decided Wednesday, June 26, to postpone till the autumn a vote on one of the most restrictive religious laws in any former Soviet republic, a news agency said.
The Keston News Service (KNS), which monitors religious persecution, reported that deputies instead started to discuss an appeal from religious leaders, who urged them not to approve it.
"This is very good news. We’re very pleased," Bishop Nikolai Sinkovets, head of the Baptist Union, which has 270 registered congregations, told Keston by telephone from Minsk. "We thank God that parliament has taken a sensible decision."
He said that all Protestant churches had expressed their concerns about the bill and had held a weekend of prayer and fasting earlier this month that the bill not be adopted.
DRAFT
He said his Church remains prepared to discuss the draft bill and hopes to be able to express its concerns. Pentecostal spokesman Aleksandr Velichko, who attended the hearings, was quoted as saying that the chairman of the parliamentary human rights commission had presented the text to deputies for the second reading.
Deputy Vladimir Yegorov, a former head of the Belarusian KGB, the secret service, reportedly recommended "substantial changes" before the law is adopted, in order to avoid "actions of protest," from churches and the international community.
"Approving this law would lead to unhappiness among Protestants
that would develop into actions of protest," KNS quoted him as saying. The law is now expected to be debated not earlier than October 2, when the autumn sessions begin.
DIPLOMATS
Western diplomats have urged the Belarus leadership not to adopt the legislation. The United States embassy in Minsk said June 25 that it had gained the impression that the bill was aimed at obstructing the work of groups the government regarded as "non-traditional."
In a statement, the Embassy said that this law violated Belarus’ international human rights and religious freedom commitments. The former Soviet republic of just over 10 million people has come under pressure to improve its human rights record.
Archimandrite Sergiusz Gajek, Apostolic Visitator for Belarus’ Greek Catholic community, which numbers 14 registered parishes and a further half dozen without registration said he hoped abandoning or changing the religious law would be a first step.
"I welcome the fact that the law was not adopted, because it clearly would have restricted the rights of minorities, including the Protestants and the Greek Catholics, who have both been present in Belarus for hundreds of years. Limiting freedom of religious confession is of no use to anyone, not the state, nor even the (main and largest) Orthodox Church," he told KNS.
