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November 15, 2005

Note: The following text is an exact quote:
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Jeremy Reynalds
P O Box 27693
Alb., NM 87125-7693
Tel: (505) 400-7145
www.joyjunction.org

BELARUS BAPTISTS IN HOT WATER

Local lawmakers in the city of Bobruisk located in eastern Belarus say that religious literature was legally confiscated from a library in late Sept.

Belarus is located in Eastern Europe, east of Poland (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bo.html).

Forum 18 News Service reported that the library was run by Baptists belonging to the Council of Churches, who refuse on principle to register with the state authorities in post-Soviet countries.

Forum 18 reported that Bobruisk City Executive Committee vice-chairman Mikhail Kovalevich said the literature is currently being held by an unspecified administrative commission, because the Baptists had both "ignored" and "violated" the legal procedure for holding religious events by acting without state approval.

"Religious events should be in a house of worship, not on the street," he told Forum 18. Kovalevich stressed that no action had yet been taken against the Baptists and said it would not take the form of a court case.

Valeri Sidorenko, an assistant to Mogilev Region's main religious affairs official, told Forum 18 that he had no information about the specific case. However, he said that the operation of a street library by unregistered Baptists would have violated Article 193 of the Administrative Violations Code, "because distributing literature counts as one form of their religious activity."

According to Forum18, Article 193 punishes unregistered religious activity - illegal under the 2002 religion law - with fines of up to five times the minimum monthly wage (i.e. up to 53 US Dollars). Sidorenko also told Forum 18 that he thought such a fine would be handed down by an administrative commission rather than a court.

A police captain threatened Aleksandr Yermalitsky of the unregistered Bobruisk congregation with 15 days' detention, or a fine equivalent to 135 US Dollars, after he confiscated all the street library's literature on Sept. 25, Forum 18 reported the Baptist Council of Churches stated.

For two weeks, Forum 18 reported, Yermalitsky's attempts to have the literature returned met with no response, until, on Oct. 11, the head of the local Ideology Department reportedly informed him that it would be sent for expert analysis and might not be returned at all, and that a court would soon resolve the issue. On Nov. 14 a secretary at Bobruisk City Executive Committee told Forum 18 that many evangelical churches have sent letters of petition regarding the situation.

Aleksandr Yermalitsky thinks that there will definitely be a court case against him but, speaking to Forum 18, said that he had no idea when it would be. Reluctant to comment further, he did say that the Bobruisk Baptists did not consider themselves guilty of any violation and were hopeful that the literature - which included copies of the New Testament - would be returned.

This is not the first time the authorities have cracked down on a Baptist street library (see www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=436). Religious believers in Belarus can also be fined for holding religious gatherings in private homes (see www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=463).

The activity of even registered local religious organizations is - as one regional official insisted to Forum 18 - confined to the immediate area where they are registered, such as a particular city (see www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=478).

State registration is - against international human rights standards - compulsory for all religious communities and unregistered religious activity is illegal. Forum 18 reported this policy has been condemned by the U.N. Human Rights Committee, following a complaint brought by two Hare Krishna devotees (see www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=682). The policy is used against a variety of communities the state dislikes, Forum 18 commented, such as non-Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox communities (see www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=684).

In another recent case brought under the Administrative Violations Code, Forum 18 reported, a member of the Brest Baptist congregation in western Belarus, also belonging to the Council of Churches, was reportedly fined 127,500 Belarusian roubles (57 US dollars) by a local administrative commission on Oct. 20 for leading an unregistered religious organization in violation of Article 193 of the Code. This is over five times the monthly minimum wage.

On Oct. 28, Forum 18 reported Baptists called for prayer and petitions, "that the authorities will not force the church to register, as this goes against our Christian conscience, the Gospels and the Belarusian Constitution."

Under Article 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as the Brest Baptists pointed out, "everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion… everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."

For more background information, see Forum 18's religious freedom survey at www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=478