The Belarusian KGB Monitors the Country's Religious Life to Prevent a Situation Like the One in Penza

November 3, 2011 · Adam Bondaruk, Baptists, Victor Belykh, AUCECB, Persecution, Interview, KGB, Books, Unregistered Pentecostals, Nikolay Kotyakov, On Emigration, United Church of Evangelical Christians, Vestibule, Petr Saenko, Pentecostals, Religious Mafia, Slavik Radchuk, Contemporary Persecution, Security Services

The State Security Committee of Belarus constantly monitors the situation in the country’s religious sphere, trying to prevent destructive religious movements from penetrating the republic.
“Religious issues are a constant focus of the KGB’s work because they are very sensitive matters. If we do not constantly monitor the situation in this sphere, we could end up with deplorable consequences,” Belarusian KGB Chairman Yury Zhadobin told journalists today, Interfax reports.
“We see what is happening in Russia’s Penza region. We identified this cultist, so to speak, who was operating here. We barred him from entering the republic, though we were a bit late in doing so,” the head of the Belarusian security service said.

According to him, the problem of destructive religious movements that tried to be introduced into Belarus in the 1990s requires constant attention. In the religious sphere, any careless move, wrongly spoken word, or misinterpreted tenets can cause harm, the KGB representative believes.

As Y. Zhadobin noted, “given that Belarus has always been known for its tolerance and social harmony, we certainly pay close attention to these issues.”

It was earlier reported that investigative authorities have managed to establish the exact number of cultists who walled themselves up in a dugout in the Bekovsky district of Russia’s Penza region, awaiting the ‘end of the world.’

“It has been officially established that 35 people are in the dugout, including four children aged from one and a half to 14 years,” Maria Orlova, senior assistant for media relations of the investigative department of the Investigative Committee under the Russian Prosecutor’s Office for Penza region, told the Interfax-Povolzhye news agency on Wednesday.

The sect’s leader, Pyotr Kuznetsov, remains under observation in the regional psychiatric hospital; his condition is satisfactory.

M. Orlova said media reports about an attempted suicide by P. Kuznetsov were untrue.

She recalled that P. Kuznetsov was taken to the dugout twice over the past month to try to persuade the cultists to come out, but these attempts were unsuccessful. “The possibility of another attempt cannot be ruled out,” M. Orlova said.

M. Orlova said that the investigative bodies plan to order a forensic examination to establish the authorship of a number of religious books allegedly written by P. Kuznetsov. “In addition, an expert review of these publications is underway to determine whether they contain calls for violence and refusal to perform civic duties,” the representative of the investigative department noted.

December 19, 2007

Source: religio.ru

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