23 May 2013
TURKMENISTAN: Raids, deportation, visa denial, Government denies UPR complaints
Turkmenistan continues to try to isolate religious communities from their fellow-believers elsewhere, Forum 18 News Service notes. In early 2013, after a police raid on a meeting of a religious community, a Central Asian foreigner present was deported. Their holy book was also confiscated. Also, after a local religious community had gained the required permission of the state Gengesh for Religious Affairs, the Foreign Ministry refused to grant a visa to the foreign national the local community wanted to invite. The religious communities concerned wish to remain unnamed, for fear of state reprisals. Government officials have rejected all criticism of the country's violations of freedom of religion or belief during the United Nations (UN) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Turkmenistan. Officials would not explain to Forum 18 why the government is still only "currently analysing" September 2008 recommendations by Asma Jahangir, the then UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. [read more...]
22 May 2013
RUSSIA: Why were hundreds of religious organisations checked?
Hundreds of religious communities across Russia are among non-governmental organisations (NGOs) inspected by officials, Forum 18 News Service has found. Check-ups ranged from a simple telephone request for documents to multiple, extensive searches. It "wasn't simply the initiative of the Prosecutor", Moscow-based lawyer Konstantin Andreyev told Forum 18. "There's a political subtext." Yet the new regulations on foreign funding for NGOs – including designation of some as "foreign agents" – do not legally apply to religious organisations. In several cases, religious organisations appear to have been inspected due to "foreign" links, such as Catholic charity Caritas and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The General Prosecutor's Office order for the sweep is not public, but Samara Regional Public Prosecutor's Office ordered that inspections should check compliance with laws on "surveillance and criminal procedure" and the Extremism Law by "social and religious associations and other non-commercial organisations". [read more...]
21 May 2013
UZBEKISTAN: Criminal conviction, fines for meeting at home and carrying Bible
Sharofat Allamova, a Protestant from Urgench in north-western Uzbekistan, has been given one and half years of corrective labour, after being convicted under criminal charges brought for the "illegal production, storage, import or distribution of religious literature". The judge in the case, Makhmud Makhmudov, refused to talk to Forum 18 News Service. Allamova will be placed in a low-paid state job, her salary being further reduced by having to pay 20 per cent of it to the state during her sentence. She will only be permitted to travel within Uzbekistan with written state permission, and is banned from leaving the country. It has been stated that the NSS secret police compelled witnesses to make false statements against Allamova. Separately, fines have been imposed on people in the capital Tashkent for meeting in a private home and having Christian literature, and for carrying a personal Bible and New Testament. Baptists have noted that the latter conviction is illegal in Uzbek law. [read more...]
20 May 2013
KAZAKHSTAN: Pentecostal jailed for 2 months pre-trial, Baptist gets 3-days jail, atheist still in psychiatric hospital
A Protestant pastor in Kazakhstan's capital Astana, Bakhytzhan Kashkumbayev, was arrested on criminal charges of harming health on 17 May, Forum 18 News Service has learned. On 19 May he was ordered to be held for two months' pre-trial detention on unclear charges, apparently including praying and singing. And Baptist leader Aleksei Asetov was jailed for three days in early May, for refusing to pay a fine equivalent to a year and a half's average local wages. The fine was imposed for meeting for worship without state permission. He told Forum 18 he will not pay the fine, as he should not be punished for meeting for worship with his friends. Imprisoned atheist writer Aleksandr Kharlamov remains under investigation in a psychiatric hospital in the commercial capital Almaty. Yevgeni Zhovtis of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law stated that "the case is even more urgent as the man is not only in pre-trial detention, but now undergoing forcible psychiatric examination". [read more...]
17 May 2013
TURKMENISTAN: Lebap Region raids, confiscations, fines and public vilification
Two members of a Protestant community in a village in the eastern Lebap Region were fined more than two months' average local wages after police were informed that a church member was reading Christian literature at work, Protestants complained to Forum 18 News Service. State religious affairs officials (including state-appointed imams) and police raided several local Christians' homes, confiscating Bibles and other literature. "They said the Bible was printed in Kiev in Ukraine, and therefore reading it was banned," Protestants told Forum 18. The Judge told one of the fined church members: "If you want to know about God, read the Koran." In another village of Lebap Region, local elders wrote to Turkmenistan's President complaining that a Protestant leader is "very dangerous to society". Local Protestants have faced public vilification at residents' meetings. State religious affairs officials refused to comment. [read more...]
16 May 2013
AZERBAIJAN: Harsh fines cancelled, banned books list publication soon?
Two Baptists in Azerbaijan's north-eastern Zakatala District - Pastor Zaur Balaev and Hinayat Shabanova – have had harsh fines overturned on appeal, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Both had been punished for participating in unregistered religious meetings in their home village of Aliabad. The State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations has announced that it will make a list of banned books public, but without giving a date for this. And more changes to the Religion Law restricting where religious literature and other materials can be sold, and requiring such items to be marked with special stickers before they can be sold, have been approved by President Ilham Aliev. Religious literature is often confiscated in raids on religious meetings and at the border, in mid-March Customs officers confiscating works by Muslim theologian Said Nursi at Gyanja Airport. Also, concern has been expressed about a school textbook that denigrates some faiths. [read more...]
15 May 2013
CHINA: Tight state controls on religious education
China does not allow religious communities to run schools for children, even though regulations do not forbid the provision of religious education to minors. Nor is religious education provided in state schools. For students beyond school age, only state-approved religious groups affiliated with China's five state-backed monopoly faiths are allowed to apply to set up institutions for the study of their faith or training of clergy, Forum 18 News Service notes. Restrictions are especially tight in Tibet and Xinjiang. The state limits the number of such institutions and their size. Establishing new colleges is cumbersome and long drawn out, even when successful. Their curricula must include "politics" and "patriotic" education, as defined by the state. The state also discourages religious activity on general university campuses. These restrictions reflect the authoritarian state's desire to control religious groups, including by intervening in the training of their leaders and the level of education of their members. [read more...]
14 May 2013
AZERBAIJAN: Imam and driver in pre-trial detention, conscientious objector imprisoned
Imprisoned Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Kamran Mirzayev is due to hear tomorrow (15 May) if his appeal has overturned his nine-month prison sentence, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. He is one of two known conscientious objectors imprisoned for refusing Azerbaijan's compulsory military service. Azerbaijan committed itself to adopting an alternative civilian service by January 2003, but failed to do so. Meanwhile, Imam Taleh Bagirov – who led prayers and preached at a Shia mosque near Baku in defiance of the authorities' pressure – is in his second month of pre-trial detention, together with his driver. Community members insist the accusations against them are fabricated. The investigator leading the criminal case, Vusal Salehov from the Police Department for the Fight Against Organised Crime, refused to discuss the case with Forum 18. [read more...]