SOURCE: KESTON INSTITUTE <http://www.keston.org> KESTON INSTITUTE, OXFORD, UK ______________________________________ KESTON NEWS SERVICE, 20.00, 31 October 2002. Reporting on violations of religious liberty and on religion in communist and post-communist lands. ______________________________________ I. BELARUS: REPRESSIVE RELIGION LAW GETS PRESIDENT'S SIGNATURE. Belarus' highly repressive new religion law - the most restrictive in Europe - was signed by President Aleksandr Lukashenko this morning (31 October). It will come into force ten days after its official publication. The new law outlaws unregistered religious activity; requires compulsory prior censorship for all religious literature; bans foreign citizens from leading religious organisations; religious education is restricted to faiths that have ten registered communities, including at least one that had registration in 1982; and there is a ban on all but occasional, small religious meetings in private homes. II. BELARUS: RESIGNATION AND DEFIANCE GREET REPRESSIVE RELIGION LAW. Minority religious communities and human rights groups, along with a few parliamentary deputies, have greeted the president's signature on the repressive new religion law with a mixture of resignation and defiance, Keston News Service has learnt in a survey of opinion. The Russian Orthodox Church leadership has strongly backed the new law, but there are many priests and laypeople in the Church who do not support its restrictive provisions. Keston has learnt of one Orthodox priest who opposed the new law who was told during the summer by a more senior clergyman not to voice his dissatisfaction publicly as the Orthodox Church had put great efforts into having the law adopted. I. BELARUS: REPRESSIVE RELIGION LAW GETS PRESIDENT'S SIGNATURE by Felix Corley, Keston News Service Belarus' highly repressive new religion law - the most restrictive in Europe - was signed by President Aleksandr Lukashenko this morning (31 October), the official news agency Belta reported. The law will come into force ten days after its official publication. News of the president's signature brought a mixture of resignation and defiance among minority religious communities, many of which have protested vigorously against its adoption (see separate KNS article). The new law outlaws unregistered religious activity; requires compulsory prior censorship for all religious literature; bans foreign citizens from leading religious organisations; religious education is restricted to faiths that have ten registered communities, including at least one that had registration in 1982; and there is a ban on all but occasional, small religious meetings in private homes. The new law was approved by the lower house of parliament on 27 June and by the upper house on 2 October. The president signed the law immediately after his return from a visit to the Gulf states. It remains unclear why it took him so long to decide whether to sign or not (see KNS 23 October 2002) or whether indeed he signed it within the period specified by Belarus' constitution. Immediately the law enters into force, religious organisations must begin bringing their statutes into line with the new law. In any case, parts of their statute that contradict the new law will no longer be operative. All religious organisations must apply for re-registration within two years. Parliament will have to approve amendments to a range of other laws and regulations to bring them into line with the new provisions of the law. Keston tried to find out from the government's Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs in Minsk what measures will now be taken against religious communities, but was told that all officials were on a work visit to Polotsk today, 31 October. Keston could not reach officials of the committee in Polotsk on their mobile phones. (END) II. BELARUS: RESIGNATION AND DEFIANCE GREET REPRESSIVE RELIGION LAW by Felix Corley, Keston News Service Minority religious communities and human rights groups have greeted the president's signature on the repressive new religion law (see separate KNS article) with a mixture of resignation and defiance, Keston News Service has learnt in a survey of opinion. "The law has been adopted and signed," declared Bishop Sergei Khomich, leader of the Pentecostal Union, the second largest religious faith in the number of registered communities. "There is nothing we can do about it although we believe it is undemocratic and violates the constitution." Sergei Malakhovsky, chairman of the Minsk Hare Krishna community, agreed. "This new law will bring a lot of harm to religious communities, instituting harsher control not just on new religious groups but even on the Orthodox Church." Their opposition was echoed by one of the few parliamentary deputies to oppose the law. "I continue to regard it as an anti-constitutional law," Ivan Pashkevich, a member of the lower house of parliament and a vigorous opponent of the law, told Keston from Minsk on 31 October. "I fear there will now be conflict between religious confessions as a result of this law." (The security police, the KGB, also opposed the law on these grounds.) Among human rights groups which have opposed the law is the Belarusian Helsinki Committee. Its executive chairman, Oleg Gulak, told Keston on 31 October that he now expects a severe worsening of the situation for religious minorities. "Many communities will lose registration." He also complained about the time it will take religious communities to navigate their way through the bureaucracy to achieve re-registration. "Religious organisations will have to drop everything and spend the next two or three months running around from one office to another paying fees and getting approval, just for this. If even one little thing in their statutes does not accord with the law re-registration will be denied." He warned that small religious communities will not have the legal knowledge or perseverance to achieve re-registration. "Many of them won't bother. They will go underground, saying that they won't be able to fight against this new law." Gulak believes that although the Russian Orthodox Church leadership has strongly backed the new law, there are many priests and laypeople in the Church who do not support its restrictive provisions. "The harsh leadership of the Orthodox Church has suppressed all dissent," he maintained. (Keston has independently learnt of one Minsk-based Orthodox priest who opposed the new law who was told during the summer by a more senior clergyman not to voice his dissatisfaction publicly as the Orthodox Church had put great efforts into having the law adopted.) The official spokesman for the Orthodox Church declined to comment on the president's signature. "You will have to speak to Andrei Aleshko, the Church's legal adviser," Andrei Petrashkevich told Keston from Minsk on 31 October. Keston could not immediately reach Aleshko, who was in Polotsk, apparently with officials of the government's Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs. Catholic leaders were reluctant to speak out against the new law. Fr Igor Kandraceu, a Greek Catholic priest from the western city of Brest, was highly guarded in his comments. "This new law is based on the contemporary reality of Belarus," he told Keston, stressing that he was giving his personal view. "It is impossible that any other religion law could have been adopted." He said his Church had to be cautious and loyal. "We will have to accept the new law and work under it. We have no other choice." He declined to speculate on any concrete changes that might follow the law's adoption, though he said he believed there would not be any immediate significant changes. Equally cautious was Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, the Vatican nuncio in Minsk. "There are so many different approaches to this new law. Others will compare it with international standards. We have not yet done that." He said the Catholic Church in Belarus would be watching to see how the new law is implemented. "It is important for the law to guarantee us and others the freedom to continue our religious work." He stressed that the Catholic Church is not a new community in Belarus. "The community is already here. Unfortunately we have been left without priests and it is difficult to train them in a very short period of time." He said of the approximately 300 priests, about half are from other countries. "This is our major concern for the future. It remains to be seen if the new law will make this more difficult." Although far more hostile, Bishop Khomich said his Pentecostal Union would have to wait to see how the law is implemented. "The law isn't everything - practice is more important," he told Keston. "There are many good laws that aren't applied. We hope this bad law will likewise not be applied." He said the only way to overturn the law would be to gather 50,000 signatures to demand that parliament amend the law. Even with that number of signatures, he believed parliament would be unlikely to do so. "It was after all the same parliament that adopted this law." Khomich's concerns were echoed by Bishop Nikolai Sinkovets, head of the Baptist Union. "The law is bad, of course," he told Keston. "We are worried. We will have to think now what we can do. We have already made our views known to the government and we'll have to see how the new law is implemented." His views were repeated almost verbatim by Aleksandr Sakovich, leader of the Full Gospel Union. He pointed out that laws are often adopted that are not put into practice. Sakovich was also concerned that his Union would lose registration as an umbrella body. "We had no registered communities until 1991, so we don't have the twenty years' existence needed," he told Keston. He said that if attempts are made to apply the law retroactively to deprive organisations of registration that have it now, his Church will challenge this through the courts. Another community which will lose the registration of its umbrella body are the Jehovah's Witnesses, who were barred from registering during almost the entire Soviet period and therefore do not have a community which had registration back in 1982. However, Keston was unable to reach any leaders in Belarus to learn their reaction to the new law. Outspoken in his hostility was Father Yan Spasyuk, the leader in Belarus of the small unregistered Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church whose newly-constructed church building in the village of Pahranichny was bulldozed by the authorities in August (see KNS 2 August 2002). "Four weeks ago our Church decided to launch a petition against the new law, to show officials the strength of people's opposition to it," he told Keston on 31 October. Father Spasyuk declared - like members of other faiths - that some believers will have to return to the underground. "It is not a critical situation," he maintained. "People got used to working in the underground over the past thirty or forty years." Pastor Lyavon Lipen of Minsk's registered Reformed Church told Keston he regarded the new law as "highly discriminatory". "It restricts civil and religious rights. It is very sad that it was adopted." He said he expected "very negative consequences". He complained that the preamble to the law failed to name the Calvinists as one of the "traditional faiths", despite their important role in Belarus' history since the sixteenth century. "Our lawmakers have given the impression that they know nothing of Belarusian history." While others are reluctant to speculate about the concrete impact of the new law for fear of uttering self-fulfilling prophecies, Pastor Lipen believes it is possible "active believers" will soon be imprisoned. "Any attempt to read the Bible with people will be punished by fines," he maintained. "It may go further than that." He said members of the larger religious groups may have some protection, "but small groups like us have no-one to rely on". He pointed out that even under the old law the authorities were restricting places where worship could take place and preventing evangelistic activity. Pastor Lipen complained that the Geneva-based World Alliance of Reformed Churches had done nothing to speak up against the new law. "Although they've been informed about this they have been silent." Malakhovsky feared that all religious communities will suffer during the compulsory re-registration round. "Many communities will lose their registration." He pointed out that his Hare Krishna community had already been denied permission to register a headquarters, despite having seven registered communities and a further eight which have been trying to gain registration (see KNS 12 August 2002). "Despite four court hearings we have failed to get the State Committee to register the headquarters," he told Keston. Regretting the passing of what he called the "highly restrictive" religion law was Artur Livshits, a lawyer for the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews and a member of the Civic Initiative For Freedom of Conscience, which has been leading a campaign against the law. In August the Civic Initiatie published a 244-page "White Book" containing letters, drafts, appeals and newspaper articles about the adoption of the new law. An official of the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) told Keston from Warsaw on 31 October that the OSCE reiterated its concerns about the new religion law expressed when the law was first adopted by the lower house of parliament in the summer. (END) Copyright (c) 2002 Keston Institute. All rights reserved. Subscribe to the free weekly KNS Summary, or to the almost daily Keston News Service, through our website http://www.keston.org/. KNS articles are posted on the website, as well as details of our other publications: the bimonthly magazine Frontier and the quarterly academic journal Religion, State & Society. ______________________________________ REPRINTING/QUOTING KNS may be reprinted or quoted providing acknowledgment is given, such as 'Source: Keston Institute <http://www.keston.org>'. SUBSCRIBING Cost per annum for full almost daily KNS: 30 Pounds Sterling, or 50 US Dollars, or 45 Euros. The weekly KNS Summary is free of charge. Via website: <http://www.keston.org>; via email: <>; via post: Keston Institute, 38 St Aldates, Oxford, OX1 1BN, UK. North American supporters may also use our US address: Keston USA, P.O. Box 426, Waldorf, Maryland 20604. Keston USA is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax- exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the US tax code, thus donations by US taxpayers are tax deductible. Credit cards accepted (Visa, Mastercard, Eurocard, Gift Aid, CAF) payable to Keston Institute, 38 St Aldates, Oxford OX1 1BN, UK. Please include card number, expiry date, and mailing address. AUTOMATIC BANK TRANSFER (from anywhere in the world): Keston Institute, Account No. 0106411835 National Westminster Bank Plc (Branch code 50-31-88) 11 High Street, Chislehurst, KENT BR7 5AL, UK. Queries should be addressed to Keston Institute at: Tel: + 44 (0)1865/79 29 29; Fax: + 44 (0)1865/24 00 42; Keston Institute, 38 St Aldates, Oxford OX1 1BN, UK.
top of page