Regarding FYROM state persecution on religious grounds

Your Excellency,

The recently published International Religious Freedom Report 2009 for FYROM (26.10.2009) by the U.S. State Department, was in the FYROM media cited mostly with the sentence from the report stating that: “The Government generally respected religious freedomin practice.” Here, it is necessary to underscore the Freedom House statement that FYROM journalism is still partly free and that “political appointees are frequently named to senior positions in state-owned media, the main source of information for most of the population”
(http://freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2009&country=7651).

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Hence, the problems which were pointed out in the Report were for the most part suppressed in the media. Your Excellency, You are familiar that the U.S. State Department Report draws attention to the fact thatArchbishop Jovan “faced a detainment order for a third retrial of a case in which he was initially acquitted by the Veles Trial Court in 2006.” In the meantime, Archbishop Jovan has been convicted for the third time, to a prison term of two and a half years, and a monetary compensation of 240.000 Euros. The State Department indicated that one of the restrictions of the religious freedom is “the lack of effective implementation of the registration portion of the 2007 legal status law.” This restriction: “severely hindered new registrants’ ability to acquire legal standing.” Also, the Reports emphasizes that “Skopje Court II assigned the registration process to a single judge, who did not meet the timelines required by the law, leaving many applicants waiting months without information. The judge in charge and the president of the court also stated that they would seek to ensure that sources of teaching and liturgy for new registrants are different from those of existing registrants, seemingly intending to protect the autonomy of already-registered groups and contrary to the spirit of the law.”After the publication of the U.S. State Department Report, the State Commission for religious communities has reacted. The president of the Commission, Ms. Valentina Bozinovska stated that: “there are many ambiguities as to what documentation is required to be collected for the registration, and this is where many problems arise” (Vreme, 28.10.2009). Our church, the Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric, despite submitting a complete documentation for its registration, was refused because the Skopje Court II, in the court process for registration, has selected the so called “Macedonian Orthodox Church” as a court expert, and due to its suggestion, our application was refused. (The court decision for rejection of the application for registration can be seen at the following location: http://www.poainfo.org/mk/istorija/sovremena/Resenie_za_odbivanje_na_registracija_na_POA.pdf, and our complaint to that decision at the following location: http://www.poa-info.org/istorija/sovremena/0009.html). Our viewpoint is that the Court should not make the registration documentation collection process complicated, and that for a registration, even a single, properly filled out form should be sufficient. We hope that the court does not aim to block the registration of new religious communities! Apart from this, Ms. Valentina Bozinovska stated the following: “next week we will call everyone, both registered and unregistered religious communities, in order to further explain certain issues and to help avoid such problems” (Vreme, 28.10.2009). Although more than one week has passed since this statement was made, until this day no representative of our church has been called for “further explanation” by the state Commission for religious communities.In regard to the court decision for refusal of our application for registration, we filed a complaint to the Court of Appeals on 6thAugust this year, and for more than three months now we have received no answer. On 6thNovember, we also sent a letter to the Court ofAppeals, in order to get informed about the status of our complaint, but we have received no answer to this letter yet.

Your Excellency,

The State Department Report is with impeccable precision locating the problems concerning the violation of the religious freedoms by the court of FYROM, but despite this, the situation remains fully unchangeable! Whole seven years our church cannot legally regulate its existence within the FYROM state institutions. The new law for registration ofreligious communities, which should have been a model for the region, is obviously lacking implementation. In accordance with that law, 11 religious communities have been rejected! It is a fact that today in FYROM the number of rejected religious communities is higher than the number of registered ones. At the annunciation of the U.S. State Department Report, the Secretary of State, Ms. Hilary Clinton, stated: “it is our hope that the International Religious Freedom Report will encourage existing religious freedom movements around the world and promote dialogue among governments and within societies on how best to accommodate religious communities and protect each individual’s right to believe or not believe, as that individual sees fit.” Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Mr. Michael Posner emphasized that “religious freedoms are basic right, social benefactor, source of stability and a key to international security” (Alsat, 27.10.2009). Your Excellency, In regard to our case, we are vividly testifying that FYROM authorities were not incented by the Report towards a dialog in the direction of acceptance of the smaller religious communities, neither has it instigated the protection of the right of choice to the members ofour church, which is in the orthodox world recognized as an Archbishopric. We also express our fears that by the state protection of the monopoly of the so called “Macedonian Orthodox Church” at the account of the other religious communities, FYROM is through the elementary violation of the basic human rights of its own citizens, not representing a source of stability and a key to international security.The freedom of religion is of a particular importance in a multi-confessional and multi-ethnic country such as FYROM. We are very well acquainted with your generous efforts for integration of FYROM in the European Union and NATO. Therefore, because of the situation we have been put into, and which borders the unbearable, we kindly ask for Your even more effective contribution to the formation of an ambience in which the Authorities in FYROM shall be moving towards the fulfillment of the basic religious freedoms of the smaller religious communities. We have no one to turn to, but You, who are the representatives of the civilization which is founded upon the respect of the human rights and religious freedoms, and towards which, at least declaratively, FYROM is striving. Thus, we appeal to You for more effective efforts before the FYROM Authorities, so that they in reality implement the remarks and recommendations of the mentioned Report, which are related to the registration of new religious organizations in the courts. Our stance is that the respect of the religious freedoms should be applied to all citizens of FYROM, regardless of their ethnic or religious background, as one of the basic and required conditions for the integration into the Euro-Atlantic civilization flows.

With respect,

Bishop David of Stobi and Administrator of Strumica.