Protestants say secret police encouraged a former church member to lodge a suit against New Life Church – now in court in Pavlodar - claiming back pay and compensation for moral damages for volunteer work in a rehabilitation centre. "This is not a state campaign against the Church," a local religious affairs official claimed, though the individual met officials and a state-backed anti-"sect" centre. Jehovah s Witnesses are appealing a decision awarding large "compensation" to two former members. An assessment of their literature, claiming it caused psychiatric harm, listed a work by Andrei Snezhnevsky, leader of Soviet-era psychiatric abuse.
The US is adopting a new strategy to cooperate more closely with countries in sub-Saharan Africa and push back the influence of China and Russia in the region
Without facilities at Gomel s Living Faith Church, Pastor Dmitry Podlobko held river baptisms in late 2021 without state permission. He was fined two days average wage and his Church was warned. So he held baptisms in July 2022 in his garden. Police summoned him and a court fined him two weeks average wage. Asked whether Podlobko would have been punished had he and his friends been swimming, Police Chief Vasili Kravtsov responded: "They weren t swimming in the pool. This was a religious ritual. They are completely different."
Since February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine, around 5.2 million people have crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border into Poland, the Border Guard (SG) tweeted on Tuesday morning.