A Catholic bishop in Belarus has warned his Church is being barred from “telling the truth” and “living under a system of repression” after the arrest of four priests on charges of incitement and participation in unauthorised events. 

“We are trying to speak the truth, and this truth is pushing us to oppose all forms of repression,” said Bishop Yuri Kasabutsky, an auxiliary now running the Minsk-Mohilev archdiocese on behalf of its exiled leader, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz. “I myself have received a warning notice from the authorities for words I’ve spoken, and been told they will arrest me if I don’t stop. But I’ve told them I feel no fear.”