The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
TAJIKISTAN: Jehovah's Witnesses to challenge fines in Supreme Court
Tajikistan's Jehovah's Witness community intends to appeal to the Supreme Court against fines imposed on two of its members on 24 April by a court in Tursun-Zade, a Jehovah's Witness who asked not to be identified told Forum 18 News Service. The two Jehovah's Witnesses, Grigori Putenkov and Sukhrob Maksudov, were fined for leading a religious meeting in a private flat raided by the police. The judge who handed down the fine, Davlatbek Zabirov, defended his decision, telling Forum 18 that Tajikistan's law on religion does not allow anyone to give religious instruction without a licence and that the administrative code sets out punishment for those who violate this provision. "Thus, when I pronounced the sentence, I was working strictly within the law."
On 20 April several police officers raided the flat where around 40 local Jehovah's Witnesses were holding a religious meeting. The police officers told all those present to write statements. Putenkov and Maksudov, were taken to the town's police station, where officers started to insult them and struck Putenkov several times. The police released the two men after about an hour, telling them that they would receive a court summons very shortly.
On 24 April judge Zabirov of Tursun-Zade court sentenced Putenkov and Maksudov each to a fine of five times the minimum monthly wage (some 57 Norwegian kroner, 8 Euros or 8 US dollars) on the basis of Article 211, part 2 of the administrative code, which punishes "violation of the law on giving religious instruction". Zabirov also declared that no more than two Jehovah's Witnesses have the right to meet together at any one time "as the community is not registered in Tursun-Zade".
Judge Zabirov strongly defended the punishment he had handed down. "The Jehovah's Witness community is not registered in Tursun-Zade. But that is not the issue," he told Forum 18 by telephone from the town on 24 April. "According to Tajikistan's law on religion, no-one is allowed to give religious instruction without a licence. The punishment for this is set down in article 211, part 2. Thus, when I pronounced the sentence, I was working strictly within the law."
Under Article 6 of the religion law, only registered religious organisations can organise education for adults and children, and all teachers require a licence from the "appropriate religious administration". The Jehovah's Witnesses are registered in Dushanbe.
Zabirov also said that he did not know anything about the police insulting the two Jehovah's Witnesses or beating Putenkov.
Speaking from Solnechnoe near the Russian city of St Petersburg, Canadian Jehovah's Witness lawyer John Burns told Forum 18 that he intends to lodge the Supreme Court appeal on behalf of Putenkov and Maksudov, arguing that the religion law does not make registration obligatory and the evidence to show that the two men were engaged in "religious instruction" is not compelling.
Latest Analyses
Latest News
22 April 2003
CENTRAL ASIA: Only limited censorship of religious websites
Despite authoritarian rule, high levels of censorship of the local media and periodic barring of access to foreign-based political opposition websites, Central Asia's governments have so far only enacted limited censorship over access to religious websites based outside the region, a Forum 18 News Service investigation has found. Uzbekistan permanently bars access to the London-based website of Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir, though not to its Pakistan-related site. In several Uzbek Internet cafes, Forum 18 even came across the notice: "Viewing of religious and pornographic sites is forbidden". But with low Internet use in Central Asia and a population too poor to be able to afford access, Central Asia's governments – which to a greater or lesser extent try to control all religious activity - may believe they do not need to impose religious censorship on the Internet.
27 March 2003
CENTRAL ASIA: Fergana Valley responds to Iraq war
A week-long investigation by Forum 18 News Service across the Fergana valley – the most devoutly Muslim region of Central Asia that straddles Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan – has revealed widespread popular hostility to the US war on Iraq, which one local called "a war of civilisations". Yet there was no evidence that this hostility to the war – which enjoys the tacit support of the Uzbek government – will lead to new instability in the Fergana valley. "While the situation will quickly become strained in the rest of the Muslim world, here everything will stay virtually unchanged," a local Muslim leader told Forum 18 in the Kyrgyz town of Osh. Even members of the banned Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir conceded that people are more concerned about surviving in the harsh economic climate than about their fellow-Muslims. "You must understand that our people are asleep," Uzbek Hizb ut-Tahrir members told Forum 18. "Even the co-operation between [Uzbek president]Islam Karimov and the US and the extermination of Iraqi Muslims have not awoken Uzbeks."