A Pentecostal evangelist is refusing to pay a fine for
allegedly conducting worship services in the town of Zheludok, in the western
Grodno region. Mikhail Balyk, who rejects the accusation, was nevertheless
fined 26,600 Belarusian roubles (85 Norwegian kroner, 11 Euros or 13 US
dollars) on 27 May by the administrative commission of the Molodechno municipal
administration. Balyk told Forum 18 News Service from Grodno on 2 June that no
worship services were taking place at the address cited - a domestic residence.
He is preparing to lodge an appeal and has until 6 June to do so.
At 1 am on a night in early May, the Minsk-based Freedom of Conscience
Information Centre told Forum 18, two police officers and a local
administration official dealing with religious affairs visited a Zheludok
address rented by the Grodno regional branch of the Pentecostal Union and drew
up a protocol against Balyk for conducting illegal worship services.
A 20 May document issued by the municipal administration specifically accused
him of "organising and conducting evangelisation meetings and other
religious ceremonies every Sunday between 2 and 3 pm" at an address in the
town. The document (of which Forum 18 has received a copy) states that such
activity constitutes a violation of Article 193 of the administrative offences
code.
This article specifies that "the creation and leadership of a religious
organisation without registering its charter (statutes) in accordance with
established procedure, or the organisation and conducting by the leaders and
members of this organisation of children's and youth meetings, as well as work,
literary and other circles bearing no relation to the exercise of the religion,
attracts the imposition of a fine of up to five times the minimum wage."
"There is a vicious circle in our legislation," Balyk told Forum 18.
According to the new law on religion, "you can register and so function
legally only once your religious organisation has 20 members," he
explained, but under the administrative code "you can't start a religious
organisation without registering it".
The state authorities committed a number of procedural violations in drawing up
the protocol against Balyk, his lawyer Nina Shavtsova claims. She told Forum 18
from the capital Minsk on 2 June that the police approached the young
evangelist on a Friday, not at the time of the illegal activity of which he is
accused, and thus have no proof that he created or led an unregistered
religious organisation. Balyk added that a protocol should be drawn up in a
person's presence after he has given a statement, which did not take place in
his case.
Shavtsova told Forum 18 that unregistered religious organisations are often
fined in this way, up to a maximum sum of 35 dollars. The main victims are
small, established groups in rural areas, she said, and confirmed that the new
religion law did not oblige local authorities to re-register local religious
organisations, even if they are affiliated to a religious organisation that has
re-registered on the republican level.
Balyk's official position is as an evangelist with the Grodno regional branch
of the Pentecostal Union, which has recently passed re-registration on the
republican level, as the chairman of the State Committee for Religious Affairs,
Stanislav Buko, confirmed to Forum 18 on 28 May.