European Centre for Law and Justice Addressing the Urgent Religious Freedoms Crisis in Belarus

STRASBOURG—13 December 2007

The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) has been engaged in high level meetings throughout the week with European Parliament and Council of Europe leaders regarding the dire situation of Christians in the European nation of Belarus. ECLJ has been joined in these meetings by Belarusian religious freedoms lawyer Sergei Shavtsov, who himself has been imprisoned for holding prayer meetings, and another expert in Belarusian religious freedoms who requires anonymity because of the 5 year mandatory prison sentence given to Belarusians who provide the international media any information that discredits the official State position.

Belarus, a nation of 9.7 million people which is neighbored by three European Union nations, has become known as the last dictatorship of Europe. Under the rule of Alexandre Lukashenko, the State Parliament adopted the 2002 law on religions which makes it illegal to meet in public for prayer meetings or Bible studies with punishment of fines or prison terms. Furthermore, foreign religious organizations and missionary groups such as the Salvation Army are forbidden to exist in the country. Foreign pastors and religious workers, when discovered are also routinely expelled from the country under the guise that they are threats to national security. A vivid example of how dire the situation has become is the hunger strike several months ago of 200 evangelical believers of the New Life Church for the continuing refusal of a permit to register their church for over six years and therefore making any worship among them illegal. The State refused medical or ambulance services to those who became ill during the month long strike.

ECLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow has placed the highest institutional importance on these violations, with planned deployments of lawyers from both the European Centre and Slavic Centre to Minsk to address the situation as well as a comprehensive international approach at the European institutions and the United Nations. ECLJ, a consultative member of the United Nations, will continue its ongoing promotion at the U.N. of religious freedoms for the Belarusian people.

ECLJ’s meetings this week with European leaders has officially put the issue of religious freedom violations in Belarus on the political radar. ECLJ met with the Cabinet of the President of the European Parliament; the Office of the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; the Council of Europe’s Legal Affairs and Human Rights Secretary; and Chairs and Vice-Chairs from the European Union’s Delegation for Relations with Belarus, Foreign Affairs Committee, Human Rights Subcommittee and Petitions’ Committee. ECLJ also has planned meetings with several Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament.

Tremendous results were garnered from these initial meetings including the agreement of the E.U. Delegation for Relations with Belarus that religious freedoms would be placed on the agenda of the Committee, an agreement to work for a Resolution condemning the religious freedoms climate in Belarus by the European Parliament, calls by MEPs to the European Commission to address these issues with Belarus and the initiation of plans to hold a European Parliamentary public hearing on religious freedoms violations in Belarus in the coming year. ECLJ is also currently working with Belarusian religious freedoms lawyers and NGO’s on a joint petition challenging the 2002 Law on Religions to both the President of the European Parliament and Chair of the Petitions’ Committee of the European Parliament, a petition which has already received 35, 000 Belarusian signatures.