Source:         www.forum18.org

Date:            April 29, 2008

 
 
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>
 
The chair of the parliamentary Human Rights, Ethnic Relations and Media
Committee, Yuri Kulakovsky, has defended to Forum 18 News Service Belarus'
refusal to consider a nationwide religious freedom petition signed by over
50,000 citizens. Three human rights defenders were fined in late April for
their role in organising the petition.
 
Kulakovsky explained to Forum 18 from the capital Minsk on 29 April that
the petition organisers failed to follow the legal procedure of registering
an initiative group with the electoral commission before collecting
signatures. Forum 18 pointed out that no such conditions for
petition-gathering exist in ordinary democratic societies. "You're wrong!"
Kulakovsky told Forum 18 repeatedly. "There is a procedure for such
initiatives in any democratic society, and they didn't follow it." Forum 18
asked the Human Rights Committee chairman in which other democratic
countries such a procedure exists. "There certainly is in Norway," replied
Kulakovsky. "We didn't make anything up, you know - we followed European
democratic norms."
 
Gunnar Martin Ekeløve-Slydal, Deputy Secretary General of the Norwegian
Helsinki Committee, confirmed to Forum 18 on 29 April that in Norway there
is "no need at all to ask for permission to collect signatures in support
of peaceful activity" - or indeed to follow any procedure whatsoever.
 
Three petition organisers have received fines of almost double the average
monthly wage for their role in the campaign to change the restrictive 2002
Religion Law. On 22 and 25 April Minsk's Moscow District Court handed down
fines of 1,400,000 Belarusian Roubles (3,343 Norwegian Kroner, 419 Euros or
652 US Dollars) to Pavel Severinets, Pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko and
Sergei Lukanin.
 
Speaking to Forum 18 shortly after the 25 April hearing, Pastor
Goncharenko said he would seek advice on whether to appeal against the
fine. Handed down on 25 April during his absence abroad, Lukanin found out
about his fine only on 28 April. Severinets intends to lodge an appeal
against his fine, he told Forum 18 on 24 April, "but I doubt it will change
anything."
 
The chancellery of Moscow District Court refused even to confirm the
details of the fines by telephone on 28 April.
 
Severinets, Goncharenko and Lukanin were prosecuted under Article 9, Part
10 of the Administrative Violations Code, which punishes violations of the
realisation of the right of citizens to legislative initiatives.
 
Under the 2003 Law on the Realisation of Legislative Initiatives by
Citizens, citizens wishing to launch such an initiative must register an
initiative group with the state. Believing that they would be denied such
registration, the petitioners argued that they were not exercising a
legislative initiative themselves, but asking state bodies to do so on
their behalf.
 
Severinets pointed out to Forum 18 that if petitioners had wanted to
exercise a legislative initiative themselves, "We would need to have
proposed our own alternative text for the Religion Law. But we didn't, so
we couldn't have violated procedures."
 
Severinets, an Orthodox Christian, is a Youth Front and Belarusian
Christian Democracy activist. Sentenced to three years in an open regime
prison in mid-2005 for organising an unsanctioned opposition demonstration,
he was granted early release in May 2007 (see F18News 20 March 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1103>).
 
Goncharenko is pastor of the 1000-strong charismatic New Life Church in
Minsk, which has come under intense pressure from the city authorities in
recent years (see most recently 7 February 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1084>).
 
Severinets was charged with violating Article 9, Part 10 on 1 April after
being stopped by police in the Minsk metro. Pastor Goncharenko was charged
on 24 March, and Lukanin on 21 March (see F18News 2 April 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1109>).
 
Pavel Nozdrya and his charismatic Jesus Christ Church in Mozyr [Mazyr] in
Gomel [Homyel] Region have been harassed by state officials for active
involvement in the Religion Law petition. Nozdrya told Forum 18 he was
fired from his job as an electrician at Mozyr State Pedagogical University
after the Education Ministry rebuked the University's rector for employing
an "oppositionist" (see F18News 2 April 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1109>).
 
Nineteen campaigners, including Lukanin, were briefly detained for
gathering signatures last summer (see F18News 5 July 2007
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=989>).
 
In what they believe to be "the largest non-political, civil campaign in
Belarusian history," Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants began collecting
signatures in late April 2007 (see F18News 16 May 2007
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=957>).
 
In February-March 2008 campaign organisers submitted copies of the
completed 3,442-page petition to the Constitutional Court, Parliament,
Presidential Administration, Supreme Court and Higher Economic Court. All
have rejected the petitioners' request for a review of the
constitutionality of the Religion Law (see F18News 5 March 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1097>).
 
While alleging procedural violations, state officials' responses also
defend the Religion Law.
 
Writing to the petition organisers on behalf of the lower house of
parliament, Kulakovsky of the Human Rights, Ethnic Relations and Mass Media
Committee maintained that provisions of the Law particularly criticised by
campaigners - compulsory state registration, geographical restrictions on
religious organisations' activity, a requirement for state permission for
services outside designated houses of worship and a ban on foreign citizens
founding or leading religious organisations - conform to Article 16, Part 3
of the country's 1994 Constitution.
 
Article 16, Part 3 prohibits religious activity "directed against the
sovereignty of Belarus, its constitutional order and civic accord,
connected to violation of the rights and freedoms of citizens, preventing
citizens from carrying out their duties to the state, society or family or
injuring health or morals."
 
Kulakovsky's 25 March reply also maintains that both the Plenipotentiary
for Religious and Ethnic Affairs and the Ministry of Justice consider
current implementation of the 2002 Law to be "of an objective nature" and
in compliance with international religious freedom standards (see F18News 2
April 2008 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1109>).
 
After exhausting other methods of negotiation with the state authorities,
some Belarusian religious believers are adopting tactics more usually
associated with secular political activism in their campaign for religious
freedom. Mainstream opposition activists are in turn drawing on religious
ideas (see F18News 29 November 2006
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=880>).
 
A Russian Protestant points to this trend in a 22 April blog response to a
Russian translation of a New York Times article on problems faced by
Protestants in Russia. Writing under the pseudonym "Jesfor", the
contributor suggests Russian Protestants should escape marginality by
following Belarusian Protestants' example. "Belarusian Protestants are
leaders of opposition movements, organisations," he writes. "[They are]
trusted figures of [opposition leaders Aleksandr] Milinkevich and
[Aleksandr] Kozulin, the vanguard of the battle for the Belarusian national
state, its history, culture and language." (END)
 
For more background information see Forum 18's Belarus religious freedom
survey at <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=888>.
 
Full reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Belarus can
be found at
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=16>.
 
A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806>.
 
A printer-friendly map of Belarus is available at
<http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=belaru>