Record Fine for Baptists in Belarus for Talking About Religion
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BELARUS (ANS) — Belarus has imposed a fine of more than two months average wages on a Baptist who organized choral singing and talked about religious issues outside Ushachi public market.
Belarus is located in Eastern Europe, east of Poland.
A story by Geraldine Fagan writing for Forum 18 News Service reported that after a plain clothes policeman told a group of Baptists from outside the area to stop, Vladimir Burshtyn replied that they were not disturbing public order. He cited religious freedom guarantees in Belarus’ Constitution, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The fine is, to Forum 18’s knowledge, the highest yet imposed on Baptists for unregistered religious activity. Higher fines have been levied against members of other communities.
Forum 18 said that Olga Karchevskaya, an official who witnessed the incident, defended the state’s response and the Religion Law’s restrictions. She said, “We need to know who’s coming to us - they could be destructive or acting against people’s interests.”
After the arrival of Karchevskaya, a vice-chair of Ushachi’s District Executive Committee, Burshtyn was escorted to a local police station and charged under the Administrative Violations Code (violation of regulations for holding demonstrations or other mass events).
Forum 18 reported that a local court fined him later the same day.
Olga Plisko, a member of the nearest Baptist Council of Churches congregation to Ushachi, about 20 miles to the south-east in Lepel, told Forum 18 that the Baptists involved were not local. However, she said she knew that they were preparing to appeal against the fine.
Religious activity without state permission has often been punished with large fines. In 2006, for example, the administrator of the charismatic New Life Church in the capital Minsk was fined 3,825,000 Belarusian Roubles, (1,780 U.S. Dollars).
Forum 18 said this was the third time he had been fined for unregistered religious activity Similarly, in 2005, the Pastor of a Pentecostal church was fined 4,650,000 Belarusian Roubles (2,171 U.S. Dollars), for baptizing 70 people in a lake.
Forum 18 said the Baptist Council of Churches broke away from the Soviet government-recognized Baptist Union in 1961, in protest at regulations preventing missionary activity and religious instruction to children.
Refusing on principle to register with the authorities in post-Soviet countries, Forum 18 said that Council congregations regularly face prosecution in Belarus and other states where registration is mandatory. This is a violation of international human rights standards
Forum 18 said Karchevskaya was insistent that she had nothing against preaching the Bible, saying “We’re all believers nowadays.” In specific reference to Baptists, Forum 18 reported she said, “We have our own Baptists here, and regard them positively.”
However, Forum 18 said she insisted that the approximately 20 Baptist adults and children singing and preaching in Ushachi had violated Belarus’ 2002 Religion Law.
In addition to breaking the Law’s territorial restrictions on religious activity by traveling 400 miles from Brest Region, Forum 18 reported she said they should have obtained prior permission from Ushachi District Executive Committee.
Karchevskaya added, “If they had shown us registration documents, proving they have the legal right to hold such a mass meeting, there would have been no problem. But they didn’t.”
Karchevskaya told Forum 18 that preaching has to be within the law, “As in Norway, Germany or anywhere else.”
But the Baptists who visited Ushachi refuse to abide by Belarusian law, she said. “They say they don’t recognize any secular law, only their own.”
The 2002 Law’s territorial restrictions and requirement for permission are necessary, Forum 18 reported Karchevskaya said, because “We need to know who’s coming to us - they could be destructive or acting against people’s interests.”
“It’s common courtesy to introduce yourself and say what you want if you visit someone’s home,” Forum 18 reported Karchevskaya continued. While the Baptists preached and sang using amplification, however, on this occasion, “no one was really listening as they didn’t know who they were,” she told Forum 18.
Forum 18 said that until 2004, fines for unregistered religious activity were usually relatively low - equivalent to several days’ average wages - and for the most part encountered by congregations of the Baptist Council of Churches. They and other unregistered independent Protestant churches reported 17 of these fines in 2003 to 2004.
While the comparative figure for 2005 to 2006 was 12, Forum 18 said those fines were on several occasions significantly higher. They ranged from the equivalent of two weeks to two months average wages.
Seven fines reported by the Baptist Council of Churches in 2007 and early 2008, one of which was later annulled, ranged from approximately two weeks average wages to a month’s average wages.
For more background information, see Forum 18’s Belarus religious freedom survey at www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=888. er, Forum 18 said she insisted that the approximately 20 Baptist adults and children singing and preaching in Ushachi had violated Belarus’ 2002 Religion Law.
In addition to breaking the Law’s territorial restrictions on religious activity by traveling 400 miles from Brest Region, Forum 18 reported she said they should have obtained prior permission from Ushachi District Executive Committee.
Karchevskaya added, “If they had shown us registration documents, proving they have the legal right to hold such a mass meeting, there would have been no problem. But they didn’t.”
Karchevskaya told Forum 18 that preaching has to be within the law, “As in Norway, Germany or anywhere else.”
But the Baptists who visited Ushachi refuse to abide by Belarusian law, she said. “They say they don’t recognize any secular law, only their own.”
The 2002 Law’s territorial restrictions and requirement for permission are necessary, Forum 18 reported Karchevskaya said, because “We need to know who’s coming to us - they could be destructive or acting against people’s interests.”
“It’s common courtesy to introduce yourself and say what you want if you visit someone’s home,” Forum 18 reported Karchevskaya continued. While the Baptists preached and sang using amplification, however, on this occasion, “no one was really listening as they didn’t know who they were,” she told Forum 18.
Forum 18 said that until 2004, fines for unregistered religious activity were usually relatively low - equivalent to several days’ average wages - and for the most part encountered by congregations of the Baptist Council of Churches. They and other unregistered independent Protestant churches reported 17 of these fines in 2003 to 2004.
While the comparative figure for 2005 to 2006 was 12, Forum 18 said those fines were on several occasions significantly higher. They ranged from the equivalent of two weeks to two months average wages.
Seven fines reported by the Baptist Council of Churches in 2007 and early 2008, one of which was later annulled, ranged from approximately two weeks average wages to a month’s average wages.
For more background information, see Forum 18’s Belarus religious freedom survey at www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=888.
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