prevent the adoption of what is believed to be one of the most repressive religious laws in any former Soviet republic, the Keston News Service (KNS) said Tuesday June 25.
The demonstration in front of what is known as the Chamber of Representatives in the capital Minsk, was scheduled for Wednesday June 26, when the law was expected to be adopted.
"It is 98 per cent certain that parliament will adopt the law tomorrow and that the president will sign it into law this week," a spokesman for the Pentecostal Union told KNS, which monitors religious persecution.
ORTHODOX AND CATHOLICS
Orthodox and Catholic representatives have reportedly broadly welcomed or accepted the bill, but Protestants and officials of other faiths have sharply criticized it.
"If the law is adopted, new religious groups that emerged since the fall of the Soviet Union will be annihilated," said Father Yan Spasyuk, leader of the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which has been denied registration.
One deputy, Ivan Pashkevich, a member of the parliamentary human rights committee, submitted a detailed criticism of the bill to parliament on June, KNS reported.
RESTRICTIVE ARTICLES
He suggested excluding many of the most restrictive articles of the new law, especially those concerning registration of religious organizations.
A newly-formed group, For Freedom of Conscience, which has been campaigning against the bill, complained on June 22 that the way the bill has been rushed through its readings has violated parliamentary procedure.
"The majority of deputies have not seen the draft text of the law and will see it only on the eve [of the hearing]", the group complained. new law described as most restrictive in former Soviet Union
Several churches have held special church services and days of prayers and fasting against the new religious law in the former Soviet republic of just over 10 million people.
