Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko officially signed the country’s highly repressive new religion law Oct.z31, ending the ambiguity concerning its status, Keston News Service has reported.
The law, considered the most restrictive religion law in Europe, was passed by the upper chamber of Belarus’ parliament Oct. 2.
According to the Belarusian constitution, parliament then had 10 days to forward the law to the president, who then had 14 days to sign the law or return it to the lower house of parliament for revision.
If he failed to do either, the law was to enter legal force, Keston had reported.
After the deadline passed with no news of the president’s response, observers assumed the rule calling for the law to go into force had taken effect.
Belarusian officials announced Oct. 31 that the president had signed the law immediately after his return from a visit to the Persian Gulf states.
It remains unclear why it took him so long to decide whether to sign the law, according to Keston, which is based in London.
The new law, which will take effect 10 days after its official publication, outlaws unregistered religious activity; requires compulsory prior censorship for all religious literature; bans foreign citizens from leading religious organizations; restricts publishing and education to faiths that have 10 registered communities, including at least one registered in 1982; and bans all but occasional, small religious meetings in private homes, Keston reported.
Great support
The law had strong backing from the government and the Russian Orthodox Church, which claims 1,261 of the 2,830 registered religious communities in Belarus, Keston said.
As soon as the law enters force, religious organizations within the country must align their statutes with the new law, and parts that contradict the new law will become inoperative.
According to Keston, all religious organizations must apply for re-registration within two years.
“Religious organizations will have to drop everything and spend the next two or three months running around from one office to another paying fees and getting approval, just for this,” Oleg Gulak, executive chairman of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group, told Keston. “If even one little thing in their statute does not accord with the law, reregistration will be denied.”
Gulak expects small religious communities who lack the legal knowledge or necessary perseverance to achieve reregistration to simply give up. “Many of them won’t bother. They will go underground, saying that they won’t be able to fight against this new law,” Gulak said.
Bishop Sergei Khomich, leader of the Pentecostal Union, the second-largest religious faith in the number of registered communities in Belarus, told Keston he would wait to see how the law is implemented. “The law isn’t everything. Practice is more important,” Khomich said. “There are many good laws that aren’t applied. We hope this bad law will likewise not be applied.” (BP)
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