BELARUSIAN NEWS SERVICE

 Reporting on violations of religious liberty and on religion in communist and post-communist lands

REPRINTING/QUOTING may be reprinted or quoted providing acknowledgment is given,
such as "Source: Forum18 http://www.forum18.org/index.php".

Message to the Churches of America from the church of Russia

Index

Apr '06  Religious freedom lawyer jailed

Mar '06  Pastor Freed From Prison, But Another To Be Jailed? (Georgi is freed)

Mar '06  Pastor Imprisoned For Leading Home Worship (Georgi is imprisoned)

Feb '06  Pressure Mounts On Two More Minsk Protestant Churches

Oct '05  Fine For Organizing Religious Worship

Sept '05 Second Massive Fine For Organizing Religious Worship

July '05  Protestant Property Obstacles Continue

Jan '05   Uncertain Fate Of Non Re-Registered Communities (Note Georgi's comments)

Oct '04   Police Deny Beating Baptist And Religious Minorities Fear Fresh Repression

Oct '03   Calvinists Kept Quiet

Oct '03   Authorities Check Up On Sunday School Pupils

Oct '03   Religion Law Stunts Church Growth

Oct '03   Obstacles To Religious Events Outside The Home

Oct '03   Home Worship By Registered Groups Illegal

Dec '02   How Many Constitute An Illegal Religious Meeting? (Note Georgi's comments)

Nov '02  How Many Religious Communities Will Be Driven Underground? (Note Georgi's comments)

May '02   Baptist Fined For Singing Hymns

BELARUS: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM LAWYER JAILED

 Following Baptist pastor Georgi Viazovski's completion of a 10 day jail term, religious freedom lawyer Sergei Shavtsov has been jailed, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Shavtsov organized a Christian business leaders seminar, after being denied official permission, and was detained after police raided the seminar. His wife Dina Shavtsova told Forum 18 "Why shouldn't they hold a seminar? All it was about was a Biblical view of history." Dina Shavtsova said that her husband's sentence – although on identical charges – is not directly connected with Pastor Viazovski's. "But the authorities are punishing the same kind of activity – unapproved religious events." Vitali Misevets, head of the Frunze district Ideology Department, claimed to Forum 18 that "It's not absurd to deny permission for such a meeting. How do we know what 35 people were going to be discussing?" Fears have been expressed that Pentecostal Bishop Sergei Tsvor will be jailed on similar charges.

 Eleven days after Baptist pastor Georgi Viazovski completed a ten-day prison sentence for leading unregistered religious activity, a second Protestant was detained and sentenced on similar charges. Sergei Shavtsov, who went ahead and organized a seminar of Christian business leaders in a private cafe in the capital Minsk after official permission was denied, was detained after police raided the seminar on 24 March. "The court offered Sergei a choice of a massive fine or ten days in prison – he chose prison," his wife Dina Shavtsova told Forum 18 News Service from Minsk on 27 March. "Why shouldn't they hold a seminar? All it was about was a Biblical view of history."

 Dina Shavtsova said her husband's sentence – although on identical charges – is not directly connected with Pastor Viazovski's. "But the authorities are punishing the same kind of activity – unapproved religious events."

 Viazovski was jailed for 10 days earlier this month [March] and there are fears that Pentecostal Bishop Sergei Tsvor of Minsk will be jailed on the same charges (see F18News 13 March 2006 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=743).

 Shavtsova said the Christian Business Initiative, a registered social organization which supports Christians in business, had originally intended to hold the seminar in the Christ for the Nations Christian college in Minsk's Frunze district. Under the tight controls on religious meetings, the authorities claim such events need specific permission, so the organizers sought such permission.

 Vitali Misevets, head of the Frunze district ideology department, who on 17 March refused official permission to hold the seminar at the college, said the organizers failed to meet all the requirements of the law, including providing written permission from the Internal Affairs Department and the Emergency Situations Department. "It's not absurd to deny permission for such a meeting," he told Forum 18 from Minsk on 27 March. "How do we know what 35 people were going to be discussing"

 Misevets insisted that in rejecting the application he was merely fulfilling the law on mass meetings and events. "We're a law-governed state – this is what the law demands so this is what I need to have before I can give permission." He claimed he had nothing against the holding of such religious meetings.

 The seminar went ahead in a rented private cafe in Minsk's Lenin district from Wednesday 22 to Friday 24 March. "The first two days there was no problem," Shavtsova reported. But on the Friday three police officers and one KGB officer arrived, claiming the seminar was illegal as no official permission had been granted. The officers locked all 35 or so participants in the cafe for an hour, while two Protestant pastors present, who were suspected of being the organizers, were taken to the local police station for interrogation. Police took identity details for all the other participants, who were later freed.

 Shavtsov – who was not present when the seminar was raided – soon arrived and said he was the organizer. The two pastors were then freed, but he was brought to trial later that day at Lenin district court under Article 167 part 1 of the Code of Administrative Violations. This punishes "carrying out unauthorized mass activities". Within 20 minutes he was found guilty and offered the choice of paying a fine of 4,650,000 Belarusian rubles (14,311 Norwegian kroner, 1,798 Euros or 2,162 US dollars) or serving ten days in prison. On choosing prison, he was immediately sent to the prison on Okrestina street, where many opposition political demonstrators are now being held. He is due to be released on 3 April.

 No-one was available at the Lenin district police on 27 March to explain why a peaceful religious meeting was raided. Nor was anyone available to comment at Lenin district court as to why Shavtsov had been punished for organizing the seminar.

 Dina Shavtsova told Forum 18 she did not feel the harsh punishment for a peaceful religious meeting was related to current government nervousness in the wake of the 19 March presidential elections, which opposition activists claim were rigged. "The authorities in any case look at Protestants as an organized group that presents a danger."

 Sergei Shavtsov is a Christian lawyer who has long been involved in religious freedom work. He helped compile the August 2002 "White Book", a collection of documents and articles about the adoption of amendments to the religion law in 2002 which brought in drastic restrictions on all religious activity. He also acts as legal consultant to several national Protestant Churches.

 Several religious leaders who took part in or observed opposition demonstrations in Minsk in the wake of the election are among the hundreds who have been detained by the Belarusian authorities.

 

 March 13, 2006 PASTOR GEORGI FREED FROM PRISON, BUT ANOTHER TO BE JAILED?

Summery:

In the wake of his March 13 release from prison in the capital Minsk after completing a ten-day sentence, Baptist pastor Georgi Viazovski said fellow-prisoners and warders were "amazed" he had been locked up for conducting worship in his own home. "They'd never had such a case before – one of the staff remarked that the judge must have gone crazy," he told Forum 18 News Service. Some 30 Protestant supporters who had gathered at the prison to welcome him on his release were roughly moved away, as 20 special police stood by. To Forum 18's knowledge, Pastor Viazovski is the first person to have been imprisoned for religious worship on the territory of Belarus for some twenty years, but at least one further prosecution appears imminent. Pentecostal bishop Sergei Tsvor is facing the same charges of conducting illegal services although his congregation in Minsk has official registration.

Complete Story:

Pastor Georgi Viazovski of Christ's Covenant Reformed Baptist Church was freed from a Minsk prison for Administrative Violations Code offenders shortly after midday local time March 13 on completion of a ten-day sentence for conducting religious worship in his own home. Shortly after his release, Pastor Viazovski told Forum 18 News Service he felt "splendid" and even joked that he had lost weight due to the "good diet". Held in cells with five and then 13 other inmates, he also said that both they and the warders were "amazed" that he was there for religious activity: "They'd never had such a case before – one of the staff remarked that the judge must have gone crazy."

To Forum 18's knowledge, Pastor Viazovski is the first person to have been imprisoned for religious worship on the territory of Belarus for some twenty years. However, at least one further prosecution appears imminent.

Fellow Reformed Baptist pastor Vladimir Bukanov told Forum 18 on March 13 that approximately 30 members of various Protestant churches gathered at 11.30 am to meet Pastor Viazovski, but were roughly moved some 400 meters (yards) away from the prison by police, while some 20 special police officers stood by.

On March 10 a meeting of Baptist Union pastors in Brest region wrote to President Alexander Lukashenka and other top state representatives calling Pastor Viazovski's arrest and detention "a disgrace". Leaders of the charismatic Full Gospel Association also expressed their concern at Pastor Viazovski's sentence in an open statement published on March 13.

A combination of restrictions contained in the Administrative Violations Code (Article 167) and the 2002 religion law bans all but occasional and small-scale religious meetings in private homes, and religious activity outside designated houses of worship unless it has advance approval from the state authorities. A first offence is punishable by either a warning, a fine of between 20 and 150 times the minimum monthly wage or three to 15 days' imprisonment. A repeat offence within one year is punishable by either a fine of between 150 and 300 times the minimum monthly wage or ten to 15 days' imprisonment.

On November 25, 2005 Partisan District Court issued a warning to Pastor Viazovski following police check-ups on his home services on May 26, 2005 and October 30, 2005 (see F18News 15 December 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=705). An appeal against the court's decision was rejected by Minsk City Court on January 10, 2006. Following a raid on the Sunday service at his Minsk home on February 5, Pastor Viazovski was sentenced on March 3 under Article 167 of the Administrative Violations Code (see F18News 6 March 2006 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=737).

Pastor Viazovski confirmed to Forum 18 on March 13 that there has been no further attempt to prosecute church members since his conviction.

Forum 18 has learnt, however, that the Pentecostal bishop of Minsk region is now also threatened with prosecution under Article 167. Sergei Tsvor, who is also first vice-chairman of the Pentecostal Union and pastor of the Minsk-based Good News Church, told Forum 18 on March 13 that police visited the free-standing residential house where his 100-strong congregation meets during a service some six weeks ago. When an officer drew up a protocol against the bishop on the grounds that he had no right to lead the gathering under the law on public demonstrations, "I told them that it wasn't a demonstration or a picket, but a worship service," Tsvor told Forum 18. "I can't understand it."

He confirmed that Good News Church is re-registered at the house under the 2002 religion law, for which a document confirming a religious community's right to be situated at its address is required. (Even though the same law prohibits systematic and large-scale religious meetings in private homes, some religious organizations have in practice managed to re-register at free-standing residential houses.)

Under the 2003 demonstrations law, all public events require the advance permission of the local state authorities, while the 2002 religion law states that religious events – if not in designated places of worship - may take place only after a corresponding decision by the local authorities. It would thus appear that permission to hold individual services is being interpreted as separate from that already received by Good News Church to be situated at a residential address. If so, this is the first such case of which Forum 18 is aware.

Summoned to a hearing at Minsk's Moscow District Court at 2pm on March 9, Bishop Tsvor told Forum 18 that the judge had been busy with another case and told him he would be summoned again. He has heard nothing since, however.

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March 6, 2006

 GEORGI  IMPRISONED FOR LEADING HOME WORSHIP

Summery:

To Forum 18 News Service's knowledge, the ten-day prison term handed down on 3 March to Pastor Georgi Viazovski of the Minsk-based Christ's Covenant Reformed Baptist Church for conducting religious worship in his own home is the first time for some twenty years that religious worship has incurred a prison sentence on the territory of Belarus. "We expected that my father would be found guilty," the pastor's son Stanislav Viazovski remarked on the day of the trial. "What we did not expect at all is the punishment for his 'crime'. This was a real shock to all of us who were present." The church tried and failed to get re-registration under Belarus' highly restrictive 2002 religion law, which in defiance of international human rights conventions bans all but occasional religious worship in private homes. District administration leaders sent officials several times to raid Viazovski's church "with the aim of exposing religious organizations without registration".

Complete Story:

Pastor Georgi Viazovski of the Minsk-based Christ's Covenant Reformed Baptist Church was sentenced to ten days' imprisonment on 3 March for conducting religious worship in his own home, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. "The accusations against him were that people were reading the Bible, praying and singing hymns in his house," Vladimir Bukanov, a fellow Reformed Baptist pastor who was at Friday's hearing, told Forum 18 later the same day. The judge at Partisan District Court gave no explanation for the sentence, he added, "only that it was not open to appeal." To Forum 18's knowledge, this is the first time since before the Soviet era of perestroika twenty years ago that religious worship has incurred a prison sentence on the territory of Belarus. The church was forced to hold its Sunday service on 5 March without its pastor.

"We expected that my father would be found guilty," Stanislav Viazovski remarked in a message received by Forum 18 on the evening of 3 March.

"What we did not expect at all is the punishment for his 'crime'. This was a real shock to all of us who were present."

According to Stanislav Viazovski, some 25 Reformed Baptist pastors and church members attended the ninety-minute court hearing, which was followed by an hour's wait for the verdict and a further two hours' wait for it to be issued in written form. "From the court my father was taken straight to the police station and from there to jail. I had just enough time to go home and bring him warm clothes and some food."

Pastor Bukanov told Forum 18 on 6 March that, in what they intend to be a show of support for their pastor, all church members are planning to go en masse to greet Pastor Viazovski when he is released from prison about midday on Monday 13 March.

A combination of restrictions contained in the Administrative Violations Code and the 2002 religion law bans all but occasional and small-scale religious meetings in private homes, and religious activity outside designated houses of worship unless it has advance approval from the state authorities. A first offence is punishable by either a warning, a fine of between 20 and 150 times the minimum wage or three to 15 days' imprisonment. A repeat offence within one year is punishable by either a fine of between 150 and 300 times the minimum wage or ten to 15 days' imprisonment.

On 25 November 2005 Partisan District Court issued a warning to Pastor Viazovski following police check-ups on his home services on 26 May 2005 and 30 October 2005 (see F18News 15 December 2005 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=705>). An appeal against the court's decision was rejected by Minsk City Court on 10 January 2006.

Typically, first time offenders have been warned or handed down small fines (see F18News 20 June 2003 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=87> and 26 February 2004 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=263>), although these have been rising more recently (see F18News 11 May <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=558> and 15 November 2005 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=688>). Those prosecuted a second time have so far received heavy fines rather than prison sentences (see F18News 28 September <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=661>, 25 October <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=676> and 9 November 2005 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=684>).

On 22 February Pastor Viazovski described to Forum 18 how a local district official interrupted the Sunday service at his Minsk home on 5 February, attended by approximately 30 worshippers (see F18News 23 February 2006 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=734>). Officially summoned to Partisan District Court at lunchtime on 22 February - the same day that the case against him was due to be heard - he explained that he was unable to attend and that the hearing was consequently postponed to 3 March.

On 23 February Pastor Viazovski sent Forum 18 copies of the court materials to be used in the 3 March hearing. These include two photographs of worship at his home and three witness statements, all dated 5 February.

In the first, Viazovski's neighbor from across the street, Natalya Konsichin, states: "As far as I know, there is a church in that house and on Sundays people gather there. I don't know exactly why they gather, whether they pray or sing hymns. The church doesn't bother us, we don't hear any loud noises from it."

The other, very similar statements are from the two state representatives who interrupted the 5 February service - local senior police officer Dmitri Lovkis and head of Partisan District's Social Protection Department, Vladimir Filipkov. According to these, the pair were sent on a "raid" [the English word is used] by the leadership of Partisan District "with the aim of exposing religious organizations without registration".

In October 2005, recalls Lovkis, "we uncovered the fact that the owner of the said house [Georgi Viazovski] was organizing and holding a religious gathering with prayers and hymns in a place not designed for the holding of religious gatherings, and without the relevant permission."

When the pair checked up on Viazovski's house on 5 February, according to Filipkov, "there were about 20 people present in the house, and a worship service with hymns was taking place. The hall where the people were located was equipped with benches for seating, a rostrum with a Christian cross and audio equipment. Viazovski was present at the service in person and was to be found in the hall, his son was behind the rostrum.

Viazovski, seeing my presence, and also that I was taking photographs of the hall and those present, led me out of the hall." Senior Lieutenant Lovkis did not enter the house. "In answer to my request to pass and see what was going on," he writes in his report to the local district police colonel, "[Viazovski] refused to let me into the hall, saying that he was not conducting a religious gathering and that his relatives were in the hall. After Filipkov said that he had gone into the hall, seen that a religious gathering was taking place and taken some photographs, Viazovski told us to leave his house."

Christ's Covenant Reformed Baptist Church unsuccessfully sought independent re-registration under the restrictive 2002 religion law after previously being affiliated to the mainstream Baptist Union (see F18News 17 November 2004  <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=454> and 30 September 2005 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=664>).

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Feb 23, 2006 BELARUS: PRESSURE MOUNTS ON TWO MORE MINSK PROTESTANT CHURCHES

Complete Story: http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=734

Following two warnings last year, Pastor Georgi Viazovski of Christ's Covenant Reformed Baptist Church now faces administrative charges for leading an unregistered congregation after a city official and a police officer arrived at his home during Sunday worship on 5 February, he told Forum 18 News Service from Belarus' capital Minsk. The hearing is due on 3 March. Meanwhile, court officials are demanding that Pastor Ernst Sabilo of the Minsk-based Belarusian Evangelical Church - a veteran of Soviet labour camps for his faith - pay court costs of almost 60 US dollars for the liquidation of his congregation's legal status last September. Sabilo told court officials that as a pensioner he cannot afford to pay the sum. The two churches are among many religious groups in Belarus unable to gain registration under highly restrictive registration regulations, thus rendering all their activity illegal.

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October 28, 2005 (SUMMERY) THIRD MASSIVE FINE FOR ORGANIZING RELIGIOUS WORSHIP

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=676

The administrator of the Minsk-based New Life Church, Vasily Yurevich, has been fined a third time for leading unauthorized worship.

The latest fine is the massive amount of 3,825,000 Belarusian roubles

(1,780 US Dollars), which is well over 10 times the average monthly wage in Belarus. The official text of the local court decision, which has been seen by Forum 18, relies upon police testimony - which Yurevich and congregation members strongly dispute - identifying him as the organizer of a Sunday service "by his outward appearance." New Life's Pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko - who has also been fined for unsanctioned worship - insisted that the church would continue to meet for worship. It has also been denied state permission to turn a disused cowshed it purchased into a church building, on the grounds that it is technically a cowshed. A number of other Protestant churches have also reported recent moves by state officials to limit their religious activity, on the basis of technical violations.

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Sept 23, 2005 (SUMMERY) SECOND MASSIVE FINE FOR ORGANIZING RELIGIOUS WORSHIP

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=661

Two months after a regular Sunday morning service of the embattled New Life charismatic church in Minsk was raided by police, a court fined the church's administrator Vasily Yurevich the equivalent of 160 times the minimum monthly wage for organizing an "illegal" service.

Yurevich told Forum 18 News Service that Judge Natalya Kuznetsova ignored church members' insistence that he had not organized the service, while the court decision maintained that the judge "believes offender Yurevich is trying to evade responsibility for what has been committed". This is Yurevich's second massive fine and he fears further fines in the wake of a police raid on the church's 4 September service. In separate cases, one Baptist punished for organizing "illegal" worship was able to overturn his fine in August, but two other Baptists have been fined in recent months.

One was ordered to take down the church sign.

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July 28, 2005 (SUMMERY) BELARUS: PROTESTANT PROPERTY OBSTACLES CONTINUE
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=619

The Belarusian religion law's insistence on religious communities being registered at a non-residential address, as well as state approval for religious activities outside purpose-built places of worship, creates obstacles for Protestants in particular, Forum 18 News Service has found.

For example, the charismatic New Generation Church's 150-strong congregation in Baranovichi faces long-running problems, caused by the authorities' refusal to allow a warehouse the church owns to be converted into a church. Reasons given vary between multi-storey housing being planned for the site, and that it will be used for a stadium's car park.

Another example is the Minsk-based charismatic New Life Church, which faces continuing obstruction in using a cowshed for worship. The latest threat, Forum 18 has learnt, is that the city is considering ending the church's right to the land beneath the cowshed. Officials claim that the cowshed can only be used only for its designated purpose - even though animal husbandry is illegal in Minsk city. Forum 18 has found that other Protestant churches throughout Belarus face similar obstructions from officials.

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January 27, 2005 (SUMMERY) BELARUS: UNCERTAIN FATE OF NON RE-REGISTERED COMMUNITIES

After the deadline for compulsory state re-registration, it is uncertain what will happen to religious communities who are either still in the process of re-registering or who have been refused re-registration, Forum 18 News Service has found.  Amongst examples of problems experienced by communities, that Forum 18 knows of, are that a non re-registered Hare Krishna community has been given an official warning, after police saw Krishna devotees praying without state permission.  Two warnings are sufficient for the authorities to begin proceedings to liquidate a religious community.  A Baptist church has had bank accounts closed, as bank staff told the church that it has to be re-registered to have an account, and a Reformed Baptist Church has been refused permission by the local architecture department to use a private house for worship.  Without state re-registration, it is legally impossible for religious communities to meet for worship, or to engage in other religious activities.  There are also other ways in which the state monitors, restricts and prevents the activity of religious communities.

UNCERTAIN FATE OF NON RE-REGISTERED COMMUNITIES (Note Georgi's comments)

Following the deadline for compulsory state re-registration on November 16th 2004, under the religious law, it is uncertain what will happen to a number of religious communities who are either still in the process of re-registering or who have been refused re-registration, Forum 18 News Service has found.

Without state re-registration, it is legally impossible for religious communities to meet for worship or to engage in other religious activities.  Registered religious organizations cannot, for example, engage in activities outside the place where they are registered and violations of the law can result in a religious community being formally liquidated.  There is a network of officials monitoring religious communities, atheism and negative views of religion are formally taught within the education system and there are other ways - such as fire, health and safety, and planning regulations - also used to monitor, restrict and prevent the activity of religious communities.

On 24 January the Belarusian Supreme Court upheld a December 21st ruling by Minsk City Court, stating that the Minsk Society for Krishna Consciousness had rightly been refused re-registration under the 2002 law.  Having thus failed in its appeal against the refusal, Sergei Malakhovsky of the Society explained to Forum 18 on January 24th, the community will now lodge an appeal with the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

Similar to the charismatic New Life Church (see F18News January 25, 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=498), the Minsk Krishna Consciousness Society does not have the state approval required by the 2002 religion law to use its own premises for worship, and was refused re-registration as a result.  On November 3, 2004 Minsk's Central District Court also issued an official warning after a police officer observed Krishna devotees praying at their temple without state permission (see F18News 10 November 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=450).  Two violations of Belarusian law would be sufficient for the state authorities to file for the Society's liquidation.

Two other Krishna Consciousness communities in Bobruisk [Babruysk] (Mogilev [Mahilyow] region) and Mogilev cannot re-register and register respectively, Sergei Malakhovsky also told Forum 18.  He maintained that the state authorities keep changing the reasons for not re-registering the Bobruisk group: "First they say the legal address is not in order, then the charter, then that the application was too late - but we obtained the necessary approval to use a home address, changed the charter repeatedly after consulting officials and submitted before the deadline." The authorities insist that the Mogilev group seeking initial registration must first pass expert analysis, said Malakhovsky, and will not accept confirmation from the Minsk Society that it belongs to the same religious confession.

Speaking to Forum 18 on January 24th, Mogilev regional religious affairs official Valeri Vankovich initially claimed that there were no Krishna devotees in his region.  He then said that the Bobruisk community had been denied re-registration because it had failed to submit a timely re-registration application despite being requested to do so and because its documents did not correspond with the law.  "They didn't have the right legal address," explained Vankovich, "under the old law, it could be in a block of flats, but that is forbidden now." He added, however, that the Bobruisk community could apply for registration as a new religious organization.  Vankovich also stated that the Mogilev group was deemed to be liable for expert analysis, although the 2002 religion law stipulates that this is the case only for religious confessions new to Belarus, since the applicants had described themselves as "Vaishnavis" rather than Krishna devotees.  These terms are in fact synonymous.

The authorities in Brest have now returned re-registration applications to six autonomous Baptist churches in the region, Pastor Viktor Zdanevich of the congregation on Brest's Fortechnaya Street told Forum 18 on 18 January, "they won't re-register us." The banks where two of the six have accounts have closed them at the request of the authorities, he added, "bank staff said we would have to be re-registered in order to have an account." Otherwise, he told Forum 18, there have been no consequences as yet.  The six congregations had refused to accept a provision in the 2002 religion law stipulating that a religious organization may function only within the limit of the territory upon which it is registered (see F18News on December 1, 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=465).

Contacted by Forum 18 on  January 24, Brest regional religious affairs official Vasili Marchenko confirmed that the problem with the six autonomous churches' re-registration applications was that they refused to accept the restriction to the territory of religious activity.  Maintaining that a similar restriction exists for all legal personalities in Belarus, Marchenko specified that the territory in question constituted the limits of a town or city if that was where an organization was registered or the several neighboring small settlements or villages where founder members live in other cases.  As he was "still trying to explain this" to the autonomous Baptists, he told Forum 18, he could not say what the consequences for them of rejecting it would be.

Two Reformed Baptist congregations denied re-registration (see F18News November 17, 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=454) are so far able to gather without obstruction, their pastors told Forum 18 on January 17th.  Pastor Georgi Vyazovsky of Minsk Reformed Baptist Church explained that he had received legal advice to the effect that, since the church previously held registration, this remained valid until the local executive committee filed for liquidation, "whereas they consider that we have already 'self-liquidated'." Speaking from the settlement of Gatovo outside Minsk, Pastor Vladimir Bukanov told Forum 18 that his Reformed congregation had become caught in a vicious circle.  "We couldn't get approval from the local architect to use a private house as worship premises - he said he wouldn't give it to us as we were apostates and chased me out of his office." On appealing at the district level, Bukanov continued, various officials simply referred him back to the architectural department.

The pastor of a Calvinist congregation in Minsk which refused to re-register "as our form of protest, we have not agreed with the new religion law ever since its draft stage," Lyavon Lipen told Forum 18 on January 19th that, although there had been no consequences so far, "I think there will be, but it is only a short time since the deadline" (see F18News November 17, 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=454)  The outcome of re-registration applications by a second Calvinist church and the Zion-Jerusalem Messianic Jewish community are still being decided by the Minsk city authorities, their pastors told Forum 18 on January 24th.

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Oct 20, 2004  BELARUS: POLICE DENY BEATING BAPTIST AND RELIGIOUS MINORITIES FEAR FRESH REPRESSION

Police in the town of Lepel [Lyepyel'] have angrily denied beating up a Baptist street evangelist, however the police have admittedly repeatedly detaining Baptists who were running a street library. The detentions allegedly took place at the instigation of the local Orthodox priest wife. Religious minorities fear that, after the strongly disputed referendum and parliamentary elections this week, the government's attention will turn to implementing Belarus' repressive religion law, under which all religious activity by unregistered religious communities is illegal. Cardinal Kazimierz Swiatek of Minsk-Mohilev, the latest religious leader to criticize the law, has described some of the law's restrictions and said that "This law appears to normalize relations between the State and the Church, but does it in a way that suits the State, not the Church."

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October 31, 2003 BELARUS: CALVINISTS KEPT QUIET By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service

Baptists, Pentecostals, other Charismatics and Adventists held a joint service of worship in Minsk on 19 October to mark the 450th anniversary of the Reformation in Belarus. While there were "hundreds of Calvinist communities" on Belarusian soil in the sixteenth century, however, the presbyter of Minsk's present-day Calvinist Reformed Church recently maintained to Forum 18 News Service that the authors of the republic's 2002 law on religion "forgot about the Calvinists for some reason." The Evangelical Lutheran Church is the only Protestant body specified as being "inseparable from the common history of the people of Belarus" in the preamble of that law.

Finally registered on 18 June 2001 after a "very long and complicated" two-year process, the 50-strong Minsk Reformed Church chose to mark this year's 450th anniversary of the Reformation in Belarus with an international conference on the subject in early April, Aleksei Frolov (Alaksiej Fralou) told Forum 18 on 21 September. While the event went ahead, he added, it did so only with difficulty. 

Three months before the conference, the Church arranged to rent a 350-seater hall at the Central Palace of Veterans in central Minsk. Approximately a month before the event the Calvinists learnt that under current legislation on mass meetings and demonstrations (see F18News 8 October 2003) they were obliged to request the permission of the local Central District administration in order to hold an event at a public venue. Concerned at having received no reply to their request just one week before the conference - which was due to be attended by guests from the Netherlands, Poland, Ukraine, Germany, South Africa and the Czech Republic - the Church again turned to the district authority. The latter refused to allow a religious event in a cultural establishment, said Frolov, "even though the genre of conference is a priori not a religious event."

On subsequently contacting the Minsk city authorities, Frolov maintained that the official in charge of religious affairs in the city, Alla Ryabitseva, told the Calvinists that they had no right to conduct an international conference since their organization was not a republic-wide religious association. While a local Baptist pastor offered the use of his church for the conference at the last minute, continued Frolov, the Calvinists were unable to advertise the event in the overwhelmingly state-owned press since it took place on an unofficial basis.

Forum 18 has received no response when telephoning Alla Ryabitseva. Article 29 of the 2002 religion law states that religious organizations - which include both communities and associations - have the right to invite foreign citizens to participate in gatherings and other events.   The Reformed Church's difficulties did not end with the conclusion of the conference. While discussing the event's arrangements, municipal religious affairs officials made a note of where the Calvinists worship, said Frolov, and shortly after the conference two of them visited the Church during its Sunday service at the Francysk Skaryna Belarusian Language Centre. The pair reportedly informed the Calvinists that they needed to obtain official permission from the local Partisan District authority in order to hold such meetings. Responding to the Church's request, the district authority at first demanded that it stipulate the precise dates and times of its services "and not just 'on Sundays'," Aleksei Frolov told Forum 18. (Last year New Life Full Gospel Church received the same response from a different Minsk district authority: See F18News 8 October 2003). After receiving no further response - even a written refusal - "we understood that it was useless trying to do anything," Frolov remarked. "They could give us any reason for refusal, such as insufficient fire precautions." 

After state pressure was apparently exerted upon the proprietors of the Francysk Skaryna language centre - where, Frolov noted, social organizations continue to hold meetings unhindered - the Minsk Reformed Church was forced to seek another location for its services. As with its conference, the Church has not been prevented from functioning, he acknowledged to Forum 18, but is now effectively unable to advertise its presence in the Belarusian capital: "We cannot say that this Church exists, preaches Jesus Christ and doesn't bite."

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October 13, 2003 BELARUS: AUTHORITIES CHECK UP ON SUNDAY SCHOOL PUPILS

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=161
With last year's religion law criminalizing "the attraction of minors to religious organizations and also the teaching of religion to them against their will or without the agreement of their parents or guardians", Forum 18 News Service has learnt that local authorities are demanding that religious organizations supply the names and dates of birth of all their Sunday school children. "We believe this to be a violation of believers' rights," complained Pastor Pavel Firisyuk of Salvation Baptist Church, "as well as of Christ's commandment: 'Let the little children come to me.'" However, State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs vice-chairman Vladimir Lameko defended the move, telling the Baptists only that officials should have explained better why they needed the information.

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October 13, 2003 BELARUS: RELIGION LAW STUNTS CHURCH GROWTH

http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=162
As last year's religion law confines the activity of a religious organization to a defined area (often a single village, town or region of the country), Orthodox, Baptist, Pentecostal and Catholic leaders are among those to have expressed their concern. The law's provisions inevitably "make it difficult to organize new churches", Baptist pastor Viktor Zdanevich complained to Forum 18 News Service. As an autonomously registered congregation, his church is banned from creating a mission. The chairman of a Greek Catholic parish council in Polotsk, Mikola Sharakh, noted that the law did not allow for development and effectively created a "reservation" for the church. One Roman Catholic agreed, telling Forum 18: "People might argue that the churches are open, but what freedom is that? It is a silhouette."

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 October 8, 2003 BELARUS: OBSTACLES TO RELIGIOUS EVENTS OUTSIDE THE HOME
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=156
With all outdoor religious events requiring advance permission from the local authorities, some regions allow them while others are hostile. "If our relations are OK with the local authority we write a request for permission to perform an outdoor baptism," Pentecostal assistant bishop of Grodno region Naum Sakhanchuk told Forum 18 News Service. If not, he added, there was no point in writing. "I'll be refused - they'll say that the river is polluted, or that swimming is prohibited in the lake." Since being banned in the capital Minsk in 2000, the Catholics' annual Corpus Christi procession has to take place away from main streets "to make sure it is not seen", yet in Grodno region the Catholics report no difficulties obtaining permission for such processions. The difficulty of renting public venues varies - in 2002 all cinemas in Grodno were banned from renting to religious groups.

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October 7, 2003 BELARUS: HOME WORSHIP BY REGISTERED GROUPS ILLEGAL

With the law banning registered religious communities from using residential properties as their legal addresses without specific authorization, the many such communities that meet in private homes now face the risk of failing to gain re-registration or even being liquidated by court order, especially as transferring property from residential to non-residential use is very difficult. Forum 18 News Service has learnt that Minsk City Council warned Mount Tabor Baptist Church in January that failure to change its legal address from a residential property might result in the church being liquidated through the courts. Aleksandr Sakovich, head of the charismatic Full Gospel Church, told Forum 18 its ten registered churches in the capital - with an estimated 5,000 people - are unable to worship all together and have to meet in many smaller units in private flats. He said there have been no cases of these groups being prosecuted for doing so - "yet".

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BELARUS: HOW MANY CONSTITUTE AN ILLEGAL RELIGIOUS MEETING? 
by Felix Corley, Keston News Service

Despite assertions by the government's Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs that a "mass" religious meeting requiring state approval constitutes one with at least 100 people, the senior religious affairs official in the Belarusian capital Minsk Alla Ryabitseva has declared that if more than ten people gather together for a religious meeting without official permission they would be committing a crime. "The uncertainty surrounding the norms of the religion law allows local officials to give their own interpretation of the law, which in certain situations leads to the direct limitation of the rights of citizens," Dina Shavtsova, a Minsk-based lawyer who has been involved in religious liberty cases, declared on 12 December.

Ryabitseva made the assertion to the leaders of all the religious communities registered in the Frunze district of Minsk during a meeting organised by the local administration on 10 December to explain the new provisions of the controversial amended religion law, which entered into force on 16 November (see KNS 14 November 2002). She told them that from now on all religious meetings in private homes require prior permission from the local administration. She said private homes are not places designated for the holding of religious meetings and therefore such permission is obligatory.

Reached by Keston on 13 December, Ryabitseva said so far she had held only one such meeting with religious leaders, in the Frunze district. She said further such meetings to explain the new provisions of the law will be held with administration leaders in other districts of the city "and if necessary with religious leaders". Asked why she had declared home meetings illegal without prior permission, she declared: "You have to read the law." She then put the phone down.

Shavtsova noted that during discussion of the law, Protestant leaders had pointed out that Article 25 of the law would allow local officials to restrict believers' rights to meet for worship arbitrarily. "They persuaded us then that nothing like this would happen, that this was an invented problem," she declared. "However, Ryabitseva's words testify that such fears were justified." She pointed out that the restrictions on religious meetings in private homes violate Article 31 of the Constitution, which sets out the right to confess a faith individually or with others. "Home groups represent one form of the joint confession of religion." And she added: "Thanks to Ryabitseva's efforts, a whole range of Evangelical churches which don't have their own church buildings have been deprived of the right to rent halls in Minsk. They can now only meet in home groups, though even this possibility is now dependent on the whims of one or another bureaucrat."

Georgi Vyazovsky, pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Minsk, told Keston on 13 December that in the towns of Gatovo and Krupki in Minsk region, officials of the regional religious affairs committee had summoned local religious leaders individually to explain the impact of the new law. He said that during the meeting in Krupki, officials had shown his colleague a copy of "V nachale.", a magazine his church had issued a few weeks earlier examining the history of the Orthodox Church and criticising its views on icons. "We have not even sent out the copies yet, so they must have got them from the printing house," Pastor Vyazovsky told Keston. "You see they have all our activity under control." He said officials had asked his colleague why they are so strongly against the Orthodox Church.

Asked whether the new law had yet had any other impact, Pastor Vyazovsky responded. "Not yet, though we don't know what will follow." He said his Church continues to hold meetings in private homes.

Bishop Sergei Khomich, head of the Pentecostal Union which has more than 490 registered communities in the country, told Keston on 13 December that none of his pastors has been summoned to such meetings with religious affairs officials. "We have no registered communities in Minsk's Frunze district, so none of our people was at the 10 December meeting." He said he had heard that Pentecostal leaders would be invited in future, although he had been unable to discover if this was to be on a local or national level.

Keston contacted religious leaders in a number of other cities, but did not learn that any similar meetings had been held in local administrations. "Nothing has changed here so far," Greek Catholic priest Father Igor Kandraceu told Keston from the western town of Brest on 13 December. "Despite the new law, God remains the same and we will continue to worship him."

Bishop Khomich reported that religious affairs committee officials had told him that the decree outlining the re-registration procedure that all registered communities will have to undergo within the next two years are still being drawn up. It will then have to be approved by the Justice Ministry before being issued. "They promised us it will be issued by the end of this year," he told Keston. "We are eager to get moving in re-registering our communities."

The Orthodox Church has continued to express its support for the restrictive new law. At the "traditional" meeting between Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Minsk on 12 December, the leader of the Orthodox Church in Belarus, the Russian-born Metropolitan Filaret, praised the new law. The Church also put forward a proposal for a separate agreement between the Orthodox Church and the state.

"It is a very interesting proposal and I do support the initiative to sign an agreement between the state and the church," Lukashenka responded in remarks shown on Belarusian television the same day. "This agreement will set forth the forms, methods and areas of our activities and the spheres where we will cooperate. I believe that we should pass a set of programmes as a follow-up to this agreement."

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 BELARUS: HOW MANY RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES WILL BE DRIVEN UNDERGROUND?

If President Aleksandr Lukashenko signs the repressive new religion bill into law as expected (see separate KNS article), representatives of a number of faiths have told Keston News Service that they fear their activity will be rendered illegal as a result of the compulsory re- registration specified as part of the bill. "Only one of our ten congregations has registration at the moment," Georgi Vyazovsky, pastor of Christ Covenant Church, a Reform Baptist church in Minsk, told Keston by telephone on 2 October. "If the president signs this law we will be driven into illegality. None of our communities will pass the re-registration." However, an official of the government's Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs in Minsk has dismissed these fears, pledging that all religious organizations that now have registration will retain it after the re-registration round is over.

Article 3 of provision appended to the bill specifies that within two years of the official publication of the law, the Council of Ministers is to "take the necessary measures for the state re-registration of religious organizations whose statutes were registered before the entry into force of the present law". Aleksandr Kalinov, head of the religious affairs department of the Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs, told Keston from Minsk on 2 October that this meant that the registration rights of those religious organizations already on the register will be protected, even if they no longer qualify for registration. "No registered religious organizations will have their rights violated after the entry into force of the new law," he pledged.

Kalinov reported that there are at present 2,830 registered religious organizations in Belarus. Of them, 1,261 are Russian Orthodox, 494 Pentecostal Union, 434 Roman Catholic, 272 Baptist Union, 64 Full Gospel, 56 Adventist, 35 Old Believers, 27 Jehovah's Witness, 27 Muslim, 25 Orthodox Jewish, 20 New Apostolic, 19 Lutheran, 14 Greek Catholic, 12 Progressive Jewish, 9 Apostolic Faith Christians, 7 Hare Krishna, 6 Church of Christ, 6 Baha'i, 3 Mormon, 3 Messianic Jewish, 2 Reformed, 2 Latin-rite Catholic, 1 Church of First Christians, 1 Oomoto, 1 Yoga. He added that the remaining 29 religious organizations are from the Baptist Council of Churches, a group which on principle rejects registration in all the post-Soviet republics where it operates. "They have refused registration, but because we know they exist we have included them," Kalinov told Keston.

However, like Pastor Vyazovsky, many leaders of minority faiths remain suspicious of such claims that groups that already have registration will automatically retain it. "That's not true," Artur Livshits, a lawyer and a member of the Civic Initiative For Freedom of Conscience, told Keston from Minsk on 2 October. "There is no mention of automatic re-registration of religious organizations in the law. They are just trying to keep people calm." Asked whether he believed Kalinov was lying, Livshits responded: "I can't say that he is lying, but the only way I can believe the government is if the law says something, and in this case it doesn't." He points to the difficulties many religious communities already have trying to gain registration.

Livshits reported that in the past months, officials from the Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs have been telephoning religious leaders individually in an attempt to persuade them that the new law will not harm them. "I know five religious leaders who had such calls, among them Protestants and Jews," he reported. "Officials said they would have no problems with re-registration, but they made no specific commitment."

In addition to the new requirement for individual communities to have twenty adult citizen founders (up from ten under the current law), only religious communities that have ten registered congregations, one of which had registration back in 1982 will be able to gain registration for an "association", or umbrella body. Kalinov maintained that this did not necessarily mean that such groups had to have had registration in 1982, merely that they should have "documents" proving that they existed. However, he declined to say what documents would suffice although he stressed that the fact that "two or three people" were meeting then would not be enough. END

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