Sergiy Melyanets and Natallia Vasilevich, who live outside the country, have been added to Russia's Federal Wanted List at the request of Belarus.
The Belarusian Ministry of Interior. / [link]Anna Chervonets[/link], Wikipedia.
Belarusian police launched criminal cases against Protestant preacher, Sergiy Melyanets, and Orthodox theologian and moderator of Christian Vision and Christians Against War groups, Natallia Vasilevich, reports Norwegian human rights organisation Forum 18 .
Both religious freedom defenders, who live outside the country, have been added to Russia's Federal Wanted List at the request of Belarus, but they have had no official notification of the criminal case against them.
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If Melyanets or Vasilevich arrive in Belarus or are caught in countries that are friendly to Belarus, such as Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan or Uzbekistan; they risk immediate arrest and transfer to Belarus, explains Forum 18.
[photo_footer] Natallia Vasilevich and Sergiy Melyanets. / Forum 18 [/photo_footer]
The criminal case against Melyanets was launched in January, but its status remains unclear, because it is not known whether he is a suspect or has been formally charged.
“In January they started summoning my parents for interrogation. Questions were mostly about me and what I am up to”, he recently told Forum 18.
According to the Protestant preacher, “they want me and my family to be in fear, and I continue to do what my Christian conscience leads me to do”.
Before leaving the country in 2024, Melyanets supported groups and churches that Belarusian authorities consider to be “extremist” . “I believe the criminal charges relate to that”, he said.
“After 2020, I asked myself: how can I help people who are in prison? I could write letters - I wrote, I could deliver things - I delivered. But I realised that I could do more. I started visiting courts, so that people who were there could feel supported and see that they were being prayed for”, pointed out Melyanets in an interview with Christian Vision.
The preacher supported Minsk's New Life Full Gospel church, a free evangelical church, after he witnessed police forcibly evicting the church community from the building it had used since 2002.
He also prayed outside Minsk District Police Detention Centre in August 2023 while the church's pastor, Vyacheslav Goncharenko was detanied; and attended the trials where judges ordered the liquidation of New Life Church.
He did that for three years, until he was arrested on 19 March 2024, during the hearing of journalist Igor Korney. Melyanets said he had come to offer prayerful support to Korney.
The court sentenced Melyanets to 25 days of administrative detention. Right after he was released, he fled to Poland with his family.
The criminal case against Natallia Vasilevich was opened in April, but its status is also unclear.
“I don't know whether I am a suspect or I've been charged, what has caused this and why police are conducting the investigation. Maybe it is because of Christians Against War, they lodged the case two weeks after Russia declared the group a 'foreign agent'”, Vasilevich told Forum 18.
“In principle, it's not surprising. It was expected, and it doesn’t even really stir up any emotions”, she said on her Telegram channel.
Christian Vision was created by human rights defenders from various Christian churches across Belarus in September 2020, amid protests against the lack of transparency in the presidential elections. It aims to document violations of freedom of religion or belief and other human rights.
In 2023 and 2024, the Belarusian government blocked the access to Christian Vision's website and banned its social media sites as “extremist”.
On 1 April 2025, the KGB secret police also ruled that Christian Vision website and social media were "extremist". The Interior Ministry added the group to its list of “extremist” organisations on 8 April 2025.
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