Belarus official targets Christian rehab centre

March 30, 2009 · Posted in News 

By Geraldine Fagan

A rehabilitation programme for alcoholics and drug addicts run by a Belarusian Christian social organisation, Cliff House, has become the target of an ideology official in the eastern city of Mogilev [Mahilyow], Forum 18 News Service has learnt. “Some people got afraid after the first police visit and stopped coming,” the programme’s co-ordinator, Lyudmila Batyuk, told Forum 18 from Mogilev on 23 March.

Belarus tries to enforce strict segregation of religious and social activity. Religious believers have complained to Forum 18 that they are barred from speaking publicly on general social issues (see F18News 3 March 2006http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=736). One Polish Catholic priest thinks he was expelled from Belarus partly due to his involvement in alcohol rehabilitation programmes (see F18News 12 January 2007http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=899). Another was apparently expelled because he made public comments on Belarusian social problems when in Poland (see F18Newshttp://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1058).

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http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1275

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