USCIRF Annual Report 2005 - Belarus

The government of Belarus continues seriously to violate the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief and related human rights. Belarusian authorities persist in enforcing the harsh 2002 law on religion, resulting in severe regulatory obstacles and bureaucratic and legal restrictions on the activities of many religious communities. Officials continue to harass, fine, or detain adherents of various denominations, including the Greek Catholic Church and the Belarusian Orthodox Autocephalous Church, as well as religious communities relatively new to the country, such as Evangelical Protestants and the Hare Krishnas. The government also refuses to acknowledge ongoing anti-Semitism and does not prosecute those responsible for vandalism and other criminal activities directed against Jews or the Jewish community. There have also been instances of violence directed against members of other religious minorities, such as the country's small Hindu minority. The Commission continues to place Belarus on its Watch List, and will maintain its scrutiny to determine whether the government's record rises to a level warranting designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC.

Belarus has a highly authoritarian government that does not respect the human rights of its citizens. Almost all political power is concentrated in the hands of President Aleksandr Lukashenko and a small circle of advisors. The Lukashenko regime has been widely accused of serious human rights abuses, including involvement in the "disappearances" of several opposition figures, as well as the imprisonment of journalists and strict controls on the media. According to the State Department's 2004 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the Belarusian government continued to restrict the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and association. Commencing in late 2003, the Belarusian authorities stepped up their campaign against all independent actors in their country, including independent media outlets, trade unions and non-governmental organizations.

Since coming to power in 1994, Lukashenko has constructed a set of regulatory and bureaucratic obstacles that make legitimate religious activities impossible for members of many religious communities. Some minority religious groups have been attacked in the state-run media, and their members have experienced violent attacks against their persons and property. Police have dispersed worship services and some religious leaders continue to face arrest, heavy fines, and other forms of harassment. In October 2002, Lukashenko signed new legislation on religion that led to further restrictions on religious freedom in Belarus. Although the law purports to codify protections for religious freedom, in fact, it provides government officials in the nation-wide Committee of Religious and Nationality Affairs of the Council of Ministers (CRNA) with further tools to repress and control religious activities without providing any clear mechanisms to check abuses by these officials.

Considered by many observers to be the most repressive religion law in Europe, the 2002 Belarus law essentially prohibits all unregistered religious activity by organized groups; religious communities with fewer than 20 members; foreign citizens from leading religious activities; and religious activity in private homes, with the exception of small, occasional prayer meetings. The law set up a three-tiered system of registration, and particularly restricts the activities of groups on the lowest tier. The law also requires all religious organizations to apply for re-registration within two years. The registration criteria laid out in the law are vague, thus facilitating continued abuse by government officials. According to the law, religious publishing and education are restricted to religious groups that have 10 or more registered communities, including at least one that was in existence in 1982. This requirement of at least 20 years existence in Belarus is especially onerous, since the cutoff date of 1982 falls during the Soviet period of religious repression when few religious groups were able to operate openly. Moreover, all religious literature is now subject to compulsory government censorship, and most communities are denied the right to establish institutions to train clergy.

The 2002 religion law mandated that all religious communities in Belarus re-register with the CRNA by November 2004. Although the majority of previously registered groups have been able to re-register, over 100 have been unsuccessful or pointedly denied registration. The CRNA claims that many of the remaining 105 unregistered communities had been dissolved. However, several groups, including the Hare Krishna community, are appealing their registration denials. Due to the refusal to register the Hindu Light of Kaylasa community, its leaders have sought asylum abroad and that group no longer functions inside Belarus. Since the new law bans registered religious communities from using residences as their legal addresses without specific authorization from the government, many other groups, such as some Greek Catholic and Pentecostal communities that meet in private homes because they cannot rent or buy meeting space, now face the additional risk of being unable to re-register.

The religion law makes clear that without registration, a group's activities are technically illegal. As a result, a number of church leaders and other individuals have been subject to fines and other prosecution. In 2005, an unregistered Hare Krishna community was given an official warning for holding an unauthorized religious meeting. Two official warnings can lead to court proceedings to liquidate a religious organization. In late December 2004, the pastor of the charismatic New Life Church in Minsk was given a fine equal to 150 times the minimum monthly wage for organizing religious worship without state permission. Under the 2002 religion law, a second such fine provides the legal basis to ban the congregation. In March 2005, the pastor faced criminal charges for repeatedly organizing illegal worship, and a court levied a second fine against him. According to the religion law, therefore, the authorities can now close down his church.

In addition to the registration issue, various other laws, regulations, and directives restrict the activities of registered religious communities. For example, groups are not allowed to function outside their geographic area of registration. Furthermore, if, as in the case of the Greek Catholic Church, even a registered religious community does not qualify as a "central association," it cannot own media outlets or invite people from outside Belarus to work with the community.

Attacks on Jews or Jewish property continue to be reported in Belarus, with little attempt made by the authorities to hold perpetrators to account. Memorials, cemeteries, and other property are regularly subject to violence, and, although President Lukashenko sometimes condemns the attacks, only rarely are cases against the perpetrators raised or pursued. According to one Belarusian Jewish leader, official inaction results in impunity for attackers. In January 2005, a leading Jewish activist was arrested in central Minsk when he protested the on-going destruction of Jewish sites in Belarus. Anti-Semitic literature is sold in government buildings, in stores, and at events directly and indirectly connected with the Belarusian Orthodox Church. In addition, because the 2002 religion law states that religious organizations do not have priority in reclaiming property if a former worship building is now used for culture or sport, only nine of 92 historic synagogues in Belarus have been returned to the Jewish community since 1991.

Since 1994, President Lukashenko has openly favored the Belarusian Orthodox Church (BOC, an Exarchate of the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church), resulting in a privileged position for the BOC in relation to other religious communities. This relationship was codified in June 2003, when the Belarus government and the BOC signed a concordat setting out the Church's influence in government affairs and other facets of public life. Relations between the BOC and the Belarus government have created particular problems for many Protestant groups, which have sometimes been denied registration or permission to rent or build a place of worship by regional authorities who have been influenced by local Orthodox leaders. Several "independent" Orthodox churches that do not accept the authority of the Orthodox Patriarch in Moscow have been denied registration, before and after the new law was passed. These churches include the Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the True Orthodox Church, a branch of the Orthodox Church that rejected the compromise with the Soviet government made by the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1920s. In March 2004, the Belarusian government granted the BOC the exclusive right to use the word "Orthodox" in its title, although there are other Orthodox communities in Belarus.

The Commission has traveled to Belarus and met with officials for the State Committee on Religious and Nationalities Affairs as well as with representatives of various religious and human rights groups. In 2004, Commission staff met with independent human rights activists from Belarus, including the author of the "White Book," an extensive report on religious persecution in that country. The Commission released a report on Belarus in May 2003 that presented findings and recommendations for U.S. policy. In 2004, the Commission participated in meetings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, presenting information on freedom of religion in Belarus. In March 2005, the Commission met with delegation heads from the United States and European Union (EU) countries at the 61st session of the UNCHR session and presented information about violations of religious freedom in Belarus.

The Commission pressed for passage of the Belarus Democracy Act, which was passed by Congress in October 2004.

With regard to Belarus, the Commission has recommended that the U.S. government should:

• use every measure of public and private diplomacy to advance the protection of human rights, including religious freedom, in Belarus, including enhanced monitoring and public reporting, especially in light of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's weakened monitoring mandate inside Belarus;
• urge the Belarus government to take immediate steps to end repression, including:
• repealing the highly repressive religion law;
• ending the practice of denying registration to religious groups and then erecting obstacles to religious practice because of that unregistered status;
• providing the right to conduct religious education and distribute religious material; – halting government attacks on the persons and property of minority religious groups;
• ensuring a greater effort on the part of government officials to find and hold to account perpetrators of attacks on the persons and property of members of religious minorities; and
• providing free access by domestic and international human rights groups and others to sites of religious violence or destruction of places of worship;
• ensure that the activities to promote democracy authorized by the Belarus Democracy Act include the right to freedom of religion or belief and religious tolerance;
• urge the Belarus government to issue invitations to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Belarus; the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Expression; the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders; the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, as well as the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances;
• urge the Belarus government to ensure that no religious community is given a status that may result in or be used to justify the impairment of the rights of members of other religious groups;
• urge the Belarus government to publicly condemn, investigate and prosecute criminal acts against Jews and the Jewish community, as well as members of other ethnic and religious communities, and
• continue to support, publicly and privately, persons and groups engaged in the struggle against repression in Belarus, including the group of religious and opposition activists who make up the Freedom of Religion Initiative that published the "White Book."