Baranavichy: Unknown Persons Desecrate Protestant Church

21.11.2006.

At night of 20-21 November a barbaric act against the Salvation church (belonging to the Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith) in Baranavichy took place. The unknown have written ‘Do not trust sects’ in black paint; the sign of 5 to 2.5 meters at the crossing of Telman and Piarshukevich streets (that has the church’s name, its address and telephone number on it) was bombarded with stones and empty bottles by them.

’I saw that today morning when I was on my way to work’, Iury Stupakou, the administrator of Salvation church said. ‘Empty beer bottles, stones are lying beside. They could possibly be drunken teenagers, but what are the reasons for such actions? To my mind, the reason is that we are labelled as ‘members of a sect’ in state newspapers and on TV. Somebody is troubling the situation intentionally.’ The leadership of the church has filed a police report regarding the incident.

A comparable incident took place in Minsk a few weeks ago. The building of the New Life church was smeared with black paint. Unknown persons have written on the wall ‘No to totalitarian sects’.