Latvia, which hopes to join the European Union in 2004, said reports monitored by BosNewsLife Saturday, July 13.
The head of Latvia’s small Confessional Lutheran Church, Gundars Bakulis, told Keston News Service (KNS) that he noted "a dangerous precedent" of police questioning leaders of local congregations about their activity.
Under Latvia’s religion law, his Church has been registration as a "religious association", a lesser status than "new religious movement", which requires registration annually for the first ten years.
Bakulis was summoned by the police in the Latvian capital Riga at the end of May, KNS reported. "The police were surprised to receive this instruction from the Religious Affairs Board of the Interior Ministry and the police officer was very polite," he told KNS, which monitors religious persecution.
"SPYING"
"..This is a kind of spying. It is dangerous and I certainly think they should not be allowed to do this," he added. Police apparently also monitored other groups, including the Mormons. News about the alleged persecution of Christians comes as the small Baltic nation of about 2.4 million people prepares to close negotiations with the EU as one of 10 mainly former Communist countries.
But the situation seems more serious in Georgia, which is closely cooperating in the United States led global war against terrorism, and is not likely to become an EU member state soon. Church witnesses said two Orthodox priests led a three-day attack on a Russian-language Pentecostal church in the Nadzaladevi district of the Georgian capital Tbilisi earlier this month.
"They arrived to blockade the house on Friday evening," the daughter of Pastor Nikolai Kalutsky told KNS. "On Saturday, incited by the priests, the mob of about thirty or forty people burst into the house, beat people, frightened the children, stole Bibles, rummaged through people’s bags and uttered very many threats " to the believers and to our family. It was a pogrom."
PRIESTS
Unlike in previous attacks on religious minorities in Georgia, which have plagued the country for the past three years, the local police did come to the help the Pentecostals, KNS said. In a separate incident, two Orthodox priests were reportedly behind attacks on a Catholic pilgrimage in eastern Georgia in which the apostolic administrator was taking part.
Oleg Khubashvili, head of the Pentecostal Union, said the attack on the Tbilisi Russian-language Pentecostal church was the first on any member congregations of his union since last year. "We rang government structures about this attack and the police are informed," he told KNS from Tbilisi.
The Orthodox Patriarchate said it had no information about the attack on the Pentecostal church or about a reported attack on Catholic pilgrims. It comes as human rights activists and Georgia’s minority faiths expressed concern about a new religion law proposed by the State and the Justice Ministry together with the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate earlier this month.
DISCOURAGEMENT
Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili of the Baptist Union said he fears a provision is endangering churches actively involved in social and relief ministries, especially the Baptists, Catholics and Lutherans. "It is only now that we are making some modest steps as churches to meet the incredible needs in our society. This new religious legislation will both limit and discourage churches from taking some social responsibilities," he said.
The Bishop stressed that the churches and religions due to their special nature "are very close to the people’s needs," at a time of a difficult transition for the former Soviet Republic of just over 5 million people. It became an independent country in 1991.
Former Government officials told BosNewsLife that there are human rights violations, mainly against non Orthodox groups. An estimated 65 percent of the country is Georgian Orthodox, 10 percent Russian Orthodox and 8 percent Armenian Orthodox, according to official figures.
