A Russian court on Wednesday rejected an attempt to ban a translation of a sacred Hindu text in a ruling greeted with relief by New Delhi after protests over the sensitive issue in India. The ruling represented a rare victory for religious freedoms in Russia after years of expanding influence by the country's dominant Orthodox Church.
Prosecutors in the Siberian city of Tomsk had asked a court to classify a Russian translation of the Hare Krishna edition of the "Bhagavad Gita" as "extremist literature" alongside books such as Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf". They cited conclusions from two Russian state universities claiming the foreword to the Russian edition contained signs of "incitement to religious hatred" and "extremism".