Yuri Kulakovsky, the chairman of the Human Rights, Ethnic Relations and Media Committee of Belarus' parliament, is defending not only the refusal of his country's government to be influenced by a nationwide religious freedom petition signed by over 50,000 citizens, but the unjust prosecution of three of the petition's organizers. The petition organizers were fined 1,400,000 Belarusian Roubles ($662 dollars), the equivalent of two month's wages.Kulakovsky explained to Forum 18... that the petition organisers failed to follow the legal procedure of registering an initiative group with the electoral commission before collecting signatures. Forum 18 pointed out that no such conditions for petition-gathering exist in ordinary democratic societies. "You're wrong!" Kulakovsky told Forum 18 repeatedly. "There is a procedure for such initiatives in any democratic society, and they didn't follow it."
Forum 18 asked the Human Rights Committee chairman in which other democratic countries such a procedure exists. "There certainly is in Norway," replied Kulakovsky. "We didn't make anything up, you know - we followed European democratic norms."
Well, unfortunately, Kulakovsky is dead wrong. But then government officials toeing the line of Belarus' dictator, Alexander Lukashenka, often are.
Norway has no restrictions at all for the peaceful collection of signatures. No country in the E.U. does.
