A new Penal Code in Bolivia bans religious evangelisation aimed at recruiting new members of faith communities. Religious organisations are classed with terrorist groups in the new law with both threatened with jail time of five to 12 years for attempting to recruit new members.
Specifically, Article 88.11 reads: “Whoever recruits, transports, deprives of freedom or hosts people with the aim of recruiting them to take part in armed conflicts or religious or worship organisations will be penalised 5 to 12 years of imprisonment”. Christian groups in Bolivia fear that a rigorous application of the Penal Code could ban preaching in the streets or even the act of inviting someone to a Christian event.
Several pastors gathered outside the Bolivian national parliament in La Paz to pray for religious freedom. “Will they denounce us if we bring a group of people to a Christian camp? Will I no longer be able to preach the Gospel on the streets?”, pastor Miguel Machaca Monroy, President of the coalition of evangelical churches in the capital city asked.
The National Association of Evangelicals in Bolivia also criticised the new Penal Code. “It is deplorable that Bolivia becomes the first Latin American country to persecute the rights of freedom of conscience and of religion, which are protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the declaration of San José de Costa Rica, and our Constitution”.