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by Felix Corley, Keston News Service
The campaign group For Freedom of Conscience has described as "a bolt from out of the
blue" the sudden adoption by parliament yesterday (27 June) of a repressive religion
bill that only a day earlier had been postponed until the autumn (see KNS 26 June 2002).
"Yesterday, when I learnt that consideration of the draft law had been postponed
until the autumn I thought that common sense had prevailed among the deputies,"
German Rodov, head of the Bible Society, declared in a 27 June statement passed to Keston
News Service. "But today I have the impression that in taking these decisions the
deputies are completely ignoring the views of tens of thousands of Belarusian citizens.
This law is a fiasco for the Chamber of Representatives as a parliament and testimony to
its bankruptcy." Religious minorities in Belarus now fear President Aleksandr
Lukashenko will sign the bill into law today, the last day of the parliamentary session.
Leaders of four main Protestant communities, the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the Full
Gospel Church and the Adventists, are planning a press conference to express their
concerns later today (28 June).
If signed by the president, the new law would be the most repressive religion law in any
former Soviet republic other than Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan. It would outlaw unregistered
religious activity, introduce compulsory prior censorship for all religious literature;
publishing, education and charitable activity would be restricted to faiths that had ten
registered communities in 1982; there would be a ban on all but occasional, small
religious meetings in private homes (see KNS 17 June and 28 May 2002). While Orthodox and
Catholic representatives have broadly welcomed or accepted the bill, Protestants and
leaders of minority faiths have sharply criticised it.
On the pretext that the electronic voting on 26 June had gone wrong, the bill was again
presented for its second reading in the afternoon of Thursday, and was adopted.
"Everything went as if according to a pre-determined scenario," For Freedom of
Conscience declared. "Within an hour and a half, article by article without any
discussion, the bill was adopted." Eighty two deputies voted in favour, with only two
against. Within fifteen minutes, the upper chamber, the Council of the Republic, also
approved the bill, according to information from deputies. An official of the Council of
the Republic declined to confirm to Keston on 28 June whether it had approved the law the
previous day or not.
Pentecostal pastor Vasily Moskalenko complained of the way the deputies had handled the
bill. "Such lurching from one side to another testifies to the deputies' lack of
competence and independence in adopting the decision," he declared in the wake of the
bill's adoption.
"We have gone back to 1936 and Stalin's repressions," Father Yan Spasyuk, leader
of the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which has been denied registration, told
Keston from the village of Pogranichny on 28 June. "When I heard yesterday it had
been adopted by parliament I was struck dumb. Everything has been taken from us. Now I'm
no longer a priest, just a layman." He said he was now considering challenging the
new law - if it is signed by the president - in the country's Constitutional Court.
Father Spasyuk blamed the Moscow Patriarchate's Exarchate in Belarus for the new law.
"It feels its weakness in the face of our Church and the Protestants. That's why they
decided to change the law." He said he had heard that parliamentary deputies had been
taken to the Exarchate a few days ago and shown films attacking minority faiths,
especially Protestants. Keston has been unable to verify the claim independently.
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