Scandalous Religious Law Passage Put Off :: Charter'97 :: News

The upper chamber of the Belarus’ “national assembly” of Belarus at the last spring session declined to consider the draft law “On the freedom of conscience and religious organizations”. This draft law was submitted recently from the lower chamber, whose leadership tried to convince the upper house to urgently consider and approve the law, which provoked scandalous negative reaction in the Belarusian society.

“If we don’t consider this law today, the society will be angered and we’ll become an object of pressure,” – said at the Friday meeting the Speaker of the Republic’s Council Alexander Voitovich. Meantime, 24 deputies of the “council” turned down the proposal of the upper chamber’s head, protesting against the urgent consideration of such an important law for the society.

Draft law “On freedom of conscience and religious organizations” earned a scandalous publicity in Belarus. On June 26 the “parliament’s” lower chamber, pressured by strong public criticism, agreed to postpone the hearings to autumn. However, the next day the draft law reappeared in the daily agenda. And the parliamentarians, who had to change their schedule on June 27, ratified the new law without preliminary deliberations.