KESTON INSTITUTE, OXFORD, UK ______________________________________ KESTON NEWS SERVICE, 11.00, 13 December 2002. Reporting on violations of religious liberty and on religion in communist and post-communist lands. ______________________________________ BELARUS: HOW MANY CONSTITUTE AN ILLEGAL RELIGIOUS MEETING? 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. She also declared home religious meetings without prior permission illegal. "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. 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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