The new collectives

International | In the provinces, Russian officials bully religious freedom and insist on state-sponsored worship | Mindy Belz

In a victory for religious freedom that is becoming rarer across the former Soviet Union, a St. Petersburg official last week vetoed a proposed law that would have imposed stringent new licensing requirements on religious organizations.

The bill, passed in February, would have made the existence of all religious organizations dependent upon a city license and would have classified nearly all church and para-church activities as "missionary activities" subject to state regulation. The action taken by the city council of Russia's most Westernized city is similar to anti-missionary laws being passed in other parts of the country. These violate both Russia's 1990 law on freedom of conscience and its 1993 constitution. They represent a trend by local authorities to overrule democratic gains begun in Moscow since the breakup of the Soviet Union.