Belarus Jewish group denied accreditation 11:55, 09/09/2004, By Associated Press
Belarusian authorities refused to accredit a leading Jewish organization this week, citing a technicality, while members of the group said the decision was punishment for speaking out against anti-Semitism.
The Foreign Ministry of the former Soviet republic declined to renew the accreditation of the US-based Union of Councils of Soviet Jews, arguing the group was five days late in filing a request after its accreditation expired, the ministry`s spokesman, Andrei Savinykh, said.
But the group`s leaders said the move was aimed at silencing them.
"The authorities used a formality. The refusal is caused by fact that our organization was openly speaking about cases of anti-Semitism in Belarus," said Yakov Basin, head of the Belarusian office of the union.
The group was first registered in Belarus in 2001. It has acted as an anti-Semitism and anti-fascism watchdog and conducted research on Belarusian Jews and organized international conferences.
Basin said he intends to file a lawsuit protesting the Foreign Ministry decision.
Mostly Slavic, Orthodox Christian Belarus has witnessed a steady series of what Jewish organizations say are anti-Semitic actions.
Many Jewish cemeteries have been vandalized in recent years.
About 28,000 Jews now live in Belarus, a nation of 10 million that was home to a substantial Jewish minority before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
Some 800,000 Jews were killed in Belarus by the Nazis, and many have fled the country since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
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