A Christian campaigner has urged church leaders and the Vatican to condemn worsening human rights abuses in Belarus, after another Catholic priest was arrested in front of parishioners.
A Greek Catholic website and a YouTube interview with a Catholic priest are the latest religious items banned by courts as "extremist" and added to the Information Ministry s "Republican List of Extremist Materials". Deputy Information Minister Igor Buzovsky, who is also Deputy Chair of the "Republican Expert Commission for the Evaluation of Symbols, Attributes, and Information Products for the presence (or absence) in them of signs of Extremism", defended such bans. "This is done exclusively on the basis of the law," he insisted.
After his last Mass in Grodno s Holy Redeemer Church on 27 December, Polish citizen Fr Jozef Geza left Belarus after 25 years service. Religious affairs official Aleksandr Rumak rejected his bishop’s request to extend the permission which foreign citizens need to conduct religious work. Rumak "won t comment" on his decision, his colleague Andrei Aryayev said. Last July, Rumak refused the latest request for permission for Fr Klemens Werth. A Russian citizen, he can therefore serve only in an administrative role in Vitebsk diocese.
<p>Christian dissidents in Belarus, an eastern European country closely allied with Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation, have published a collection of unanswered appeals to the Vatican about the atmosphere of repression in their country, highlighting a growing disillusionment with papal diplomacy.</p>