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Europe brought to notice human rights violations in Belarus
On November 19-20 in Tallin (Estonia) and Helsinki (Finland) a Belarussian human rights advocate, expert of the Humanitarian Technologies Agency (Minsk), Denis Hil made a speech. The subject of the meeting was a presentation of the report about problem of faith right violations in Belarus, reports center "The Other Europe".
Representatives of Finish and Baltic public organizations took part in the meetings and learned that the recent statements of Lukashenko about a possible liberalization and a European course of Belarussian inner policy is not more, than a political game. Its aim is to mislead public opinion of the EU.
Denis noted, that today there is a danger, that the EU can ignore the human rights violations in Belarus for economical benefits. "Unfortunately, we have to state the fact that the Lukashenko statements do not correspond to reality. Recently, situation with liberty of faith don’t become better. On the contrary, new obstacles have appeared in activity of even registered churches and church unions", said Denis Hil in Tallin.
In Helsinki took place a similar meeting with representatives of public organizations and journalists in office of IRR-TV. Denis Hil took part in a program for Finish 7th channel, several radio stations and print medias.
Today the situation with human rights in Belarus fills with misgivings. According to law of liberty of conscience for 2002 year, any religious activity without state registration is prohibited. An artificial legal paradox was created. The matter is that to get a registration, a religious organization should have at least 20 followers. But it is prohibited to lead any activity to get these followers.
Thereby, legally registrate its parish can just traditional churches: Orthodox, Catholic, in some cases Lutherans. Other Protestant churches are significantly dead in rights to spread their beliefs.
Such laws create prerequisites for restraint on activity of registrated religious organization. According to the 25th article of law of liberty of concscience, religious organizations cant arrange religious meetings (worships) in rented (not church) buildings without permission of public authorities.
Religious congregations don`t have a right to establish their own mass medias and educational institutions, to train priests, invite foreign religious workers etc. Such rights have just registered religious organizations.
According to the news law, a religious organization can be created if it has no less than ten congregations, one of which worked in Belarus not less, than 20 years. Many of recently appeared religious organizations wont be able to create a union in the nearest future. It puts obstacles in the way of confessing one`s faith.
Members of religious organizations can`t spread their religious views, preach, give spiritual literature, worship etc, out of the place, where the congregation was registered. According to the new law, activity of a religious organization can be realized just on the territory, where act registered congregations, ingressed into the union. That is why, any missionary activity becomes illegal and spreading of religious views is restricted.
State authorities recently without any reason refuse religious organizations permission to get places for building churches.
State mass media of Belarus often spread insulting inadequate information about activity of religious organizations. Many organizations are called "sects" and "contrasting with Orthodox confession, which is traditional for Belarussian people". First of all, such information is spread by state mass media.
The Belorussian expert underlined the necessity of common actions of public and religious organizations in protecting the basic human rights, one of which is liberty of faith.
During the discussion in Tallin, a representative of a center "The Other Europe" (Latvia) Pavel Levushkan said, that people in Baltic countries understand problems in Belarus very well, because several years ago religious confessions in our countries were experiensing persecutions in Soviet times. He also said that "The Other Europe" realizes constant monitoring of the situation. "Just real actions, not declarations, should be taken into account by EU authorities", added the Latvian guest.
An expert of portal Liberty of Faith Dmitry Sargin has drawn attention of the present on the fact, that Lukashenko didn`t explain yet what happened with the missing opposition representatives. "What is the role of Belarussian president and secret services in the disappearing of people? What were the results of the investigation? We don`t have answers yet. What dialogue is possible with the country, where disappeare people, having opposite views from the official? If Belarus wants to dialogue with the EU, its authorities should take norms of civilized politician discussian".
Report from the Christian Telegraph
Church of Sweden Ordains First Openly Lesbian Bishop
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
STOCKHOLM, November 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Sweden’s Lutheran church announced it had ordained its first openly homosexual bishop on Sunday, less than a month after it gave its ministers the right to "marry" same-sex couples in church.
The Church of Sweden, which was the state church until 2000, had backed the parliament’s adoption of the same-sex "marriage" law, which took effect on May 1. Its synod approved homosexual church "weddings" on October 22.
Eva Brunne, 55, was consecrated as the Bishop of Stockholm in a ceremony at Uppsala cathedral, just north of the Swedish capital, the Church of Sweden said in a statement.
Brunne is in a civil union partnership with another woman, Gunilla Lindén, who is a Church of Sweden pastor. Together they are the guardians of a three-year-old child.
"It is very positive that our church is setting an example here and is choosing me as bishop based on my qualifications, when they also know that they can meet resistance elsewhere," Brunne told the Associated Press.
Anglican bishops from England and Northern Ireland in fact refused to attend the ordination.
Five bishops from various levels within the Anglican Church, including Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, decided not to attend the November 8th ceremony, the Dagen newspaper reports.
"The Anglican Church has a moratorium right now concerning the ordination of bishops who live together with someone of the same sex," Alan Harper, a bishop from Armagh in Northern Ireland, told the newspaper.
Swedish Archbishop Anders Wejryd, who conducted the ordination of Brunne, disputed the claim that the Church of England was boycotting the ceremony.
"That’s not true at all," he told the Kyrkans Tidning newspaper. "We send invitations to those with the highest rank. That’s why the Archbishop of Canterbury received an invitation, but no one expected him to say yes."
According to Wejryd, the international invitees who declined to take part in the ordination included "many who generally never come."
Other invitees who declined to attend, according to Swedish news service The Local, were bishops from the Lutheran churches of Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as the World Lutheran Federation.
This Report from LifeSiteNews.com
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