Amidst a nasty pressure campaign launched in the government-controlled media, a Pentecostal church in Minsk, Belarus has been vandalized, allegedly by the extremist nationalist National Bolshevik Party, according to a November 1, 2006 report by the Belorusskie Novosti news service. The New Life church, whose parishioners recently went on a hunger strike to protest government violations of their religious rights, was vandalized on the evening of October 31. Someone wrote “No to totalitarian sects” on the church building, along with the emblem of the National Bolshevik Party, which is not registered in Belarus. Two days before, a local Pentecostal said, the STV television channel broadcast a documentary critical of the New Life church, and the day of the vandalism, an official publication of the country’s Ministry of Defense referred to the church as a “totalitarian sect.” It is unclear from the report if police are investigating the incident or what, if any, denial or claim of responsibility followed from the National Bolshevik Party.

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