Prosecutors have opened a criminal case against a Scientology center in the town of Shchyolkovo, 13 kilometers northeast of Moscow, on charges of inciting hatred, punishable with up to five years in prison.
Investigators have decided that documents and literature
confiscated at the center promoted extremism, a law enforcement official told
Interfax, without elaborating.
The decision was based on expertise conducted by leading
Russian linguistic institutions, including the Linguistics Institute at the
Academy of Sciences, Interfax reported.
In April, works by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard
were added to a federal list of extremist materials on the decision of a
Siberian court, which de facto rendered all Scientology centers open to prosecution.
The court's decision slammed Hubbard's books as inciting
social and religious hatred, justifying violence, especially toward opponents
of Scientology, and promoting anti-state views.
Former science fiction author Hubbard created Scientology
in the 1950s. The secretive church has faced regular criticism and litigation
from former members, who accuse it of being a cult charging massive fees for
purported religious services.
Germany has ruled that it is a commercial organization,
and several other European governments have refused to recognize it as a
religion.
Scientology's branches in Surgut and Nizhnekamsk
successfully sued the Russian government in October at the European Court of
Human Rights for refusing to list them as religious organizations on the
grounds that they had not existed in the country for 15 years.
In June, Samara region prosecutors reprimanded the head
of a local telecommunications company, RosKabelSvyaz, for breaking extremism
and labor laws by forcing subordinates to study Scientology under threat of
dismissal. They cited the April decision of the Surgut court as the reason for
the extremism accusations.