BELARUS: Close supervision of religious life is central policy

Forum 18 News Service has definitively found that close supervision of religious life in Belarus by local officials is an integral part of current central policy. It is not either a dwindling vestige of Soviet practice or the result of individual arbitrariness. The evidence for this is contained in a letter which Forum 18 has seen from the vice-chairman of the State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs, Vladimir Lameko. The letter sharply criticises lower-level state officials for not diligently monitoring religious communities.

9 February 2004

TURKMENISTAN: Six Jehovah's Witnesses jailed for their faith

Six Jehovah's Witnesses are in prison for their faith, Forum 18 News Service has confirmed. These are the only known religious prisoners of conscience in Turkmenistan, as against other kinds of prisoners of conscience. Forum 18 has also heard reliable reports of several Imams being held in internal exile. Five prisoners are being held for refusing compulsory military service (Turkmenistan has no alternative service provision), while the sixth - Kurban Zakirov, the longest-serving prisoner for his beliefs – has from 2000 been serving an eight year sentence. At least one prisoner has been raped homosexually, Forum 18 has learnt, and all the others have been threatened with this. Like all non-Sunni Muslim and non-Russian Orthodox communities, Forum 18 knows of Jehovah's Witnesses being subject to harsh persecution, being regularly fined for meeting in private flats, and a family having its flat confiscated. Some have lost their jobs when their faith became known.

5 February 2004

TURKMENISTAN: Will Sunni mosques and Orthodox churches be criminalised?

All currently registered religious communities – i.e. only Sunni Muslim mosques and Russian Orthodox churches - will now have to re-register under new detailed procedures, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. However, Forum 18 notes that Shia Muslim mosques, Catholic, Armenian Apostolic, Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Adventist and all other Protestant churches, Jehovah's Witness kingdom halls, Baha'i and Hare Krishna temples and Jewish synagogues will continue not being able to register, and under the new religion law all their activity is now a criminal offence – a clear breach of Turkmenistan's human rights commitments. It is very unclear why highly detailed regulations to register religious communities have been drawn up, as only a very restricted number of religious communities have ever been permitted to register. So far Forum 18 has not yet learnt of attempts to de-register existing Sunni Muslim or Russian Orthodox communities. However, after the previous 1996 religion law was brought in, Forum 18 learned of many Sunni Muslim communities being de-registered, as well as all non-Sunni Muslim and non-Russian Orthodox Church communities.

4 February 2004

ARMENIA: Government breaks promises to Council of Europe

Armenia promised the Council of Europe that it would free all imprisoned conscientious objectors by 26 January 2004. But in a clear violation of this promise, Forum 18 News Service has learnt that that day Artak Saiyan, a Jehovah's Witness, was jailed for 2 years for refusing military service. Today (4 February) postponed two more trials until mid-February, with another Jehovah's Witness due in court tomorrow. A total of 16 Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors are now in jail, with ten more awaiting trial. Despite this, Ara Margaryan of the Armenian Foreign Ministry claimed to Forum 18 that "We understand our obligations to the Council of Europe very well and we honour them, but we can't break existing laws which say that all those who refuse to serve in the army must be punished." Armenia is also in breach of another Council of Europe commitment to allow all religious communities to practise their faith "without discrimination", by its repeated failure to give state registration to the Jehovah's Witnesses, even though they have applied for registration many times.

3 February 2004

AZERBAIJAN: New media threats against Protestants and JWs

Two false accusations of spreading religious hatred have been made on local TV by the government religious affairs committee, Forum 18 News Service has found. Both those accused – the Protestant Greater Grace Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses - have denied to Forum 18 that they spread hatred, and also denied that they received the official warnings the state committee claimed it had issued. The state committee has spoken of plans to use the courts to liquidate the Jehovah's Witness community. Local media frequently repeat assertions that minority religious communities violate the law, preach religious hatred and have been warned by the state committee, and this creates suspicion of the communities. Police broke up the Greater Grace Church's Sunday School last August, and in 2002 the State Committee used the courts to close down Baku's Azeri-language Baptist church, as well as most of Azerbaijan's madrassahs, or Islamic schools.

3 February 2004

BELARUS: Baptist pastors fined

Forum 18 News Service has learnt of three separate incidents in which unregistered Baptist pastors have been fined for their work. All three were fined for "the creation and leadership of a religious organisation without registering its charter (statutes) in accordance with established procedure," which is punishable under the Belarusian administrative offences code. A spokeswoman for the pastors' Moscow-based union remarked to Forum 18 that the incidents "seem to be to do with" the 2002 Belarusian religion law, which outlaws systematic unregistered religious gatherings.

2 February 2004

AZERBAIJAN: Judges not police to expel Muslims from mosque?

The Muslim community of the 1,000-year old Juma mosque has told Forum 18 News Service that it fears it will be expelled by compliant judges, not the violent police assault originally feared. Local human rights activists from the International Religious Liberty Association, Devamm and the Committee for the Protection of Ilgar Ibragimoglu's Rights have told Forum 18 that they welcome international pressure on the Azerbaijani authorities which, they believe, prevented a violent assault on the mosque. But they fear that expulsion by the tame courts "only looks less aggressive". Muslims from the Juma mosque have told Forum 18 that "the Baptist Church is also persecuted" and note that the Baptist church on Baku's Azadlyq street has not been returned to the church. "It is interesting that it is also intended to be turned into a museum, " the Muslims comment. Along with the Adventists, the Baptists have been the strongest religious supporters of Ibrahimoglu and the Juma mosque.

29 January 2004

AZERBAIJAN: Authorities plan to storm embattled mosque?

Muslims from the 1000-year old Juma mosque in Baku fear the authorities, who want to use it as a carpet museum, will seize the mosque by force on Friday, and the mosque has invited foreign diplomats to be present as neutral observers. Rafik Aliev, head of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations, has said that Muslims must leave the mosque because his committee has not registered them – but his committee has refused to consider the mosque's registration application. Otherwise, Aliev has said that police will remove them by force. Under international human rights conventions that Azerbaijan has signed, the absence of official registration does not give any grounds for this expulsion. The embattled mosque and its religious freedom activist imam, Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, who was jailed after a rigged trial, have received strong support from Azerbaijan's Baptist and Adventist churches, as well as from the International Religious Liberty Association.

29 January 2004

BELARUS: Jews fail to recover synagogues or prevent their destruction

Yakov Gutman, who heads the World Association of Belarusian Jewry, has accused President Aleksandr Lukashenko of "personal responsibility for the destruction of Jewish holy sites" in Belarus. Gutman was subsequently detained by police and hospitalised with a suspected heart attack, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. He claims that Belarusian authorities permitted the demolition of a former synagogue to build an elite housing complex, that the construction of a multi-storey car park will prevent the reconstruction of a sixteenth-century stone synagogue demolished in the late 1960s, and that Jewish cemeteries have been destroyed by two local authorities in recent years. Meanwhile, only 9 out of 92 historical synagogues in Belarus have been returned to believers since 1991, and the new 2002 religion law states that religious organisations do not have priority in cases when a former worship building is currently used for culture or sport. Yakov Dorn, Chairman of the Judaic Religious Association in Belarus, told Forum 18 that "most former synagogues come into that category - so the authorities usually refuse our requests and refer to that provision."

28 January 2004

UZBEKISTAN: Police arrest, insult & threaten to rape female Jehovah's Witnesses

Two female Jehovah's Witnesses, Gulya Boikova and Parakhat Narmanova, have been arrested, insulted and threatened with rape by police in Karshi (Qarshi), Forum 18 News Service has learnt. On 22 January a pending court case against the women was adjourned by Judge Abdukadyr Boibilov, while police gather more evidence. This is one example of the continuing persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Uzbekistan, who are the religious minority most frequently victimised by the authorities. Witnesses have been subjected to vicious beatings by police, and a Jehovah's Witness is the only member of a religious minorities to have been sentenced to jail for his religious beliefs. (There are about 6,500 prisoners of conscience from the majority religion, Islam.) The persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses is probably explained by their being the most active religious minority in trying to spread their beliefs, and the Uzbek religion law banning "actions aimed at proselytism".

27 January 2004

BELARUS: Krishna devotees under pressure

Authorities in Belarus have been briefly detaining Krishna devotees two or three times a week for distributing religious literature, as well as obstructing literature distribution in other ways, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Separately, the Society for Krishna Consciousness in Belarus has asked the UN Human Rights Committee to investigate the legality of the states' refusal to register the organisation under the previous religion law. Vasili Marchenko, the official in charge of religious affairs in Brest region, told Forum 18 that a local Hare Krishna community had not been denied re-registration under the new religion law, and that he had not received any such application. This is disputed by a devotee, who told Forum 18 that the community's re-registration documents had been returned without explanation. In October 1997, the Belarusian State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs' Expert Council described the Minsk Society for Krishna Consciousness as a "destructive totalitarian sect infringing personality, health, citizens' rights and national security."

23 January 2004

GEORGIA: Religious minorities' hopes and doubts ahead of presidential inauguration

In the run-up to the inauguration of new president Mikhail Saakashvili on 25 January, religious minority leaders have told Forum 18 News Service they are waiting to see if the new government will bring religious freedom and a decisive end to the violence against religious minorities that has plagued the country since 1999, and change the law to allow non-Orthodox religious communities to gain legal status. Forum 18 has learnt that senior government leaders have declared privately that Old Calendarist priest Basil Mkalavishvili, responsible for much of the violence against Protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses, will not be arrested before the rescheduled parliamentary elections on 28 March, despite an outstanding warrant.