This article was published by F18News on: 1 March 2007

Only three religious communities – the Seventh-day Adventist and United Methodist churches and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) - appear to have been given legal status under Serbia's controversial Religion Law, Forum 18 News Service has found. This is unofficial, as Religion Minister Milan Radulovic's office has not answered Forum 18's repeated enquiries about what if any official figures there may be. Many smaller religious communities – such as the Adventist Reform movement and Hare Krishna community – appear to have had their registration applications arbitrarily stalled. One apparent stalling tactic of the Religion Ministry is to try to force communities to register as Citizens Associations with the Public Administration Ministry – which then tells them to go back to the Religion Ministry to register as religious communities. In separate legal challenges, the Jehovah's Witnesses are taking the Religion Ministry to the Supreme Court for breaking the Religion Law, and the Serbian Baptist Union are refusing to apply for registration and have started a case against the Religion Law in the Constitutional Court.

The Adventist Reform movement – which has existed since 1923 as a separate religious community from the just-registered Seventh-day Adventist Church – was in a document dated 1 March denied registration under article 19 of the Religion Law, which denies legal status to religious communities "whose name contains a name or part of the name expressing the identity of a Church, religious community or religious organization which is already entered into the Register." Because of this, as Branko Bosanac pointed out to Forum 18 on 7 March, the Movement is not able to acquire a tax number or pay tax – which it wants to do – so the new owner of a house the Movement has recently sold cannot prove that they are the new legal owner.

SERBIA: Stalling tactics used to delay granting legal status?