The news service of the Forum 18 group quoted one of those arrested, Sergei Lukanin, as saying that he and five other campaigners held at Minsk’s Frunze District Police Station were "sitting in an office with three policemen who refuse to allow us to leave or to explain why we are here."
Two of those detained, Feodora Andreyevskaya, 16, Yuliya Kosheleva, 14, were detained as they collected campaign materials "on freedom of thought, conscience and belief", Forum 18 said.
Also arrested was Denis Sadovsky, secretary of the Belarusian Christian Democracy (BCD) movement. In addition, "Much literature was confiscated by police and has not been returned. This included 7,000 newsletters and 500 copies of a booklet ‘Monitoring Violations of the Rights of Christians in Belarus in 2006’, detailing religious freedom violations reported by independent Belarusian media sources and Forum 18 News Service," the group added.
PETITION SIGNATURES
Petitions to change the so-called ‘2002 Religion Law’ require at least 50,000 signatures for consideration by the Constitutional Court. Over 25,000 signatures had reportedly been collected by Christian activists, many of whom were detained during separate raids on July 2 and July 3, Forum 18 said.
The last group of six activists was released late July 3, the evangelical New Life Church said in published remarks. "They didn’t charge us – and they didn’t apologize either," LuAnn added. "Nor did they issue any documentation supporting our detention or the confiscation of our literature."
Officials were not available for comment. Sergei Lukanin said problems began earlier on July 3 when he and Aleksei Shein, a petition coordinator, visited a Minsk flat rented by BCD Secretary Sadovsky, after hearing that police had detained him. They were soon escorted by police to the local police station where they met Sadovsky, who was arrested at the same flat an hour earlier by one uniformed and four plain-clothes police officers –and Tatyana Usinovich, a 22-year-old member of New Life Church, Forum 18 said.
Soon after the two teenage members of New Life Church, Feodora Andreyevskaya and Yuliya Kosheleva, were reportedly detained at the same flat after asking for fresh copies of petition forms for the religious freedom campaign. Although they were later released, the confiscated thousands of copies of religious literature and the religious freedom violations booklets have not returned, Forum 18 added.
MORE DETAINED
The day before, July 2, district police detained about 14 out of a group of 50 Christian activists – including Sergei Lukanin – after collecting over 2,300 signatures against the 2002 Religion Law at an annual Catholic pilgrimage to Budslav in the Minsk Region. They also distributed copies of the booklet "Monitoring Violations of the Rights of Christians in Belarus in 2006."
The 14 were released without charge after three hours, Lukanin reportedly said. In Belarus, a person may legally distribute up to 300 copies of a piece of literature without publication details. While police confiscated 650 copies of the booklet, Lukanin claimed that its 14 distributors were carrying fewer than 50 copies each.
The latest incident underscored international concern about reported human rights abuses in Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko, who has consolidated his hold on the former Soviet republic since sweeping to power 12 years ago, has been described by the United States as the
"last dictator in Europe" at the head of an "outpost of tyranny".
Lukashenko was able to seek re-election for an unprecedented third term thanks to a controversial referendum in 2004 that abolished the constitution’s two-term presidential limit, analysts say. The crackdown on independent church groups and political activists has been linked to his apparent efforts to control religious and political aspects of society.
Human rights campaigners and Western governments also complain that opposition voices are harassed and stifled and independent media has been all but eliminated. Opposition activists, including Christians, are closely monitored by the secret police – still called the KGB. (With BosNewsLife Monitoring, BosNewsLife Research and reporting from the region).
