A/HRC/34/53/Add.2 47. Representatives of Falun Dafa expressed deep concern over the situation of their organization. They reported that in 2014 a court ruling declared the Falun symbol (a swastika) in their textbooks as “extremist” under the Law on Combating Extremist Activities, resulting in the organization being dissolved. The Supreme Court of Justice upheld that decision. In 2015, the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional the provision in the Law on Anti-Extremism that had led to the organization’s dissolution (thus rendering the dissolution groundless) and, at the time of writing, the case was still pending before the Supreme Court of Justice for revision. 16 48. Representatives of the Unification Church reported the case of two of its leaders who had been arrested on human trafficking charges and held in pretrial detention since October 2015. According to the representatives, the charges had been brought by dissatisfied members of the Church who were seeking to take over the leadership of the organization. It was noted that the Unification Church was registered as a religious organization in 2008 and that until 2015 had conducted its activities without major problems, with the exception of periodic denigrating articles in the media. It was further stated that the arrest of the two leaders had been used by some journalists to spread erroneous information and attacks against the Unification Church. A 2016 report by the organizations Human Rights Without Frontiers and the Forum for Religious FreedomEurope on the case had concluded that the changes against the leaders were groundless. 17 49. Representatives of the Catholic Church referred to a pending case filed against the Government with respect to the Church’s properties that had been expropriated when the country was part of the Soviet Union, and stated there had been a lack of political will to find a solution. 50. Representatives of the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia informed the Special Rapporteur about the difficult and lengthy process they had undergone in order to be registered as a religious organization, including filing a case against the Moldovan State to the European Court of Human Rights, given the repeated refusal by the Moldovan authorities to register the Church. In its 2001 ruling, the Grand Chamber of the Court 18 found a violation by the State of the right to freedom of religion of the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia, which paved the way to the registration of the Church. 51. Concerns voiced by the representatives of the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia included the Government decision No. 740 of 2002 with respect to the administration of religious buildings considered architectural monuments. It was noted that under the decision, 650 churches belonging to the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia were transferred to the Moldovan Orthodox Church. The representatives also highlighted their concern that the Church archives were considered State property and that they had not been able to recover nationalized property belonging to the Church. They recommended the adoption of a law to regulate restitution of property, in line with the recommendation made by the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. 19 16 17 18 19 12 See also the submission by the Human Rights Resource Group for the 2016 universal periodic review of the Republic of Moldova, available from www.soros.md/files/publications/documents/UPR_Human%20Rights_2016.pdf. See https://forefeurope.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/2016-hrwf-foref-report-religiousfreedom_moldova-in-the-dock.pdf. See Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia and Others v. Moldova, European Court of Human Rights application No. 45701/99, 13 December 2001, available from http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{“itemid”:[“001-59985”]}. See A/HRC/19/60, paras. 63 and 76.