A Baptist woman lost her teaching post because of her religious beliefs, according to a June 25, 2008 report by the Slavic Law Center. Olga Rybakova, a well qualified teacher, was initially hired to head the Snezhny summer camp near Magadan, Russia. However, on June 10 Aleksandr Gerasimchuk--the head of the city's Committee on Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism--summoned Ms. Rybakova to his office and told her that the region's deputy governor (V. N. Sobolevaya) didn't like the fact that a Protestant was running a children's summer camp and that she would not be allowed to continue her work. He added that the city's deputy mayor, Yuri Grishan, had expressed a similar opinion, and that her church was supposedly "semi-banned" in Russia, that Baptist churches had been made illegal in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and that "it was only a matter of time" before Baptist churches would be banned in Magadan. None of this is true. When Ms. Rybakova asked why she was being fired, Mr. Gerasimchuk allegedly told her that his bosses were making threats and that they wanted her out "because of your faith, probably." Ms. Rybakova's pastor protested the firing to the local prosecutor's office, citing Russia's labor laws that prohibit discrimination based on religious affiliation, but the pastor has reportedly already received an oral reply that prosecutors feel that no crime has been committed.

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