BELARUS: Just silence reply to UN deadline

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24 November 2005

 

BELARUS: "Just silence" reply to UN deadline

 

By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service

 

Belarus has not met a 12 November deadline, set by the United Nations Human

Rights Committee, to report its correction of a violation of the International

Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In a decision with implications

for many religious communities, Belarus was found to have violated two Hare

Krishna devotees' religious freedom rights by refusing to register a nationwide

Hare Krishna association. Without registration the association's activity is

illegal under Belarus's harsh religion law. One of the devotees, Sergei

Malakhovsky, told Forum 18 News Service that the only reply the state had given

them was "just silence. They were supposed to respond and publish what they had

done within 90 days, but that period is over." The devotees have formally asked

the Belarusian Supreme Court to review earlier court decisions violating their

ICCPR-guaranteed religious freedom. The head of the UN Human Rights Committee's

petitions department told Forum 18 that Belarus "will reply - they have said

that they will - but they didn't give a specific date." Aleksandr Kalinov of

the State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs told Forum 18 that his

body was "examining the issues."

 

Belarus has failed to meet a 12 November deadline, set by the United Nations

Human Rights Committee established under article 28 of the International

Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to report its correction of a

religious freedom violation identified by the same Committee's resolution of 23

August. Speaking to Forum 18 News Service from Geneva on 23 November, the head

of the UN Human Rights Committee's petitions department thought that Belarus

would respond, however. "They will reply - they have said that they will - but

they didn't give a specific date," Markus Schmidt remarked. Once a response is

received, he added, it will be analysed by a Special Rapporteur before being

referred to the UN Committee.

 

Asked about Belarus' response to the UN Human Rights Committee's resolution on

3 November, Aleksandr Kalinov of the State Committee for Religious and Ethnic

Affairs told Forum 18 that his body was currently "examining the issues"

connected with it.

 

In a decision with clear implications for other religious communities, the UN

Human Rights Committee found that Belarus had violated the religious freedom

guarantees of Article 18 of the ICCPR. Its 23 August resolution (Communication

1207/2003) came in response to a formal complaint by two Hare Krishna devotees,

Sergei Malakhovsky and Aleksandr Pikul, and stated that the pair's rights had

been violated by Belarus' refusal to register their republic-wide Hare Krishna

association. The UN Human Rights Committee examines alleged violations of the

ICCPR, which entered force for Belarus in 1976.

 

Starting from the 23 August date of the resolution and thus expiring on 12

November, the UN Human Rights Committee also specified a ninety-day period for

the Belarusian state to confirm that it had taken measures to correct the

violation. (For full details of the Hare Krishna devotees' original complaint

and the UN Human Rights Committee's decision, see F18News 4 November 2005

http://www.newjaipur.narod.ru/english.htm#v1).

 

Speaking to Forum 18 from Minsk on 22 November, Sergei Malakhovsky said that he

has still not received any form of response to the UN resolution from state

representatives. "Just silence," he remarked. "They were supposed to respond

and publish what they had done within 90 days, but that period is over." On 18

November Hare Krishna devotees submitted a formal request to the Supreme Court

to review earlier court decisions violating their religious freedom as

guaranteed by the ICCPR (see F18News 27 January 2005

http://www.newjaipur.narod.ru/english.htm).

 

Malakovsky also reported that, while previously assured by officials at Minsk

City Executive Committee that the local [not republic-wide] Hare Krishna

community could be re-registered as soon as it found a suitable legal address,

the city authorities referred its re-registration application back to district

level when the community recently managed to find such an address after a

year's difficult search. "They were clearly surprised that we had found

somewhere," he told Forum 18, "but it is with a private landlord not so

dependent upon the state." On 16 November, according to Malakhovsky, officials

representing the Soviet District of Minsk - where the address is located -

began to make new demands regarding the content of the community's

re-registration application.

 

While four Hare Krishna communities have successfully re-registered under the

2002 law, the Belarusian state has made no secret of its hostility towards the

group. In October 1997 an expert council attached to the State Committee for

Religious and Ethnic Affairs concluded that the Minsk Hare Krishna community

was a "destructive totalitarian sect infringing personality, health, citizens'

rights and the national security of the Republic of Belarus." A state

schoolbook also maintains that for Hare Krishna devotees "psychiatric help is

certainly required" (see F18News 24 June 2003

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=90). Some in Belarus have told

Forum 18 that the state's hostility to many religious confessions is closely

connected to Soviet-style militant atheism, which is still propagated by the

state and exerts a strong influence on officials.

 

A printer-friendly map of Belarus is available at

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Roo

tmap=belaru