A homeless shelter run by a young Christian man in Belarus was stripped of its legal status on February 7 after what appears to be a campaign of official opposition to the charitable project.
Aleksei Shchedrov (29), a primary health-care worker, turned his home in the village of Aleksandrovka, into the shelter, and since it opened in December 2011, it has given refuge to around 100 homeless people. He was charged in 2013 for leading an unregistered religious organisation; the authorities took issue with a prayer room at the site, though Aleksei insisted that he was running a charity, not a religious organisation. The case attracted wide publicity in Belarus, and the local media launched a smear campaign against the Christian.
He nevertheless managed to obtain registration for the shelter as a social care institution, and the charges against him were dropped. But after a series of inspections by police and local officials, the centre was stripped of its legal status. The 13 current residents could now end up back on the streets, and Aleksei may again face criminal charges.
In January, a tax office official threatened to impose such taxes that Aleksei would not have been able to pay. Shortly afterwards, he was fined 39,000 Roubles (£2; US$4) for improper electric wires outside the house and a chimney without bricks on the exterior of the summer kitchen. He said that this was a ‘heavy burden’ for the shelter, which spends this sum on bread for two weeks.
A sanitary inspection was the final nail in the coffin for the centre. It criticised the short distance between the shelter’s well and poultry shed, without even taking a water analysis; its findings were used by local police and officials to rescind the shelter’s legal registration.
