E/CN.4/1989/44 page 43 76. In a communication of 19 October 1988, the following information was transmitted: "As of May 1988, it was alleged that a total of 216 persons were detained on religious grounds. "These prisoners allegedly suffer from harsh treatment in detention. It has been reported that a 23-year-old Armenian Hare Krishna follower (one name provided) died in labour camp YV-25/"B" in the Orenburg Region on 26 December 1987, one month before his expected release. "It has been reported that on 3 February 1988, a Russian Orthodox community in Berezniki was refused State recognition. "It has been alleged that the Ukrainian Catholic priest (one name provided), reportedly sentenced for religious activities, was drafted into a military unit which from October to December 1987 had to clean up radioactive waste at Chernobyl. "It has been reported that in the Ukrainian village of Bratkivki, where the Catholic community had been holding liturgies for several months in the officially closed church, a group of armed police broke into the church in early February 1988, destroyed the iconostasis and the altar and confiscated everything movable. "It has been alleged that, as of May 1988, seven Hare Krishna members were imprisoned in labour camps serving sentences of up to five years for their membership in this banned group. "It was further alleged that the authorities were preventing Torah studies from taking place in the synagogue in Rostov. "(One name provided), a practising Jew who spoke at a commemoration of the 1942 massacre of Minsk Jews by Nazis, was reportedly sentenced to two weeks' imprisonment for 'hooliganism'." 77. On 18 November 1988, the Permanent Mission of the USSR communicated the reply of the Soviet authorities to the Special Rapporteur's letter of 21 July. The reply stated, in particular: "A policy aimed at assuring genuine freedom of conscience and complete protection of the rights of believers is being consistently implemented in the Soviet Union. On the basis of the principle of separation of Church from State and of schools from Church the Constitution of the USSR guarantees to all Soviet citizens freedom of conscience, i.e. 'the right to profess or not to profess any religion, and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda'. It prohibits 'incitement to hostility or hatred on religious grounds' (Constitution, art. 52). The Soviet Constitution and legislation also ban any discrimination on grounds of religious beliefs, and any limitation of citizens* rights resulting from their attitude towards religion, and establish administrative and criminal responsibility for violating these principles.