LUKASHENKO
WARNS
ABOUT INTENT OF OPPOSITION TO SHATTER INTER-CONFESSIONAL PEACE
Interfax-Religiia,
18
August 2020
Belorussian
President
Alexander Lukashenko thinks that the opposition is dragging the
country toward
an inter-confessional struggle.
As
quoted by the
state news agency Belta, he said one of the points of the
opposition's program is
the creation of a Belorussian Autocephalous Orthodox Church as a
counterweight
to the Belorussian exarchate of the Moscow patriarchate.
"We have
always
taken pride that we have inter-confessional peace and nobody
bothers anybody.
Neither Orthodox nor Catholics. Muslims live happily in our
country, and the
Jews, and so forth. We are now being plunged into war, into an
inter-confessional struggle, both on this basis and on an
inter-ethnic basis.
And it will turn out that what we have always taken pride in
will be rejected
and disgraced," Lukashenko declared at a conference in the
Security
Council.
The
president also
declared the intention of the opposition to introduce, in his
words, a
"creeping" ban of the Russian language. "They do not talk
openly,
but a creeping ban of the Russian language. The concept of
criminal
responsibility for insulting the Belorussian language is being
introduced.
Listen. Was it ever the case that we insulted our native
language? That never
happened," he said.
"As
regards the
topic of language, the opposition also proposed to transfer the
army to the
Belorussian language and by 2030 to introduce education in the
Belorussian
language from the kindergartens to the universities," Lukashenko
announced.
He does
not agree
with this suggestion. He said, "We have determined how we act in
the
matter of the Belorussian and Russian languages. They are our
state languages.
We have agreed that we will not make a issue of this topic. . .
. There is no
need to stir up the language problem!" the president added. (tr.
by PDS,
posted 18 August 2020)
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