Priest punished for refusal to be fingerprinted

Archpriest Ihar Prykepski serves in the church of saint apostles Peter and Paul in the village of Kasuta (the Vileika district). He is the father of many children.

As most Belarusian men, he received a summons to appear in a police station for fingerprinting.

The priest refused to undergo fingerprinting procedure, Belsat reports. As a result, he was fined 700,000 rubles under article 23.4 of the Code of Administrative Offences “disobedience to a lawful demand of law enforcement officers”. As lawyer Svyatlana Shoma explained, this article is used in relation to everyone who refuses to be fingerprinted. “Under the law, a person liable for military service must be fingerprinted, but the law says nothing about punishment in case of his refusal. People used this right, but then police found a way out – applying the article on disobedience to lawful demands,” the expert said.

The priest comments on the situation: “As far as I know, police say that fingerprinting is obligatory for everyone, but this does not comply with the law, to say the least of it. In court, I mentioned this fact as a direct deceit, but was told that police officers fulfill the internal order of the Interior Ministry, so there’s no deceit. I have to agree, there’s no deceit, but it is an attempt to make a person, who is not an officer of the Interior Ministry, fulfill an internal order of this body that cannot comply with any law.

A question arises in this connection: why does a police officer refer not to a law of the Republic of Belarus but to an internal order of the Interior Ministry and say about committed terrorist attacks (meaning the events in Minsk during celebration on October Square ) when demanding me (and other people) to undergo fingerprinting procedure? Am I among suspected persons? What about the presumption of innocence? Excuse me, but this approach is nothing else than denigrating my honour and dignity.”

There’s only one legal way to delay fingerprinted today. It is demanding to undergo the procedure on new electronic equipment. There are only few fingerprint scanners in Belarus. Waiting in queue may take several months. So, there’s a hope that law enforcement officers will rather refuse to take fingerprints than negotiate to receive a scanner.