WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th December, 2019) A bill introduced in the US Congress accuses Russia of religious freedom violations in Crimea and the Donbas region of Ukraine and mandates the president to take action against most severe cases, the US Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe said in a statement.
"The Ukraine Religious Freedom Support Act would require the president of the United States to consider particularly severe violations of religious freedom in Russia-occupied or otherwise controlled territory in Ukraine when determining whether to designate Russia as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for such violations," the statement said on Wednesday.
A country designated by the US as CPC faces up to 15 punitive measures - from a private demarche to bans on obtaining loans from US financial institutions or selling goods and services to the United States' government, according to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
The bill was introduced by Senator Roger Wicker on Tuesday, with a companion bill lodged last week to the House of Representatives.
The legislation accuses Russia of religious freedom violations that target Muslim Crimean Tatars, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, as well as Protestant Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses sect in Donbas.
Crimea rejoined Russia in the spring of 2014 when over 97 percent of the peninsula's voters backed reunification in a referendum. After the vote, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree on the rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatars and other peoples deported from the peninsula during the Soviet era.
In March 2017, Russia's Justice Ministry suspended the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses in the country due to its extremist activities and incitement of religious hatred. In April 2017, the Russian Supreme Court upheld the ministry's ban on the group as an extremist organization.
The US Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, consists of nine members from the US Senate, nine from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce.
