The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
3 November 2006
BELARUS: Court to review charismatic church's case
Belarusian authorities are giving contradictory signals about their attitude towards the embattled New Life Church in the capital Minsk, Forum 18 News Service has found. In an indication that the authorities may be about to reverse their position, Higher Economic Court chairman Viktor Kamenkov has cancelled an earlier Minsk City Economic Court decision against New Life and called for the case to be heard again. A new hearing has been set for tomorrow (Saturday 4 November) at the Higher Economic Court. Kamenkov's latest actions follow a high profile campaign by New Life - including a hunger strike and international protests - and a senior state official urging New Life's Pastor, Vyacheslav Goncharenko, to appeal again to the Higher Economic Court. But in a contradictory signal, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence has published a prominent attack on New Life, claiming – amongst other highly contestable statements - that "neo-Protestant sects" are a threat to national security. Two nights after the Defence Ministry made its attack, graffiti reading "No to totalitarian sects!" was daubed on the wall of New Life's building.
12 January 2004
RUSSIA: Missionary's activity is "extremist", agrees court
In the wake of a 1 December district court ruling in Tatarstan's capital Kazan that a decision denying Baptist church-planter Takhir Talipov a further residency permit should be upheld, Talipov's legal representative told Forum 18 News Service he sees little hope in having the verdict overturned. Fyodor Dzyuba said he had not even bothered to attend a hearing at the Tatarstan supreme court on 10 January. "I knew in advance we had very little chance." The supreme court is due to announce its decision by 20 January. A Kazan district court had accepted an assessment by the local FSB (former KGB) that the missionary work by Talipov, a Russian-born ethnic Tatar, was "extremist" and liable to threaten stability in the mainly Muslim republic.
17 September 2003
LATVIA: New hope to change religion law?
Ringolds Balodis of the Latvian Justice Ministry has told Forum 18 News Service that he has formally proposed removing from Latvia's religion law a clause banning registration of more than one association of any one denomination. The Saeima (Latvia's parliament) may decide the issue within the next two months. Balodis' proposal has been welcomed by leaders of some religious minorities contacted by Forum 18, as full state registration grants rights such as being able to conduct officially-recognised marriages or teach religion in state schools. But Russian Orthodox Church Metropolitan Aleksandr (Kudryashov) of Riga opposes the proposal and wants it to apply only to churches such as the Lutherans and the Catholics, as the proposal would allow full state registration of other churches with the title Orthodox.
26 May 2003
LATVIA: New plans to abolish "discriminatory" legal provision
Justice Minister Aivars Aksenoks will support a proposal to abolish a clause in Latvia's religion law that bans the registration of more than one association of any one denomination, his spokesman told Forum 18 News Service. "I absolutely agree that allowing only one church for any one confession is against the principles of religious freedom," head of the Justice Ministry's Religious Affairs Board Ringolds Balodis – who intends to submit the proposal by 10 June - told Forum 18. Without registration as a religious association, communities find it difficult to own property, do not enjoy tax-exempt status and cannot set up training establishments. The Confessional Lutheran Church and the Autonomous True Orthodox Church have been the main victims of this clause.
30 April 2003
LATVIA: Registration "refuseniks" to challenge "discriminatory" law
The two churches refused registration as an association under Latvia's religion law – the Confessional Lutheran Church and the Autonomous True Orthodox Church – are preparing protests against the article of the religion law that does not allow more than one association of any one denomination to register. "We have asked for this discriminatory article to be abolished," Archbishop Viktor Kontuzorov, leader of the Autonomous Orthodox Church, told Forum 18 News Service from Daugavpils. "No European state apart from Latvia has such a discriminatory article. It's absurd that an Orthodox Church still has to live in the catacombs." Asked whether he believed this article of the religion law was just, Janis Filipsons of the Justice Ministry's Religious Affairs Board told Forum 18: "It's the law. We work with the law as it is."