In the latest in a series of such incidents, authorities in
the city of Bendery (Tighina) in the unrecognised republic of Transdniester in
eastern Moldova have moved to crush a street library run by local Baptists. A
24 April Baptist statement reaching Forum 18 News Service reported that four
days earlier police confiscated all the books for a second time. "The
local authorities in the city of Bendery are obstructing the work of the mobile
Christian library and have drawn up police records against the Christian
library workers with the aim of judicial persecution," the statement
complained. "This activity is illegal in Transdniester," the city
police chief Valeri Smyk told Forum 18 on 29 April. "They didn't have a
licence for it."
However, different agencies are passing responsibility to each other for the
incidents. Smyk declined to say why street libraries are illegal and referred
all enquiries to the Bendery branch of the Transdniester State Security
Ministry (MGB, the local successor to the KGB). "They are in charge of
this matter." He refused to say whether the Baptists will face
prosecution.
Reached by telephone on 29 April, the duty officer at the Bendery MGB Stepan
Ivanovich (he declined to give his last name) insisted that the police was
responsible. "They detained them it's their responsibility," he
told Forum 18. He declined to say whether the Baptist street library was
illegal or not. He said the head of the city MGB whom he refused to name
was not available.
The first police action against the street library came on 30 March, when
police lieutenant N. Stolyarchuk seized the fifty books on the stall and
detained the three Baptists running it, Vyacheslav Bachu, Vladimir Boligar and
Dmitry Masterov. The Baptists report that Stolyarchuk and a colleague
"questioned them a lot about the internal life of the church". The
three men's identity card details were recorded and they were then taken to the
city police station, where they were interrogated by police lieutenant D.
Tashoglo. "Again questions were asked about the internal life of the
church," the Baptists complained. The three Baptists refused to sign the
police record of the incident.
When they demanded to know why they had been detained, they were transferred to
the local branch of the MGB. An officer in civilian clothes, who did not give
his name, told the three: "You are free to go, but I am keeping the
literature." The MGB officers refused repeated Baptists demands to explain
why the books had been confiscated.
The same three Baptists, Bachu, Boligar and Masterov, were again detained by a
police patrol on 20 April and taken to the city police station. At the duty
room, police sergeant V. Frait drew up a list of the 29 confiscated books and
released the three men. The Baptists complain that again no reason was given
for confiscating the books.
Baptist sources in the Transdniester capital Tiraspol, who asked not to be
named, told Forum 18 on 29 April that the confiscated books have still not been
handed back. However, the sources reported that 44 books confiscated under
similar circumstances from a Baptist street library in the village of Krasnoe
on 18 January have now been returned.
Several Baptists have had fined imposed this year. Aleksandr Kulysh, who owns
the church in Krasnoe, was twice fined for using a building on his land as a
church. The authorities argue that as the congregation does not have
registration the church was built illegally. Kulysh should have paid the fines
by 1 April but has refused, Baptists in Tiraspol told Forum 18, and expects to
be brought to court again for his refusal to pay. The Baptists have complained
about the case to the Transdniestran Constitutional Court in Tiraspol.
The Baptists belong to congregations of the International Council of Churches
of Evangelical Christians/Baptists, which rejects registration on principle in
all the former Soviet republics where it operates. Its congregations in
Transdniester have long faced obstructions to their work from the authorities,
which remain close to the local diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Baptists have repeatedly demanded that the Transdniestran authorities
delete articles from the 1995 religion law that make registration of religious
organisations compulsory and require religious leaders to undergo
"accreditation" with the authorities. "The law does not leave
space in the legal sphere for unregistered communities," they complained.
They have also called for the abolition of Article 200 of the Administrative
Code, which specifies fines for those who lead unregistered religious
communities, conduct unregistered religious rituals or who lead special
religious activities for young people or musical activities not related directly
to religious worship.