terrorism, Christians across the former Soviet Union began preparing for a new period of persecution, according to reports monitored by BosNewsLief Saturday, June 1. In Belarus, which has been criticized by Western diplomats for human rights violations, proposed legislation will lead to the banning of unregistered religious activity, said the Keston News Service (KNS), that follows religious persecution.
Under the new law foreigners will also be prevented from leading religious organizations, while religious literature is subjected to prior compulsory censorship.
In addition religious groups with fewer than 20 adult citizen members in any one location will be denied the possibility of registering if new proposals to amend the religion law will be adopted by the Belarus parliament, KNS reported.
EVANGELICAL FAITH
"All religious groups are watching and waiting for this…law," Aleksandr Velichko of the Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith told KNS. Elsewhere in what was the Soviet Union, Christians on Saturday, June 1, were looking forward to church services in difficult circumstances.
In Islamic Uzbekistan "actions have recently been resumed which could soon lead to a significant restriction on religious freedom in our country," said an open letter from Protestant Christians released via KNS.
It cites a number of events in recent weeks, including a senior religious affairs official’s demand that churches stop preaching in the country’s official language, Uzbek, as well as the detention of eighteen Christians following an investigation into the sources of Christian literature in Central Asian languages.
PROTESTANTS ATTACKED
The chairman of the Bible Society of Uzbekistan told KNS it was "impossible to rule out the possibility that the authorities are beginning a campaign against Protestant communities in the republic." Similar reports came from the former Soviet republic of Moldova. The True Orthodox community of Moldova welcomed its May 29 victory in the country’s Supreme Court over the government’s repeated denial of registration.
But the community fears that this may not be enough to overturn the government’s objections to granting registration to an Orthodox group outside the framework of the main Moldovan Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, KNS quoted church officials as saying.
DISAPPEARED POLITICIAN
Moldova’s authorities have not yet registered the Bessarabian Orthodox Church of the Romanian Patriarchate, despite a European Court of Human Rights ruling last year.
Meanwhile the opposition politician and church activist Vlad Cubreacov, who disappeared on March 21 re-emerged last week, saying he had been kidnapped, KNS reported.
Human rights organizations have warned that persecution of Christians may not be a priority of the international community, as it needs to build a global coalition in war against terrorism.
