Like justice, like officers of justice

On September 28 officer of justice of the Maskouski district court of Minsk Paval Khadnevich violently entered the building of the New Life church.

BelaPAN was informed about that by the lawyer of the church Syarhei Lukanin.

As said by him, Paval Khadnevich rang at the entrance door at about 4 p.m. and asked Vyachaslau Hancharenka, senior pastor.

“After Khadnevich was told Hancharenka wasn’t there, the officer of justice aggressively and rudely pushed Alyaksandr Kirsanau, a parishioner, and burst into the shrine. At that moment he unintentionally hit a member of the press centre of the community, Ina Davydovich,” Lukanin said.

The lawyer informed that Khadnevich was in the building for about 10 minutes, he was behaving “disrespectfully, he was shouting, and demanded the parishioners to show documents”. Since August 24 members of the church continue the indefinite prayer vigil.

“It turned out that in this way the officer of the court wanted to invite Hancharenka to the court of Maskouski district of Minsk on September 30. Most likely, the session of the court is related to the administrative violation report drawn up on September 9 against the pastor by the deputy prosecutor of Maskouski district Kiryl Mazouka under Article 23.1 of the Administrative Code and fire safety laws in connection with the refusal of the believers to let representatives of he executive authorities into the church building,” Lukanin said.

At the same time, as said by him, Khadnevich hadn’t told the time of the court session and hadn’t left the summons to the court for Hancharenka. “When leaving the church Khadnevich threatened to Kirsanau by 15 days of arrest for defiance,” Lukanin said.

He called the incident “outrageous” and told that the church would file a complaint to Justice Minister Viktar Halavanau and ask to discipline the officer of justice.

“Otherwise, we would have to demand the prosecutor’s office to open a criminal case against Khadnevich for abuse of power,” Lukanin said.