the Minsk leadership is already increasingly isolated amid reports of human rights abuses against active Christians, including Baptists and other groups, BosNewsLife learned Wednesday March 17.
United Civic Party Deputy Chairman Yaraslau Ramanchuk told local media he expects Belarusian-Russian relations to deteriorate following the re-election of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The row has been linked to Russia’s recent move to cut off natural gas supplies to Belarus because the nation of 10 million has reportedly failed to pay for them because of apparent economic difficulties.
The international community has discouraged economic and diplomatic ties with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as his authoritarian regime was denounced internationally.
CHURCHES ATTACKED
Besides a reported crackdown on dissidents, independent media and non-profit groups, organizations such as Oslo-based Forum 18 have expressed concern about the oppression of especially non traditional churches including groups who refuse to register themselves with the state authorities on principle grounds.
Police in at least one region of Belarus are trying to halt the activity of a network of Baptist churches which they describe as "destructive sects" the Forum 18 News Service (F18News) reported.
The reported crackdown comes shortly after Lukashenko reconstituted ideological departments that had existed in Soviet times, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
Lukashenka, in a national TV address earlier this week also announced that he would start a "war on negligence, sloppiness, lack of discipline, and alcoholism" as Belarusians "can’t live better without strong discipline."
PASTORS FINED
Several churches deemed dangerous for the society of the former Soviet republic have already received fines. F18News said recently it has learned of at least three separate incidents in which unregistered Baptist pastors have been fined for their work.
All three were fined for "the creation and leadership of a religious organization without registering its charter (statutes) in accordance with established procedure," which is punishable under the Belarusian administrative offences code.
A spokeswoman for the pastors’ Moscow-based union told F18News that the incidents "seem to be to do with" the 2002 Belarusian religion law, which outlaws systematic unregistered religious gatherings.
Baptist pastor Viktor Yevtyukhov was fined about $40 in local currency late last year for heading an unregistered congregation in the village of Zamoshye in the Gomel (Homyel’) region said the International Union of Baptist Churches informed.
IMPOVERISHED NATION
The fine is a huge amount in impoverished Belarus where average annual salaries are estimated to be about $130. Oleg Kurnosov, the Union’s pastor in the town of Dubrovno (Dubrowna) in the Vitebsk (Vitsyebsk) region, was similarly fined with about $8 in December 2003, for conducting an evening worship in his own home on a month earlier.
Another pastor, Kostantin Yeremeyev has also been fined $12 for when police discovered his Sunday morning service of its Vitebsk city congregation in March, 2003.
All three pastors were fined under Article 193 of the Belarusian administrative offences code, which punishes "the creation and leadership of a religious organization without registering its charter (statutes) in a accordance with established procedure."
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
Originally formed in 1961, the International Union of Baptist Churches adheres to a rigid principle of separation of church and state, according to which none of its current 3,705 congregations throughout the former Soviet Union are registered.
In a recent interview with F18News in Vitebsk the region’s official in charge of religious affairs confirmed that the unregistered activity of the Union of Baptist Churches was illegal in Belarus. "I tried to talk to them, but they have existed like that for three decades," Nikolai Stepanenko reportedly said.
Human rights groups have also reported a similar crackdown against other Protestant churches and evangelical groups, while other religious minorities are also closely watched by police and security services.
