Moscow (AsiaNews) - The International Society of Krishna Consciousness is being charged with the infringement of the rights of children, forced to dance naked and subjected to a vegetarian diet. The charge was lodged with the Prosecutor General Yury Chaika by Yulia Zimová, by ì the Commission to support the family and motherhood for the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. The Chamber has advisory and monitoring powers over parliament and laws.
The Society of Krishna Consciousness, or Hare Krishna, are a group founded in New York in the '60s, inspired by Hinduism, which teaches yoga techniques and practices vegetarianism.
Speaking to the Izvestia newspaper, Zimová said that during meetings, the children of devotees of Krishna are forced to breathe in the aroma of incense sticks and dance with no clothes on. In addition, the members of the organization, practice a vegetarian diet, even if they are minors.
"This is a difficult time economically - says Zimová - and people tend to join religious communities in search of spiritual strength, which does not always lead them in the right direction." In her appeal, Zimová says she wants to create a precedent to show that such religious communities can not violate the rights of children.
The head of the Nizhny Novgorod Hare Krishna community, Andrei Shkolnikov, defends his community and rejects the accusations: "Nudity is prohibited in our association. The rituals we practice are old and no one is isolated ... There may be someone who interprets them in their own way, but we have people like [those described by Zimová]”.
Regarding the constraints to vegetarianism, he says: "We are vegetarians and therefore so are our children. But if between age 7 and 9 (when a child becomes conscious and mature), if they ask to have meat, no one can refuse them it".