Belarus: Charismatic Pastor Fined For Organizing "Illegal" Worship
By Jeremy Reynalds (03/25/05)
Pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko of the embattled Minsk-based charismatic New Life Church has been fined the equivalent of 30 times the minimum monthly wage in Belarus for organizing religious services without state permission.
Speaking from the Belarusian capital (Belarus is in eastern Europe, http://aci.byelarus.com/where.php), church administrator Vasily Yurevich told Forum 18 News Service that a representative of Minsk's Moscow district court telephoned Goncharenko at home on March 21 and demanded that he turn up to court the next day. Goncharenko asked for a written summons.
Soon afterwards, Forum 18 reported Yurevich said, a local police officer called the pastor and reiterated the demand for him to appear in court, threatening to take him in handcuffs if he didn't comply.
Goncharenko again asked for a written summons, continued Yurevich, which was delivered to the pastor later that day.
Forum 18 reported it received a copy of the undated document, which stated that Goncharenko must attend court "in the capacity of law-breaker" at midday on March 22.
According to Yurevich, Forum 18 reported, 150 church members accompanied their pastor to the courthouse but were not admitted to the brief hearing as "the judge declared it closed."
The lack of witnesses combined with the short time between the summons and the hearing resulted in there being no defense for the pastor, Yurevich told Forum 18.
"Once Pastor Goncharenko was admitted to the courtroom, a police officer blocked his exit," Yurevich told Forum 18. "When the door opened again, the judge simply told those waiting in the corridor outside that it was all over and announced the verdict."
Forum 18 reported it received a copy of the court's demand for Goncharenko to pay the Belarusian state the equivalent of 30 times the minimum monthly wage by April 6 2005.
In addition to an appeal against the fine, New Life Church is also preparing formal complaints to the Belarusian Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding what it termed both irregular court procedure and police behavior, Yurevich told Forum 18.
"The police treated church members roughly and tried to force them to leave the courthouse," he added.
Refused rental of premises by every district administration in Minsk by Sept. 2004, the 600-strong New Life congregation has been meeting for worship at a disused cowshed it purchased in 2002, Forum 18 reported.
The Minsk city authorities have denied the church permission to use this building for worship, to reconstruct it as a prayer house and to register at its address.
Under the restrictive Belarusian 2002 religion law, all religious events require state permission unless held at a building expressly built for worship.
After Yurevich was fined 150 times the minimum monthly wage on Dec. 28 2004 for allegedly organizing "illegal" religious services at the cowshed, Forum 18 reported the Minsk city administration issued New Life an official warning on Dec.20. Under the 2002 religion law, a second warning would be sufficient to ban the church.
According to Forum 18, state officials at a variety of levels have repeatedly told the news service that New Life's predicament is "all their fault," that they cannot register or worship at the cowshed because "you can only keep cows in a cowshed.
In addition, Forum 18 reported, state officials said the church cannot reconstruct the building either, due to the absence of a prayer house in municipal plans to develop the area already approved by President Aleksandr Lukashenko.
A March 2000 analysis of one of New Life's sister congregations by an expert at the Belarusian State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs concluded, Forum 18 reported, that it is a "neo-mystical religious-political destructive sect" whose growth poses "a significant threat to the individual, society and state."
For background information on Belarus and religious freedom, go to www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=478
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