USCIRF Annual Report 2004 - Belarus

Violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or belief, by the government of Belarus became more pronounced in 2003. Implementation of a new law on religion has resulted in severe regulatory obstacles and bureaucratic and legal restrictions enforced by the Belarus government on several religious communities to inhibit their activities. Official intolerance and harassment of various denominations has grown, including of the Greek Catholic Church and the Belarusian Orthodox Autocephalous Church, as well as of religions relatively new to the country, including Pentecostals, Hindus, and Hare Krishnas. The Commission has placed Belarus on its Watch List and will continue to consider closely 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. According to the State Department's 2003 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, respect for religious freedom worsened during the most recent period covered by the report. Almost all political power is concentrated in the hands of President Aleksandr Lukashenko and a small circle of advisors. The regime under Lukashenko 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 other controls on the media. The freedoms of speech, assembly, and association are heavily restricted, and the government has repressed the few institutions of civil society that had emerged after the country gained independence in 1991. In late 2003, the Belarusian authorities stepped up their campaign against all independent actors in their country, including 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 many religious communities. Some minority religious groups have been attacked in the state-run media and have experienced violent attacks against their persons and property. Police have dispersed religious services and 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 with 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 new 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 meetings. The new law accomplishes this in part by establishing a three-tiered system of registration, and restricting the activities of the groups on the lowest rung. The law also requires all religious organizations to apply for re-registration within two years. The registration criteria laid out in the law is vague, thus facilitating continued abuse by government officials. According to the new law, religious publishing and education will be 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 particularly 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.

Almost one year after the passage of the law, there are reports that only a small number of even previously registered religious groups have been able to re-register. According to the 2003 State Department report, the Belarusian government reported that 110 religious communities, including 34 Protestant and non-traditional denominations, were registered before the new law went into effect in 2002. Because the new law bans registered religious communities from using residences as their legal addresses without specific authorization, many groups that currently meet in private homes because they are unable to rent or buy meeting space, such as some Greek Catholic and Pentecostal communities, face the risk of being unable to re-register. The Belarusian authorities continue to refuse to register some religious communities outright, such as the Hindu Light of Kaylasa and the Hare Krishnas.

Attacks on Jews or Jewish property have been reported in Belarus, with little attempt made on the part of the authorities to hold perpetrators to account. Anti-Semitic literature is sold in government buildings and in stores and at events directly and indirectly connected with the Belarusian Orthodox Church. Memorials, cemeteries, and other property are regularly subject to violence; though President Lukashenko sometimes condemns the attacks, the perpetrators are not pursued. For example, in January 2004, Alexander Rosenberg, head of Judaic Religious Union in Belarus, reported that the ancient Jewish cemetery in Rahachow had been desecrated. Yakov Gutman, head of the New York-based World Association of Belarusian Jews, was detained in January 2004 for protesting the lack of protection of Jewish cultural sites in Belarus. According to one Belarusian Jewish leader, inaction on the part of the authorities enables those responsible to attack with impunity. In addition, there have been instances of violence directed against members of religious minorities, such as members of the Hindu minority.

Since 1994, President Lukashenko has openly pursued a policy of favoring the Russian Orthodox Church, a policy that frequently results in discrimination against other religious communities. The relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Belarus government has created particular problems for many Protestant groups, which have sometimes been denied registration or permission to 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 June 2003, the Belarus government and the Russian Orthodox Church signed a concordat codifying the Orthodox Church's influence in government affairs and other facets of public life.

In January 2003, then-Commission Chair Felice D. Gaer and Commissioner Bishop William Murphy traveled to Belarus where they met with officials for the State Committee on Religious and Nationalities Affairs as well as with various religious and human rights groups. The Commission released a report on Belarus in May 2003 that presented findings and recommendations for U.S. policy. The Commission has led or participated in bilateral meetings with official Belarus delegations at human rights meetings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in July and September 2003.

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 to 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 of domestic and international human rights groups and others to sites of religious violence or destruction of houses of worship;
• 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;
• 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"; and
• consistently raise religious freedom and other human rights concerns in Belarus with Russian government officials, due to the special relationship between Russia and Belarus, making clear that the human rights situation in Belarus is unacceptable and that the Russian government has some responsibility to use its influence to press for democratic change with respect to human rights, including religious freedom, in Belarus.

In addition, the Commission has recommended that the U.S. Congress pass the Belarus Democracy Act, and that the activities to promote democracy outlined in the Act should include programs that explicitly promote the right to freedom of religion or belief.