subject: Keston articles
To: [email protected]

21 July, 2000

Hello fellow labourers with Jesus Christ!

Since some of the recent Keston articles make reference to our work and
problems with authorities in Magadan, I wrote Lawrence Uzzell the Director of
Keston News Service and received written permission to broadcast this to our
list.

I know many of you are certainly interested in what is happening in the
Former Soviet Union. Keston's reporters are working overtime it seems to
keep us up to date on news that concerns our work of evangelism in the FSU.

The relative small cost of this service will be of great value to you in the
near future. For those who subscribe to the service Keston will include the
COMPLETE package of articles they have recently published.

Some of you will hear from me twice (hopefully not thrice) about this since
some of you are on TEEM list and my list. Sorry 'bout that.

We ask your prayers as we are now hoping to be allowed to be in Magadan next
month during the trial over my rights, and the money which was wrongfully
taken from me after the judge ordered it returned.

Your servants with Christ,
David and Galina Binkley

P R E S S R E L E A S E

ARE FOREIGN MISSIONARIES BEING DRIVEN OUT OF RUSSIA?

Keston Investigations finds expulsions rising

A significant number of foreign Christian missionaries have been
expelled from Russia, with an increased number over the past year,
reveals a major investigation by Keston News Service. Other
missionaries are being obstructed in their work.

Cases documented by Keston range from the mass expulsion of seven
American adults and their eleven dependent children to the obstruction
of a public lecture on C.S. Lewis.

Several of the missionaries barred from Russia commented to Keston
that they were unable to obtain an explanation for their exclusion,
while the procedure followed by the authorities in reaching a decision
to bar entry is unclear.

Tolerance towards foreign missionaries has been one of the touchstones
of religious freedom in Russia since the lifting of Soviet-era
controls. 'Increasing restrictions on foreign missionaries are often
an indicator of increasing restrictions on religious freedom in
general,' comments director of Keston Institute Lawrence Uzzell.

'Much of the hostility towards foreign missionaries comes from local
officials whose job was to keep religion in check during the Soviet
era,' adds Keston's Moscow correspondent Geraldine Fagan. 'But behind
these officials often stands the FSB, the successor to the KGB, who
appear to regard the foreign missionary presence in Russia as a
serious threat to state security.'

Russia's National Security Concept, signed by the then acting
president Vladimir Putin last January, highlighted what it termed the
`negative influence of foreign missionaries' in the country.

`Many missionaries just keep quiet when they are expelled,' Geraldine
Fagan adds, `fearing that other projects their missions are
undertaking or the activity of the congregations they have been
working with will be threatened.'

Denied entry to Russia on three occasions last year, US Protestant
missionary Dan Pollard - who had founded and led a church in the
Pacific coastal region of Khabarovsk krai - told Keston that he has
encountered anger from local religious officials because `I have not
left quietly like so many other missionaries.' Pollard believes that
Russia will force out all foreign missionaries within the next ten
years.

Keston notes that not all missionaries are encountering problems -
some continue to engage in high-profile ministry in Russia without
difficulty.

NOTES:

1. Some of the cases Keston has documented:

* Seven US citizens with a `Christian works relief organisation' had
their visas to work in the Urals republic of Bashkortostan abruptly
curtailed and were forced to leave Russia by 1 June. The Bashkir
president was reportedly enraged to discover a Bashkir-language Gospel
of St Luke. The head of Bashkortostan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
told Keston the Americans had been asked to leave because they were
conducting religious activity while holding humanitarian aid visas,
and these activities were `incompatible'. The group leader told
Keston: `The [Bashkortostan] president uses the local FSB as his
police force to intimidate people.'

* A US Protestant missionary working in one of European Russia's `Red
Belt' (communist-controlled) regions was expelled in 1997 after being
summoned to a closed meeting with two FSB agents, who accused him of
being in the region fraudulently and demanded names, addresses, phone
numbers, e-mail addresses, types of visa and names of inviting
agencies for every missionary in his organisation, `so that we can
deport them from Russia'. When the missionary pointed out that this
could be construed as religious persecution, one FSB officer
reportedly replied: `God has nothing to do with this.'

* American Church of Christ missionary David Binkley founded a
congregation in 1994 in the Far Eastern port of Magadan, but was
accused of smuggling by local officials last year. He was eventually
cleared of all charges, but a new religious work visa issued in March
for him to return to Magadan was suddenly revoked by the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Moscow in May. He was later told by the Russian
embassy in Washington that entrance to Russia is denied `permanently'.
He has since been barred entry to Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

* A western missionary conducting humanitarian aid work in a region in
the Far East of Russia, whose ministry is barred from the region, was
himself barred from the area earlier this year, although in April he
was allowed a brief visit. The Russian security organs are disturbed
by western missionary activity in this remote part of Russia. In a 28
February letter to the chairman of Russia's State Committee on Affairs
of the North, two officials of the Russian Academy of State Service
(which is attached to the presidential administration) warn that the
geopolitical plans of the United States are aimed at `wresting away
from Russia the Chukhotka Autonomous Okrug, and after that all of the
Far East.' A significant role in this design, they claim to believe,
is played by `the religious invasion of a huge number of American
Protestant preachers who have recently been stepping up their activity
in the Far East.'

* In May access was barred by a city official to the Palace of Culture
in Rostov-on-Don, where a Protestant pastor from Texas, a frequent
visitor to Russia, was due to deliver the first in a series of
lectures on Christian writer C.S. Lewis. The local church organising
the lectures had failed to put its name on the posters advertising the
event.

Wednesday 19 July 2000
FOREIGN MISSIONARIES OUT?
CASE FOUR: ?ENTRY TO RUSSIA PERMANENTLY DENIED?

by Geraldine Fagan and Lawrence A. Uzzell, Keston News Service

Despite being issued a religious work visa by the Russian Embassy in
Washington in March, American Church of Christ missionary DAVID
BINKLEY was subsequently asked to return it after being told that it had been
revoked, he told Keston on 8 May. He had been hoping to return to the
congregation he founded in 1994 in the Far Eastern port of Magadan (4500
miles east of Moscow).

According to a Russian Embassy official with whom he spoke on 4 May,
Binkley reported, the visa had been revoked by the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs
in Moscow: ?They had no details, and said I would have to contact Moscow to
get any answers.? Binkley duly returned the visa to the Russian Embassy by
post. Before flying to the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan on 5 June, to
which he was also denied entry (see KNS 22 June 2000), Binkley again
telephoned the Russian Embassy in Washington ?just in the hope that we might
be able to travel to Magadan from Almaty.? According to Binkley, he was told
to call back in 20 minutes - ?they needed to have a meeting before giving me
an
answer.? When he did so, he wrote, he was told that ?entrance to Russia is
denied to me - permanently.?

Binkley had been charged with smuggling when he failed to declare 7,785 US
dollars on last leaving Magadan on 27 May 1999. However, the Magadan
public prosecutor failed to convict him when the case against him reached
court
in November. On 10 June Binkley explained to Keston that his lawyer in
Magadan VIKTORIA TAISAYEVA had discovered that the Magadan public
prosecutor had appealed Binkley?s acquittal and believed this to be the
reason
why the visa was revoked. Speaking to Keston in Magadan on 1 July, however,
Taisayeva emphasised that Binkley had been acquitted - ?He is clear before
the
law? - and claimed that there could not possibly be any formal reason for
denying him a visa. She added that a Magadan city court was due to consider
customs officers? violations of Binkley?s rights in August.

On 3 July the public prosecutor in Magadan who oversees violations
committed within the transport system (which includes airports), YURI
RYABAVOL, acknowledged to Keston that Binkley ought to be allowed to
take part in the August trial in person - if there were indeed to be such a
trial.
He claimed to be unaware of Binkley?s exclusion from the Russian Federation.

When Keston asked the head of the Department of Consular Service attached to
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs DMITRY ZAKHAROV on 23 June if his
department had denied David Binkley entry to Russia, he appeared unfamiliar
with the name and replied: ?No, it wasn?t our department, we didn?t refuse
him.
It could only have been the FSB.? (END)

2. Full details of the results of the two-month investigation are
available from Keston Institute on request at
<[email protected]>

3. To arrange interviews, please contact Erika Cuneo at +44 1865
311022 or Felix Corley at +44 20 8290 4997.

4. Keston News Service, providing immediate reporting on violations of
religious liberty and on religion in communist and post-communist
lands, is available on email in English and Russian by subscription.

5. Keston Institute, based in Oxford, United Kingdom, and with
representatives in Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia, is an NGO founded
in 1969 to defend religious liberty in postcommunist and communist
countries, as defined by Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights: `Everyone has the right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion'. Website: www.keston.org

Copyright (c) 2000 Keston Institute. All rights reserved.

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KNS articles and details of our other publications: the magazine 'Frontier'
and
the academic journal 'Religion, State & Society'.
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=====
--
Brian Masinick, "The Mas", mailto:[email protected]
Home page: www.geocities.com/masinick/
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