ST PETERSBURG. In  the latest confrontation between Russia's security forces and  evangelical religious groups, police and schoolchildren  refused on Friday to back down in the occupation of a St  Petersburg school.

Since Monday dozens of pupils and some parents and  teachers have occupied the school, operated by a Dutch  evangelical group in a former army barracks in the center of  Russia's second city, while two busloads of armed police  stand vigil outside.

 Police said on Friday they were prepared to maintain their  blockade for two more weeks, when a court order obliging  the school to move comes into effect.

 The city says it has revoked a 1991 rent-free lease it gave to  the Dutch Open Christian Society, which runs the school. The  school's supporters say they are entitled to remain.

 Andrei Bolkashov, 39, a parent who has been inside the  school with his two children since Monday, said a court  ruling taking effect after March 11 would oblige the school to  move, but parents have already prepared an appeal to block  the order.

 A police officer at the scene who asked not to be named told  Reuters: "We will be here until March 12." Asked if they  would then storm the building, he said: "Yes."

 Attempts to clear the school have failed. Bolkashov said  police had forced their way into the building on Tuesday, but  the children and adults lay on the floor singing religious  songs for three hours until the officers left.

 Other adults reached by telephone inside the building have  said the children have been able to sneak in and out through  windows, are in good spirits and have plenty of food.

 "For us it is like a holiday. Such unity and spirit in front of  God. We are reading from the Bible," said the school's  director, Inga Ivanova, late on Thursday. She said the  children were occasionally offering tea to the police outside.

 "It is terrible, police against children," said Larisa Shubina, a  parent maintaining a vigil outside the building.

 "My child is also inside. If the children go away, the police  will carry off the adults. But we want our children to study in  a Christian school. We have nowhere to retreat to."

 In a press release on Thursday, the city said the school had  violated the terms of the building's lease and was enlisting the support of international  organizations by spreading inaccurate information in a publicity campaign.

 Evangelical Christians and other religious groups have experienced a revival in Russia since  the fall of Soviet Communism brought an end to 70 years of official atheism.

 But both the secular authorities and Russia's own 1,000-year-old Orthodox Christian  Church have often expressed skepticism towards less conventional religious movements.

 A controversial law which went into effect in 1997 restricts the activities of "non-traditional" faiths.

 Moscow prosecutors are presently seeking to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses in a court case that is being monitored closely by international human rights groups. On Thursday Russian police raided Moscow offices of the Los Angeles-based Church of Scientology. (c) 1999 Reuters

CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGIOUS SCHOOL, ST. PETERSBURG POLICE CONTINUES
RFE/RL Newsline, March 1, 1999

A standoff between police, students, teachers, and parents at a school operated by a Dutch evangelical group in St. Petersburg continued for a fifth consecutive day on 26 February. The school is defying a court order requiring it to move; the city government maintains that the school is unlicensed, does not meet sanitary and fire safety standards, and is run by a group that is registered as a social rather than a religious organization, according to AP and Reuters. School and human rights group officials counter that the real conflict is over the right of religious groups to teach their faith.

FEARS RISE IN SIEGE AT RELIGIOUS SCHOOL
by Marcus Warren
Electronic Telegraph, 1 March 1999

Riot police are still surrounding a religious school in St Petersburg a week after teachers, parents and pupils barricaded themselves inside over fears that they were about to be evicted.

About 40 people - 25 children aged from six to 16 and 15 adults - took over the building last Monday after the city authorities obtained a court order transferring the premises to the police for use as a health centre. Tension over the situation was further heightened last week when the city's governor, Vladimir Yakovlev, criticised local religious schools for turning out "zombified children".

"We want the police to leave so that the children can study normally," said Andrei Bolshakov, a Protestant pastor, who spoke by phone from inside the school, which is run by the Dutch-based Society for Open Christianity. The group tries to break down barriers by educating Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant children together.

The stand-off in St Petersburg has bemused local residents and embarrassed the police outside the school, whose windows are covered with foreign flags, icons and posters pleading for help.

"It is not as if we are standing out here with automatic rifles at the ready, is it?" said Capt Andrei Porotov, the officer in charge on Saturday morning. "We help by handing over food to those inside and they give us cups of tea."

"The police are acting illegally by refusing to allow people in," said Mr Bolshakov, whose two sons, Vadim, 11, and Kirill, 13, are also inside the school. "It is ridiculous. This is not some sort of insurrection."

The St Petersburg police's tactics and Mr Yakovlev's comments are the latest examples of official intolerance for what are described as "non-traditional" Christian faiths - those other than Russian Orthodoxy.

Armed police, security services and tax inspectors last week raided the Moscow offices of the Church of Scientology as part of a fraud investigation. Prosecutors in the capital are also trying to ban the local branch of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

RUSSIAN CHURCH SCHOOL, POLICE CLASH
by Andrew Kramer
Associated Press, 27 February 1999

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia--Children at the  Prins Maurits Christian school learned how  to build a barricade out of desks this week.  They also learned how to spot signs of a riot  police raid.

 A standoff between seasoned St. Petersburg riot  police and a motley group of school kids, parents and  teachers has stretched on most of the week.  Police surrounded the private Christian school  Monday following what officials describe as a  dispute over rights to the building. The city  government wants to turn it into a medical clinic for  policemen.

 The government also says the school is unlicensed,  doesn't meet sanitary and fire safety standards, and is  run by a group that is registered as a social rather  than a religious organization.

 However, school officials and human rights groups  say the real conflict is over the right of foreign  religious groups to teach their faith in Russia, where  official intolerance against minority religions and  missionaries has grown in recent years.

 "I think the police have a serious anti-religious  motive," said Inga Ivanova, director of Prins  Maurits. A Netherlands-based, nondenominational religious society called Open  Christianity runs the school.  Riot police have allowed children and adults to leave the building but are refusing to  let them back in, said Viktor Vlasov, St. Petersburg's top law enforcement official.  About 30 children and 20 adults are inside the building. They sleep on gym mats and  eat in the school cafeteria. Police have not raided the building because of concern for  the children's safety, Vlasov said.

"They're taking cover behind the children," he said. "Otherwise, we would use force." Inside the school, corridors papered with crayon drawings end in barricades made of piles of chairs. Teachers who usually watch children during recess now keep their eyes trained on the police cordon outside.

Open Christianity received property rights for the building in 1991. But city officials later reconsidered, Ivanova said. Officials say the school never carried out promised repairs, and they sued for use of the building in 1995. Dueling appeals have kept the case in court until now. A final decision is expected March 12. Police will keep the building surrounded until then, Vlasov said.

Such legal confusion is common in Russia, where courts are weak, post-Soviet laws are untested and authoritarian tradition runs deep.

What makes this conflict unusual is the children. Alyosha, 6, who has been living in the school with his mother since Monday, watched cartoons in an upstairs classroom Friday. "I like it here," he said, eyes glued to the screen. Older children play an active role in the building's defense. Olya, 14, holds a lookout post at an upstairs window. Her mother is also in the building, and her grandmother has brought a toothbrush and clean clothes. Her relatives "understand our right to have a school," she said. When Olya sees police coming close to the building, she hollers for Maxim, 17. He runs to the lookout with a video camera and records the police action as evidence to be handed over to a court or foreign human rights group. Maxim recorded an attempt to clear the building Thursday, when police broke open a wooden door on the first floor. The school bell rang in alarm, signaling to the children that they should run to the school chapel and lie on the floor.

The police left without attempting to arrest the children.

Copyright 1999 Associated Press.

SCHOOL REFUSES TO GIVE IN TO CITY'S THREATS
by Anna Badkhen
St. Petersburg Times, 26 February 1999

Teachers and students remained barricaded inside a downtown St. Petersburg school for the fourth straight day Thursday, continuing their standoff against the armed police and OMON special officers who have stood guard outside the ecumenical school since Monday morning.

Neither side showed any intention of backing down in the battle for the Chernoretsky Pereulok school property, the rights to which were recently transferred to city police for use as a polyclinic.

City authorities, meanwhile, waited until Thursday to comment on the simmering conflict, blaming school officials for their role and at times even claiming that the standoff had been resolved.

The siege is the peak of an 8-year, on-and-off dispute between city officials and the charity-funded school, run by the Society for Open Christianity, or SOC, which was granted the lease to the property in 1991. Earlier this month, city allegations that SOC had failed to fulfill its lease obligations were supported by the City Arbitration Court, which ruled that the original agreement be annulled and the SOC give up the building.

The city put muscle behind its ruling Monday morning, sending 40 armed police and OMON officers to rope off the school building, trapping a number of students and teachers inside. Since then, several children have regularly crept in and out of the building by way of windows and back doors. By Thursday, approximately 20 adults and 40 children - some as young as 4 years old - were inside the school.

Throughout the week, officials from the nondenominational school have stated that they intend to occupy the building until the police and OMON officers back down, claiming they have enough food to survive for a month.

On Thursday, Gov. Vladimir Yakov lev made his first official statement regarding the issue, recommending only that district administrations "look carefully into all the religious schools and what they teach" because "we already have 'zombified' children," Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Other city officials - including police chief Viktor Vlasov and Property Committee Chairman Andrei Li kha chyov - also called a press conference Thursday regarding the siege, which has already received attention from the international press.

They blamed "irresponsible school officials" for "using children in order to pursue their goals." Vlasov went further, saying no one was left in the building.

"All the people left the building [on Wednesday]. There are no people and no children in the building at the moment," he said during the 1 p.m. press conference, adding that he had been told the OMON and police officers had entered the allegedly empty building and were in the process of locking off the classrooms.

He then contradicted himself, saying that police would continue to stand guard outside the school until March 12, at which point they would be given the go-ahead to launch an attack on those remaining inside.

Reporters who went to the school directly following the press conference found the situation not only unchanged, but surprisingly low-key. Children waved from school windows, and OMON guards chatted cheerfully with a group of students who had joined them outside the building.

Later in the day, the police press center revised Vlasov's statements, saying that he was "confused" when he spoke.

One OMON officer, who refused to give his name, said no one has left or entered the building since Wednesday, with the exception of a few students. "Vlasov doesn't know what he's talking about," he said, adding that the students have been giving him and his fellow officers pirozhki and tea to keep them fortified against the slushy, windy weather.

"We will stay here unless ordered otherwise," he said.

"But no matter what the order is like, we will never attack the children."

copyright The St. Petersburg Times 1999

ARMED OMON BARRICADE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL, CHILDREN
by Anna Badkhen
St. Petersburg Times February 23, 1999

A long-standing dispute between city authorities and a local ecumenical school reached the boiling point Monday, with teachers and students in a standoff against armed police and OMON special officers, who allegedly threatened to shoot anyone who tried to leave the building.

As of 9:45 Monday evening, roughly 50 students and teachers were still barricaded inside the Chernoretsky Pereulok school, which since 1991 has been run by the Society for Open Christianity, or SOC. Forty-some armed police and OMON officers continued to stand guard outside.

Officials in the school said they had every intention of staying through the night.

"We're going to stay here until the police leave," said Rimma Sevastyanova, the school secretary and mother of four of its students, speaking by telephone. She said there was enough food inside the school to keep the children fed for the time being.

The siege was the latest twist in the 8-year, off-and-on dispute between St. Petersburg authorities and the SOC.

In 1991, the City Property Committee officially granted the SOC free and unlimited access to run-down and partially ruined former army barracks on Chernoretsky Pereulok for use as a charity-funded, nondenominational Christian school, SOC members say.

But after undergoing repairs that same year, the building again became an object of desire for city authorities hoping to regain rights to the property.

After several failed attempts by the city to repossess the building, the St. Petersburg Arbitration Court finally ruled on Feb. 11 that the SOC contract be annulled. Following a request by the Property Committee, the SOC was required to pass the building over to city police, who planned to use it as a polyclinic for its officers.

According to Inga Ivanova, the school's director, the police announced they would come Monday to discuss the future of the building.

But when they arrived, school authorities said, the police didn't appear to be ready to discuss anything.

"They banged on the doors and threatened to shoot us with their machine guns," Sevastyanova said.

According to Sevastyanova, she and her children, aged 4, 7, 9 and 12, arrived at the school at 8:30 Monday morning, just minutes before the police surrounded the building. She said about a dozen of the school's 150 children and a few teachers were also in the building before the police arrived, roping off the school grounds and blocking the entrance with two OMON buses.

By noon, some 30 students stood with their parents and teachers outside the building in the icy wind, forbidden by the police to go inside. Both the children and adults were sad and confused about the fate of their school, which comprises grades 1-11 and accommodates just 150 students.

"This school is different because we are not only taught to become intelligent people, but also decent people. We are taught to follow Christ's commandments," said Yura, 9, a Russian Orthodox third-grader who arrived at the school too late to get inside.

"I hope that we'll get the school back. We won't be taught such things at other schools," Yura said.

By 6:30 Monday evening, some 60 children had managed to work their way inside the school, Sevastyanova said by telephone. Some of the children later left, she added.

"They got inside through back doors, windows, I don't know how," she said. "We're all very scared. We feel like hostages here, but we won't leave. I heard the police say that as soon as we go outside, they'll shoot."

Gary Vander Hart, an American who teaches the Old Testament, theology and church history at the SOC school, said his Russian students' level of interest in their classes was "humongous."

"I've taught in America for 30 years, and I've never had so many students who are interested in school," Vander Hart said.

Police refused to justify their actions, providing journalists with only a press release explaining why the SOC was obligated to clear the building.

According to Ivanova, speaking Monday from Holland, where she was visiting the school's Dutch funders, tax police and police officials since 1995 have been threatening to harm or even kill her if she does not let them have the building.

The most recent in a string of what Ivanova claims to have been some 15 attacks, she was allegedly shoved into a strange car near the school building last Wednesday night, and threatened with a pistol by two men, who told her they would kill her if she refused to give up the building.

According to Ivanova's husband, SOC president Konstantin Ivanov, it is the school's prime location that city authorities are after.

"I don't think all of this would be happening if we didn't have a building right off Nevsky Prospect," Ivanov said Monday from his home. "Somebody needs this house."

School members agreed.

"I would be very sad if [the authorities] close the school down. They may have a legal right to do it - but do they have a moral right to do it?" Vander Hart said. "Is love the primary reason here, or money?"