"Salvation Army Banned in Moscow under the Russian Law on Religion"

(Keston News Service, December 6, 2001)

Colonel Kenneth Baillie, the commanding officer of the Salvation Army in Russia, has vowed that the group's Moscow branch will "keep on working" despite the court ruling today (6 December) that it must cease all its activities in the Russian capital. Speaking to Keston News Service outside the courtroom in Moscow immediately after the verdict was handed down, he said he had been hoping that the municipal court would at least have delayed a final decision in view of the pending Constitutional Court case, which will consider the constitutionality of Article 27, Part 4 of Russia's 1997 law on religion. The prosecutors claim the Salvation Army's Moscow branch had violated this article.