English

Officer of US mission to OSCE visits New Life Church

Timothy Fingarson of the Vienna-based US mission to the OSCE on September 9 visited New Life Church and met with the leader of the Protestant community, Vyachaslaw Hancharenka.

Mr. Fingarson promised following the meeting that he would do everything in his power for information about the situation of New Life Church to be known to the governments of the OSCE participating countries.

As the community's lawyer, Syarhey Lukanin, told BelaPAN, during his visit, arranged by the US embassy in Minsk, Mr. Fingarson took a particular interest in the relationship between New Life Church and authorities.

Mr. Hancharenka told him that the community had been ordered to pay an environmental penalty of 8,750,000 rubels ($3,000) and 249 million rubels ($83,000) in compensation for the alleged environmental damage and eight million rubels ($2,700) to the Minsk city environment department to reimburse it for its litigation costs. He noted that the community’s bank account had been frozen and the 935,000 rubels ($310) in the account had been withdrawn.

The Minsk city environment department claims that the community caused damage to the environment by contaminating the area around its prayer house with petroleum products and destroying more than 3,000 square meters of topsoil.

Mr. Hancharenka may now be charged under the Criminal Code article that penalizes heavy damage and provides for a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

New Life Church, one of the largest communities of the Association of Full Gospel Christians, obtained state registration in December 1992 and is said to have more than 1000 members. In 2002, the community bought a former cowshed together with a four-acre land plot from a kolkhoz. It converted the building into a prayer house and some 500 to 700 people gathered there each Sunday for worship.

The area was later added to the territory of Minsk, and the city government decided to confiscate the plot and ordered New Life Church to sell the former cowshed to the city for 37.6 million rubels, or some $10 per square meter. Officials explained that this amount was what the building had been worth before New Life Church converted it into a prayer house without permission.

New Life Church views the city environment department’s actions as another attempt to force the community to abandon its land and prayer house.

According to Mr. Lukanin, in early December 2009, officers of the city environment department took samples of soil from the dirt road leading to the community’s prayer house on Kavalyova Street on the outskirts of Minsk and then accused New Life Church of contaminating the area with petroleum products. “In other words, they charged community members with contaminating the road by driving along it to the prayer house,” Mr. Lukanin said. “The road was there before we came there. Moreover, there was a pile of rusted automobile hulks there until 2004, which community members removed by themselves.”