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Belarusian Christian Democracy’s petition for release of priest Uladzislaw Lazar draws about 900 signatures in five days

As of Tuesday morning, about 900 people had signed Belarusian Christian Democracy (BCD)’s petition for the release of Roman Catholic priest Uladzislaw Lazar, who has been held in a KGB jail since the beginning of June.

“It is unclear what he is accused of as the KGB persistently keeps silent on this case despite the public’s demands and a great stir in the media,” says the petition, which was posted on the Internet on August 1. “We believe that the arrest of the priest is an attempt to blackmail the Catholic Church and intimidate the Belarusian public. In this connection, we demand that priest Uladzislaw Lazar be immediately released.”

On August 1, BCD, an unregistered opposition party, announced that it was launching a campaign of solidarity with Uladzislaw Lazar and called on all Catholic believers and all Belarusians to send postcards of support to the KGB detention center in Minsk.

Yury Sanko, acting spokesman for the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Belarus, confirmed a week ago that the Rev. Uladzislaw Lazar, minister of the Holy Spirit Descension Parish in Barysaw, Minsk region, was being in held in the KGB jail.

‘We are aware of this, but we do not know exactly what he was arrested for,” he said.

This case is being dealt with by governmental agencies and attended to by the Apostolic Nunciature to Belarus, Mr. Sanko noted.

He said that he did not have enough information to link the arrest of the priest to Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s recent statement. The Belarusian leader revealed on July 26 that authorities had recently arrested an officer of a Belarusian intelligence agency who had supplied information to “foreign states” through representatives of the Catholic Church.

Uladzislaw Lazar, a citizen of Belarus, graduated from Hrodna Seminary and then completed a theological course in Poland. He served in Maryina Horka and Rudzensk, Minsk region, before being appointed minister of the Holy Spirit Descension Parish in Barysaw in April 2013. //BelaPAN