LongHairGal: You can talk endlessly about human rights and freedom of religion but when a country going through hard times has a dictator this all goes out the window!
Of course.
Russia also has a history of terrorism and has had problems with the control of terrorism for longer than America has. Their history plays into this situation as well.
For example, wars in Chechnya and terrorist infiltration into Russia for funding of military disturbances and such. In close neighboring countries. Recently. Areas of Russia, like Chechnya, can be pretty tense and religious/political boundaries might get blurry. And militant.
Russia has established religious factions and traditions that go back centuries - long before North America was even settled/colonized. And then a period of no religion during the Soviet era. Much political turmoil and religious disruption in the past 100 years. From a monarchy to a wee little hiccup of socialism, into hard core communism, sliding out on a socialist wing...capitalism...and now the revolution comes full swing...back to a 'monarch' type system.