's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."
A. Submissions by the parties
59. In the applicant's view, the Government accepted in their submissions on the admissibility and merits that the sanction of exclusion from Russia had been imposed on him in connection with his religious activities. Accordingly, that sanction amounted to an interference with his right to freedom of religion. He pointed out that the distinction between "activity" and religious beliefs, drawn by the Russian authorities and the Government in their submissions, was artificial and ineffective since Article 9 of the Convention protected both religious belief (forum internum) and its manifestation in practice (forum externum). As regards the justification for the interference, the applicant emphasised that the interests of national security relied upon in the domestic proceedings were not included as a legitimate aim in paragraph 2 of Article 9. The Russian Government's official national security policy defining "foreign" religions and missionaries as a threat to national security was incompatible with the Convention. Religious plurality was at the foundation of a democratic society: national security required that governments protect it, not oppose it. Furthermore, the applicant submitted that neither he nor the Unification Church had ever engaged in any criminal activities, evidence of this being provided by the opinion submitted by the Expert Council to the Ministry of Justice (see paragraph 8 above). The evidence examined in unrelated proceedings before the Promyshlenniy District Court in Stavropol, to which the Government had referred in their pre-admissibility submissions, had not made any reference whatsoever to the applicant. Neither the evidence nor the District Court's judgment had been relied upon by the State authorities in the proceedings concerning the applicant's exclusion, nor had they been attached to the file. The applicant maintained that there was no justification for the interference with his rights under Article 9 of the Convention.
60. The Government submitted that the applicant's expulsion was justified in the light of the European Parliament's Resolution on Cults in Europe of 29 February 1996, in which it had expressed concern over certain cults "engaging in activities of an illicit or criminal nature and in violations of human rights, such as maltreatment, sexual abuse, unlawful detention, slavery, the encouragement of aggressive behaviour or propagation of racist ideologies, tax fraud, illegal transfers of funds, trafficking in arms or drugs, violation of labour laws, the illegal practice of medicine". The Government also referred to the same effect to Recommendation 1178 (1992) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on sects and new religious movements and the Committee of Ministers' supplementary reply to that Recommendation, adopted on 17 February 1994 (doc. 7030). The Government inferred from those documents that States had the right and obligation to exercise vigilance and caution in such sensitive matters as spreading religious teachings. The applicant's activity as a coordinator of Rev. Moon's groups had been merely a "motive" rather than a "ground" for the Russian authorities "to exercise vigilance and make use of existing legal instruments". The grounds for the applicant's exclusion were the results of the operational and search measures as reflected in the report by the Stavropol Regional Branch of the Federal Security Service, dated 18 February 2002, concerning the banning of the applicant from the Russian Federation. As the Moscow City Court had pointed out in its ju
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