EU Rings Alarm Bells Over Belarus’ Poor Human Rights Record 11:17, 27/08/2002
On Tuesday the European Union passed another statement concerning the state of affairs in Belarus. “The European Union,” reads the document, “confirming its willingness to perceive Belarus as one of Europe’s democracies, at the same time seriously grieves over the present-day human rights and democracy situation in the country”.
EU is especially concerned with the draft law “On the freedom of conscience and religious organizations”, ratified on June 27 by the Belarusian parliament. Given the law gets passed, the freedom of conscience situation in Belarus will deteriorate all the more, deem the Brussels officials.
EU likewise fears that the new law may open up a gateway for the discrimination of religious minorities, establishing differences between the religions, depending on their value for Belarus, and may pave way for the censorship, which would demand the submission of religious periodicals to the authorities before they ever get published. Such a law, reads the EU statement, may become means of controlling the religious organizations and enable the state to apply sanctions against them, reports RIA “Novosti”.
The full transcript of the EU statement will appear on our site as soon as we get it.
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