BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

16/02/2007

Belarus expels US volunteers for teaching English

Minsk (eCanadanow) - Belarusian authorities expelled ten US religious workers for teaching English in the former Soviet republic, and banned their return for two years, the Belapan news agency reported.

An immigration court in the central Belarusian city Mogilev found the group, all retirees working in Belarus for a humanitarian aid organization, had violated labour codes and laws forbidding the promotion of religion by an NGO devoted to social work.

The Americans, in a statement made public by the Mogilev Emmanuil church, said in part: "We love the Belarusian people:we did not intend to break any laws."

The group will leave Belarus by the earliest flight with convenient links to Missouri, he said.

The ten had arrived in the mostly destitute eastern European nation as part of a humanitarian aid project organized by their Baptist church in the US state Missouri.

The Americans had been teaching English for free to Mogilev citizens in classes offered by Mogilev's Emmanuil church, which follows an evangelical Christian faith.

The traditional faith in Belarus is Orthodox Christianity, whose leaders in the country are hostile to evangelical Christianity.

An Emmanuil church spokesman denied gatherings were intended to find converts, but had only offered practice speaking conversational English "to lovers of the language."

"There was nothing wrong, there was no crime," said Dmitriy Kontsevenko, a church spokesman.

A Mogilev judge on Thursday found otherwise, citing the Americans for teaching without a license, assessing each a fourteen dollar fine, and citing the church for proselytising the Baptist religion under the guise of humanitarian aid work.

An authoritarian state, Belarus closely controls foreign influences on its population, and in recent years has kicked out most international aid organizations from the country.

c 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Source:

http://www.ecanadanow.com/curiosity/2007/02/16/belarus-expels-us-volunteers-for-teaching-english/