{"id":285896,"date":"2025-07-23T18:45:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T18:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/285896\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T18:45:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T18:45:13","slug":"russias-top-court-bans-non-existent-satanist-movement-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/285896\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s top court bans non-existent \u2018Satanist movement\u2019 \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the official-sounding name, the \u201cInternational Movement of Satanists\u201d does not appear to exist, at least not under that moniker. Independent Russian-language news outlet Meduza, based in Latvia, wrote that the Supreme Court has previously<\/a> \u201calso banned other fictitious movements\u201d such as the \u201cinternational LGBT movement\u201d and then \u201cused that designation to\u00a0persecute LGBTQ+ individuals and censor artistic works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Undeterred, the prosecutor\u2019s office accused the Satanists of inciting violence against religious institutions and engaging in \u201cdestruction, damage and desecration of Orthodox churches,\u201d and linked the movement to \u201cradical nationalism and neo-Nazism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Deputy Justice Minister Oleg Sviridenko said the ban was the result of coordinated efforts between law enforcement and the judiciary \u201cwithin the framework of state control aimed at protecting national interests and strengthening public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Russian Orthodox Church and conservative lawmakers have called for years for Satanist ideology to be outlawed. In April Russia\u2019s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, hosted a roundtable<\/a> on combating Satanism and other beliefs considered a threat to Russian statehood.<\/p>\n

The ruling adds to a growing list of ideological and religious movements targeted under Russia\u2019s 2002 extremism law, a tool critics argue<\/a> has often been used to stifle criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church and Kremlin policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite the official-sounding name, the \u201cInternational Movement of Satanists\u201d does not appear to exist, at least not under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[30,26386,1106,660,2003,31315,332,5549],"class_list":{"0":"post-285896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-courts","9":"tag-extremism","10":"tag-judiciary","11":"tag-kremlin","12":"tag-law-enforcement","13":"tag-roundtable","14":"tag-russia","15":"tag-safety"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114904034359950511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}