Christian communities maintained that the law heavily restricts their activities, suppresses freedom of religion, and legalizes criminal prosecution of individuals for their religious beliefs.
On September 14, 2006, Pastor Sergei Heil, chair of the unregistered Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Republic of Belarus, reported that the Government refused to register it as a republic-wide association.
The New Life Church faced closure because authorities refused to register it at the cow barn it owned and wished to use for worship; its unregistered status made all its activities illegal.
With the permission of Minsk local authorities, approximately 700 New Life Church parishioners and supporters rallied on Bangalore Square on October 21, 2006, to protest the forced sale.
On December 6, 2006, Grodno authorities granted permission for the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of Mercy Roman Catholic community to build a church for its 8,000-member parish, which had been worshipping in a small wooden house that could accommodate only 300 persons.
On June 25, 2007, the Minsk Tsentralniy District informed John the Baptist Church that it could not rent space at the state Trade Unions House, allegedly due to scheduling conflicts.
Between February 2006 and the end of the reporting period, the charismatic Living Word Church in Grodno tried at least seven times to rent meeting space, but state proprietors refused each attempt.
On December 28, 2006, State Ideology Officer Oleg Bobryk interrupted without explanation a seminar on family relationships held by a Protestant preacher at the Volozhyn Palace of Culture.
Similarly, Pastor Yasku claimed State Ideology Officer Bobryk demanded that teachers find out whether their students attended Protestant Sunday school.
Observers expressed concern that lack of uniform government guidance on implementation of February 2006 changes to visa laws affected the ability of missionaries to live and work in the country.
In July 2006 authorities denied permission for the unregistered Full Gospel Union to invite Nigerian pastor Anselm Madubuko to preach at three New Generation member churches.
For example, on October 13, 2006, authorities fined Polish citizen and Catholic priest Antoni Koczko $29 (62,000 rubles) for conducting an "unauthorized" religious service in Minsk, since he had been assigned to a church in Slutsk.
At the same time, they issued him deportation papers for "repeated violations of the regime governing the presence of foreigners," ordered him to leave the country by June 7, and barred him from re-entry for five years.
Baptist Union representative Gennadiy Brutskiy reported that authorities questioned a U.S. citizen who held a humanitarian work visa after he addressed a Bible college graduation ceremony in May 2006.
While broadcasting footage of a God's Grace prayer service and a conference, host Artyom Makhakeyev accused healers of swindling money out of sick people and warned that the wealthy "frequently become the focus of sects' attention."
On August 9, 2006, border guards took into custody and transported to Minsk 47 Baptist children and adults who were on a religious retreat at a private homestead in the western Grodno region for alleged violations of health and safety regulations.
On November 28, 2006, local authorities in Volozhyn threatened to rescind the Jewish community's rights to possess a restituted yeshiva building due to lack of renovation work.
At the end of the reporting period, the St. Joseph Catholic community in Minsk continued a campaign for the Government to return former Bernardine church and monastery buildings, home to the state archives and slated to be converted into a hotel and entertainment center.
The law allows persons to gather to pray in private homes; however, it imposes restrictions on holding rituals, rites, or ceremonies in such locations and requires prior permission from local authorities.
On June 26, 2007, the Minsk Central District Court rejected a complaint by Antony Bokun, pastor of the registered John the Baptist Church, that police mistreated him following his arrest earlier in the month.
On May 8, 2007, police detained and warned youth activist Ivan Shutko that his participation in the campaign to prevent the Roman Catholic monastery in Minsk from being transformed into a hotel and casino might result in "great problems."
On April 11, 2007, authorities issued an official warning to Sergey Nesterovich of the unregistered God's Transfiguration Brotherhood for regularly conducting illegal religious meetings in his apartment and collecting funds.
On August 30, 2006, Union of Evangelical Christians Salvation Church (UECSC) pastor Sergey Poznyakovich was fined $2,170 (4.65 million rubles) for performing a baptism ceremony in a nearby lake.
The book Demons on the Russian Land: Globalism as a Product of Evil, by Belarusian National Academy of Sciences (BNAS) researcher Valeriy Zelenevskiy, was also available at Pravoslavnaya Kniga.
On March 1, 2007, independent media reported that vandals removed part of a metal plaque attached to a monument built on the site of an old Jewish cemetery in remembrance of the killing of the Minsk ghetto Bremen Jews.
Despite a number of neo-Nazi anti-Semitic leaflets signed by the "Belaya Rus Aryan Resistance Front" found at the site, authorities dismissed the incident as a case of teenage hooliganism.
Throughout the reporting period, Jewish leaders petitioned the authorities to investigate neo-Nazi activities, citing continued vandalism, anti-Semitic graffiti, and threats to civil society and religious congregations.
On July 20, 2006, the Prosecutor's Office repealed a warning to preschool teacher Lyudmila Izakson-Bolotovskaya for the "illegal and deliberate dissemination of religious dogma to young children" following her appeal.
On March 28, police arrested four members of the satanic group Bloody Moon; the suspects remained in jail, and the investigation was ongoing at the end of the reporting period.
On April 22, Christian communities, including Protestants and Catholics, some individual Orthodox priests, and the BCD launched a campaign to collect 50,000 signatures on a petition calling for the revocation of the 2002 law on religions and religious organizations.