“We have a peaceful and quiet life here. I cannot remember a single skirmish on religious grounds in Belarus, not even an argument,” Lukashenko told representatives of Vatican and Belarusian Orthodox Church at a joint meeting in Minsk in November 2012.

But the absence of  religious fights does not mean freedom of conscience is not challenged in Belarus.

According to official statistics, there are 3,374 religious organisations that represent 25 different denominations officially registered in Belarus. Almost half of the religious communities are Christian Orthodox; the Catholic Church is the second most popular (479 communities or about 15 per cent of the total registered in the country). Both Orthodox and Catholic Christmas and Easter are official state holidays. The Orthodox Church is considered to be an “official” one — its leaders are quite close to the authorities, and there is even a special Agreement on Cooperation between the Belarus Orthodox Church and the country’s government, signed in 2003.

The agreement formally pursues “noble” objectives of “spiritual development of the nation” — but in reality forms of cooperation between the state and the church can be quite oppressive. For instance, the practice of compulsory church donations by employees of state-run companies is notorious.

Aleh is from Salihorsk, a city of Belarusian miners, and he works for Belaruskaliy, one of the biggest exporting companies in the country that mines potassium. He says 100,000 roubles, equivalent to about £7, is deducted from each worker’s salary several times a year as a “compulsory voluntary donation” towards building of a new Orthodox church in the city. Most of the workers are not happy about that, but none of them dare to protest openly, says Aleh:

“The sum deducted is not significant enough to risk losing a job. The thing is we are all on short-term contracts. If you protest against these ‘donations’ or make any kind of trouble for your employer, they won’t renew your contract once it expires — they have this right according to Belarusian laws. That’s why everybody silently agrees; Catholics, and even Muslims and Jews all donate to building of an Orthodox church.”

New Life and old methods

Facts like this don’t really add supporters to the “official” church. Members of the New Life Protestant church in Minsk disagree that the Orthodox Church is the real leader in terms of the number of believers.

“Even official figures say there are only about 300,000 people who visit Orthodox churches around the country during major holidays, like Christmas and Easter. Their usual congregation is hardly higher than 50,000 people. So, the official statistics that say 80 per cent of the Belarusian population is Orthodox is far from the real state of things,” sources in New Life told Index.

New Life is a religious community that feels direct pressure from the authorities. Twenty years ago they built their Protestant church on the site of an abandoned cowshed on the outskirts of Minsk. In 2005 the authorities revoked the license for the land the community used. Its members were on a hunger strike for one month before the officials stepped back. But in 2009 the authorities re-initiated the case and deprived New Life of the propriety right for the church building. The case was again put on hold during the period of the so-called “liberalisation”, but in 2012 it was re-initiated. On 5 December 2012 New Life was supposed to leave the premises — but at the last moment the Minsk Economic Court suddenly closed the eviction case.

There are 25 different religious denominations officially registered in Belarus — almost half of which are Christian Orthodox

Uladzimir Matskevich, a Belarusian philosopher and civil society leader, says the case of New Life shows a model strategy of the ruling regime — and sets an example of a strategy for civil society:

“This community demonstrates its unity and determination to do whatever it takes to fight for their rights and not to give up whatever the actions of the regime are. That is why the community wins local conflicts with the regime. The regime accepts those local defeats, but keeps to its strategic goals. It keeps pressing the church, but never goes till the end. Why? Because the authorities do not really want to destroy the community, but just to see how it prevails, and watches if it can become a core for consolidation of other forces in civil society. So, the regime leaves the New Life community alone for some time — until it needs to check the state of protest readiness of the civil society again.”

The law with no freedom and no conscience

According to Aliaksei Shein, a coordinator of a civic initiative called Christian Movement, the right to freedom of conscience and religion is violated in Belarus, as well as other human rights.

“In 2002 Belarus adopted the Law ‘on freedom of conscience and religious organisations’ that is the most repressive in Europe. Despite its name, the law has no freedom and no conscience. It makes registering new religious organisations almost impossible; it critically complicates creation of new religious communities; it deprives believers of the right to spread their beliefs outside the walls of their churches,” Shein claims.

For instance, the law only provides three places where people can pray without special permission — inside officially registered religious buildings, as well as at cemeteries and crematoria. There have been numerous cases of people getting fines or administrative arrests for breaking these rules.

The reason for the oppression is that active religious organisations are a part of civil society, which the authorities of the country try to put under tough control.

“It is the most active and independent who get the most trouble, Protestants first of all. But sometimes the Orthodox and the Catholics feel oppression too, as well as representatives of other, non-Christian confessions,” Shein says.

Natallia Vasilevich, a political scientist and the editor of a Belarusian online portal Churchby.info, agrees the oppressive law provides the main tension in the legal field of the religious freedom. Besides, she says, problems lay in the absence of clear mechanisms to implement the law, allowing local authorities to apply it arbitrarily.

Religion as a tool to fight dissent – and please partners

The authorities of Belarus also use the issue of religion in other ways to curtail free speech. In January 2008 Aliaksandr Zdvizhkou, deputy editor of Zhoda independent newspaper, was sentenced to three years in prison by the court of Minsk for “inciting religious enmity”. The newspaper had covered the story of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed — re-publishing some of the cartoons. It is worth mentioning that the cartoons were re-printed in 143 newspapers in 56 countries of the world, including Islamic states – but secular Belarus, with its “Orthodox atheist” leader was the only one that actually put a journalist in prison as a result.

Zdvizhkou received a wide international attention following the sentence, and he was released in February 2008. It was obvious the trial was entirely politically-motivated — Ismail Varanovich, the chairman of Spiritual Department of Muslims of Belarus, called the sentence to Zdvizhkou “too harsh.”

“He just published information about what the Danish newspaper printed. There could not be any response from the Belarusian society, no incitement of any violence,” the Belarusian Muslim leader said at that time.

It looked like the Zdvizhkou case was an attempt of the Lukashenko’s regime to “make friends” with the Islamic world. At that time the authorities of Belarus were thinking of large-scale joint projects with several Muslim countries. Lukashenko himself visited United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, and also hosted Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Minsk.

Believers are opposition?

The state in Belarus tries to control all spheres of life, and religion is not an exception. Natallia Vasilevich believes:

“There are no prerequisites [suggesting] that Belarus can change from a secular state into a clerical one. But the influence of church and religion in Belarusian society can increase as the result of activities of religious organisations if they are able to gain trust of the population and provide them with necessary and convincing answers to actual vital questions.”

But the government is unlikely to allow this to happen, as state ideologists want to preserve their monopoly control over people’s minds. They are ready to battle fiercely for this control.

According to Aliaksei Shein, a new oppressive trend has become vivid over the last two years, as the regime started using one of the most popular “political” articles of the criminal code — Article 193.1 — against members and activists of religious organisations. This article results in criminal liability for activities on behalf of unregistered organisations. The KGB (the State Security Committee) issues official warnings to non-registered Christian communities – and there are around a hundred of them in Belarus.

“After ‘cleaning out’ the political and business fields, the authorities of the country started cleaning out the next sphere, and that is religion and culture,” Shein concludes.

Zmitser Yanenka is the editor of Camarade.biz news website from Belarus

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Alexander Lukashenko turns up to cast his vote in Belarus’s parliamentary election, accompanied by his son Nikolay

Last Sunday the people of Belarus learnt the new composition of the lower chamber of its parliament. But you can’t really say that members of the parliament were elected. Most observers say that there are no genuine elections in Belarus, and that the parliament is insignificant because the power of the president is almost complete. A large part of the population shares that view.

The Belarus authorities claim that elections in Belarus are transparent. Journalists joke that they are so transparent that they are almost invisible. Although the Central Election Commission claimed that 72.3 per cent of voters went to the polling stations, independent observers say that turnout was no more than 35-40 per cent. The authorities falsified the turnout to give the elections the veneer of legitimacy.

There are no surprises in the composition of the new parliament. Most of the democratic opposition boycotted the election in different ways. Some parties — European Belarus, the Christian Democrats and the Belarusian Movement — announced from the start that they were not participating in the farce. Others, including the United Civil Party and the Belarus National Front, decided to get candidates registered to give themselves a platform but later withdrew,  denouncing the election as a fraud. Some opposition parties ran candidates all the way through to election day — but predictably without any success.

The lack of unity of approach among the opposition was criticised by civil society groups. “All of the opposition was really in favour of a boycott,” said Uladzimir Matskevich, chair of the coordination committee of the National Civil Society Forum.  “Even those people who called for participating in the campaign until the bitter end did so only in order to use the opportunity for publicity. So why not agree about a common strategy from the very beginning?”

The disunity of the opposition meant that it failed to send a clear message to voters. If ordinary people boycotted the election it had little to do with activities of oppositional groups and a lot to do with a general sense that the National Assembly has no real influence because of the overwhelming power of the president.

“We don’t have public politics in Belarus,” said Zhanna Litivina, chair of the Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ). “Even when we had election debates on TV, it was obvious the candidates themselves did not really care about them.”

A BAJ analysis of election media coverage shows that the state media, which are dominant in the country, misrepresented the campaign, focusing on the Central Election Commission rather than candidates or their programmes. There were cases of direct censorship as state TV refused to broadcast candidates’ statements. Debates were never live but always pre-recorded. No appeal for a boycott of the elections ever appeared in the state media.

The official explanation from Lidzija Yarmoshyna, the CEC chair, was that airtime was dedicated “to campaigning, not boycotting”. According to the chair of the United Civil Party, Anatol Labiedzka, 32 addresses by the party’s candidates were not broadcast and state-owned papers refused to print 11 of its candidates programmes.

“The purpose of the bleak campaign coverage and the censorship of the candidates’ media appearances was to undermine electoral competition and depoliticise the elections,” the BAJ report (pdf) states.

There were several instances of physical attacks and detentions of journalists. The worst was on 18 September, when seven journalists (Aliaksandr Barazenka, Sergei Grits, Vasil Fiadosenka, Tatsiana Ziankovich, Vasil Padabed, Dzmitry Rudakou and Aliaxey Akulau) who covered a peaceful street performance of opposition in Minsk were seized; Grits, an Associated Press photographer, received a serious facial injury during the attack. This was a clear and gross violation of journalists’ rights, in direct contravention of the law that makes it a criminal offence to interfere with journalistic activities. But few expect that officials will investigate the case and call those responsible for the attack to legal account.

Opposition websites reported that they were temporarily blocked during election day, and foreign journalists were denied visas to cover the elections — among them Swedish reporters Stefan Borg, Erik Von Platen and Gustaf Andersson and German reporters Anne Gelinek and Gesine Dornblüth. [Editors note: Von Platen and Andersson were eventually granted visas after initially being refused]

Many of the formal procedures for democratic elections are in place in Belarus — but genuinely free elections are not simply about formal procedures: they are about discussion of different political programmes. In democracies, free media provide a public platform for debate. In an authoritarian state like Belarus, where media freedom is severely restricted, elections can never be free. The electoral code can be amended, observers can be allowed to see the vote count, the ballot boxes can be transparent – but if there is no freedom of the media, none of this counts for anything.

 Andrei Aliaksandrau is the Belarus and OSCE Programme Officer at Index on Censorship

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Index on Censorship’s Mike Harris joined the UK’s Europe Minister David Liddington during a visit to the Belarusian Human Rights House in Vilnius, Lithuania this week. At a meeting with opposition political activists including Charter97 editor Natalia Radzina, Liddington emphasised the importance the UK placed on the deteriorating situation in Belarus. This meeting is one of a series of meetings the Minister has held on Belarus since the imprisonment of political prisoners after the presidential election last year. The activists, all of whom are now exiled in Vilnius after fleeing detention by the country’s KGB, stressed the precariousness of Belarus’s economy and the role that Britain can play as a leading EU member state.

The visit came during the OSCE Council of Ministers at which Belarus featured prominently. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton called for all political prisoners to be released. Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal and Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird, echoed her calls for their unconditional release. Whilst the Foreign Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, reemphasised one of themes for Ireland’s forthcoming Chairmanship of the OSCE, the importance of online freedom in Belarus.

Irish Foreign Minister reassures Index

Concerns had been raised by NGOs over the failure of the Council of Ministers to debate a strong resolution passed at the OSCE Parallel Conference. At a press conference, Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore, in response to a question from Index on Censorship, stated that the resolution had been debated and stressed that “NGOs have a very important role to play”. He added that at the OSCE “consensus is not always easy to achieve”, and on the issue of sanctions against Belarus confirmed that “Ireland has supported sanctions by the EU”. In contrast to the view of many NGOs at the parallel conference who called for the suspension of Belarus from the OSCE, Gilmore saw the breadth of OSCE nations as positive saying: “In my capacity as Chair I will work to ensure there is continuing dialogue [with Belarus]… The ability to maintain dialogue is a strength of the OSCE.”

Statement on Belarus PC Vilnius Final 051212 Eng (2)

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The German chancellor and UK Deputy Prime Minister pledged more action on Belarus’s human rights abuses at a Warsaw summit

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed concern last night over the Deutsche Bank issue of Belarusian government bonds after the post-election crackdown in which seven of the nine presidential candidates were jailed. At a meeting with representatives of the Belarusian opposition as part of the Eastern Partnership in Warsaw, Merkel heard first hand allegations of torture and kidnap that have been raised since last December’s controversial election. She promised to contact the bank directly over the issue.

After the election, 600 opposition activists were jailed. Human rights groups Index on Censorship and Free Belarus Now have condemned the decision by a consortium of majority-state owned Royal Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Sberbank to issue $850 million of Belarusian government bonds in January even after the scale of the human rights violations in the former Soviet became apparent.

In August, RBS issued a statement ruling out any further sale of Belarusian government bonds after a meeting with representatives from Index on Censorship and Free Belarus Now.

Mike Harris, Head of Advocacy at Index on Censorship said:

“This couldn’t come at a more crucial time. Ms Merkel’s influence could stop European banks issuing Belarusian government bonds. Alongside RBS, Deutsche Bank can send a clear signal not to risk investing in a regime that violates fundamental human rights.”

Irina Bogdanova, sister of jailed presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov said:

“I raised DeutscheBank’s sale of Belarusian government bonds directly with Angela Merkel. While my brother languishes in jail after a show trial, I’m incredulous that any business in modern Europe could lend any support whatsoever to Lukashenko’s vile regime. Angela Merkel was deeply concerned and promised to speak to the bank.”

Natalia Koliada of Free Belarus Now said:

“Belarus is Europe’s last dictatorship. Lukashenko is torturing political prisoners in jail. Europe is simply not doing enough to uphold basic standards of human rights in its own neighbourhood. It’s time to move from words to action.”

RBS’s decision to rule out any further bond issues due to the “deteriorating political situation” in Belarus has exasperated the authoritarian regime’s continuing credit crisis. The Belarusian ruble devalued 36 per cent in May this year alone and the country continues to run a current account deficit of 18 per cent of GDP – almost a $1 billion per month.

The same day, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nick Clegg received an Index on Censorship / Free Belarus Now petition signed by former Czech president Václav Havel, playwright Sir Tom Stoppard and acclaimed actor Sir Ian McKellen calling upon the government of Belarus to release all of its political prisoners and hold “free and fair” elections.

Clegg commented:

“You cannot rig an election, squash dissent, destroy liberty, run an economy into the ground without, eventually, paying the price.”

“I’d like to pay tribute to the efforts of campaigners back in the UK., working with Index on Censorship and Free Belarus Now. One of our major banks has now stopped helping the Belarusian government sell its bonds – a blow to the regime’s coffers. It is heartening to see British business and civil society stand together on this. ”

For more information please contact Mike Harris, Head of Advocacy at Index on Censorship on +44 7974 838468 or via the London office on +44 207 324 2522; mike@indexoncensorship.org

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British lawyers have launched an innovative “prosecution kit” which gives citizens throughout the world the tools to pursue Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko through the courts. Matthew Jury explains

For close to two decades Alexander Lukashenko, commonly known as the ‘Last Dictator in Europe’, has stood accused of the torture and abduction of the people of Belarus. Around his fiefdom exists not an iron curtain but iron walls. A barrier behind which, now and on the edges of modern Europe, such crimes go unchallenged, democracy is unknown and the rule of law does not exist. His people have no recourse to their suffering. The totalitarian grip he has on power ensures it. Until today. Today the people of Belarus have sent us, the international community, a message to do what they cannot. Braver still, they have even smuggled us the means to do so.

Over several months, determined and courageous survivors of Lukashenko’s alleged abuses have managed to escape Belarus to testify to what they have suffered. They have done so despite being scattered across Europe, some in hiding and all still fearful for their safety and that of the family and friends they were forced to leave behind. I have taken testimony of horrific beatings, degradation and abuse, of vicious threats and the most awful brutality. In addition, human rights campaigners still in Belarus have risked their lives to provide to us evidence of the Regime’s alleged crimes.

Because of such bravery, we, on their behalf, have been able to produce a “Prosecution Kit” that includes evidence of Lukashenko’s alleged crimes and from which a public or private prosecution can be made anywhere in the world. Through its global open source publication on the Internet, civil society, NGOs, private lawyers and governments worldwide now have immediate access to the materials necessary to seek Lukashenko’s arrest should he travel to their jurisdiction.

Torture is an international crime, the prohibition of which the world’s nations (almost all of which have ratified the Convention Against Torture) are obliged to enforce. Under the Torture Convention, and on our behalf, governments have promised to prosecute anyone who has committed torture who enter their jurisdictions. In reality, state officials accused of torture too often travel freely and with impunity, raising the shield of state immunity whenever and wherever they are challenged. Most shamefully, and in response, our governments, frequently and cowardly, do nothing; abdicating their responsibilities in favour of realpolitik and diplomatic expediency. Undoubtedly, Lukashenko will use the same shield. We say, however, that not only is his Presidency unlawful (recent elections were almost universally condemned, including by the US., EU and the OSCE, for being neither free nor fair) and thus he has no right to state immunity but also that, if the prohibition of torture is to have real teeth, the law cannot retreat when ever state immunity is raised. Having regard to developments within international law and state practice, the issue of state immunity, torture and impunity must be revisited if we are to effectively fulfill the purpose of the Torture Convention and the promises made under it.

The people of Belarus ask the world’s governments to do no more than to fulfill the promise made when they ratified the Torture Convention. However, should they choose to break it and fail in their obligation to prosecute Lukashenko when he enters their country then, where local laws allow (as in many jurisdictions), civil society now also has the tools and materials necessary to enforce the rule of law itself and commence its own private prosecution.

For the first time, this initiative removes the power to prosecute a state official accused of crimes against humanity from the hands of politicians, diplomats and bureaucrats and places it instead into those of civil society.

The people of Belarus, against the odds, have done something incredible. They have done the hard work. All we need do is be diligent in the fulfillment of our promise. That, surely, is the easy part. Moreover, the people of Belarus have given us a gift: a new civil society approach to international justice that may be used to help combat impunity in relation to torture and other international crimes by empowering victims everywhere against despots, war criminals and other human rights offenders. No longer must we wait for our governments to fulfill their duty and enforce the rule of law when we now have the means to do so ourselves.

Lukashenko can now choose to hide behind the walls he has built for himself, a prisoner of his own making, or come out to answer the accusations against him. If innocent, he has nothing to fear for, as long as we choose to enforce it, outside of Belarus at least, the rule of law still prevails.

Today, the people of Belarus ask you for their help in upholding the rule if law. Not just for themselves but for the international community. Please visit www.mccue-law.com/belarus to download the Prosecution Kit and consider asking your government to commit to prosecuting Lukashenko should he travel to your jurisdiction or, failing that, preparing your own private prosecution.

Matthew Jury is a partner at McCue & Partners LLP. He is an expert in counter-terrorism litigation, domestic and international human rights law and public international law. McCue & Partners represent a number of opposition Belarusian politicians and campaigners and their families who allege torture and hostage-taking by the Lukashenko Regime

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