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New Life Church determined not to pay huge penalties to Minsk government

New Life Church has no intention of paying the huge penalties that have recently been imposed on it for alleged environmental damage and is ready to defend its prayer house and its leader Vyachaslaw Hancharenka, the Protestant community's lawyer, Syarhey Lukanin, told BelaPAN on Tuesday.

On July 12, the Supreme Court of Belarus rejected an appeal against an environmental penalty of 8,750,000 rubels ($3,000) that a judge of the Maskowski District Court in Minsk imposed on New Life Church in February.

On July 29, the Minsk City Economic Court ordered New Life Church to pay 249 million rubels ($83,000) in compensation for environmental damage.

The Minsk city environment department estimated that the community had caused damage to the environment in this amount by contaminating the area around its prayer house with petroleum products and destroying more than 3,000 square meters of topsoil. New Life Church was also ordered to pay eight million rubels ($2,700) to the department to reimburse it for its litigation costs.

At a general meeting of members on August 8, the community decided not to file any new appeals against the court rulings and to pay nothing, Mr. Lukanin said. New Life Church views the rulings as unlawful and absurd, he stressed.