Belarus: Seven Fined For Talking About Easter In Street eurasiareview.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurasiareview.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Police in Minsk refused to say why they and OMON riot police were present in and around the city s main Orthodox cathedral on 3 March when about 100 soldiers mothers attended regular evening prayers to pray for peace in neighbouring Ukraine. Officers checked the identity and photographed some of them before the service. Afterwards they detained four and questioned them at Central District Police Station for four hours. Police came the following day to the home of a fifth, but she was not at home. It remains unknown if the women will face punishment. A journalist and her husband were detained at the cathedral and jailed for 15 days.
In December 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Committee asked Belarus to respond in the case of 33-year-old Jehovah s Witness conscientious objector Dmitry Mozol. In February 2021, a court in Pinsk fined him four months wages for refusing call-up to reservist military training on grounds of conscience. He failed to overturn the criminal punishment on appeal. The law allows only individuals who have completed alternative civilian service to be exempted from reservist military training. Alternative service was introduced only in 2016, after Mozol was initially called up. Jehovah s Witnesses fear that other young men could also face such prosecution.