UZBEKISTAN: One imprisoned, one fined, six more to follow

Nail Kalinkin of the embattled Bethany Protestant Church in the capital Tashkent was sentenced to 15 days in prison on 10 June for "illegally" teaching his faith, while his daughter Marina was fined 68 US dollars, Protestant sources have told Forum 18 News Service. After the church's Sunday service was raided by police on 12 June six more – including the pastor Nikolai Shevchenko – face administrative charges of breaking the country's religion law by leading an unregistered religious community. The church – located in a city district where mosques are also banned - has repeatedly tried but failed to register. Its latest challenge through the courts was again postponed on 17 June. Leaders of another Protestant church in Tashkent have been interrogated and threatened since mid-May, with 18 armed riot police raiding the home of one church leader. In Angren near Tashkent, the leader of a registered Pentecostal church was fined 39 US dollars.

16 June 2005

KYRGYZSTAN: Official claims government control of Islam

The Kyrgyz government "controls" 300 students currently studying in Islamic colleges in Egypt and Iran through the muftiate (the official Islamic spiritual leadership), an official has told Forum 18 News Service. Samsabek Zakirov, head of the religious affairs committee for Osh region, also told Forum 18 that "in southern Kyrgyzstan practically all the mosques are registered and are therefore under government control." Zakirov is not satisfied at this level of control and also intends to ensure that travelling Muslim missionaries "only preach with permission from the muftiate," or official Islamic leadership. Kyrgyz law does not require this permission. Local people have told Forum 18 they fear that last month's uprising in Uzbekistan could destabilise the situation in southern Kyrgyzstan and believe the government may tighten its religious policy. But so far there have been "no noticeable significant changes," Sadykjan Kamaluddin, former mufti of Kyrgyzstan, told Forum 18.

16 June 2005

UZBEKISTAN: What is known about Akramia and the uprising?

Akramia was at the centre of May's uprising, but it is still unclear if it is a bona fide peaceful religious group, or if it is violent. Their origins date from the founder, Akram Yuldashev, writing an Islamic theological pamphlet in Uzbek, Yimonga Yul (Path to faith), which he states did not touch on political issues, but rather on general moral themes. Those close to group members have insisted on this point to Forum 18 News Service, as does the Russian-language translation. The only indirect evidence that Akramia was pressing for violence prior to the uprising is a so-called supplement to Yimonga Yul; it is unknown both who wrote the supplement and whose ideas it contains. The main source of Akamia support in the uprising's centre, Andijan, seems to have been their "Islamic socialist" employment practices. Much is unclear about both Akramia and the events leading to the Andijan massacre, but calls for a credible thorough independent investigation have been rejected by the Uzbek government.

15 June 2005

UZBEKISTAN: Worsening repression in uprising's aftermath

Devout peaceful Muslims across Uzbekistan, not just in the area where May's uprising took place, are being forced by the authorities to make written declarations that they will not participate in "illegal religious organisations" or join "extremist organisations," Forum 18 News Service has learnt. As all unregistered religious activity is illegal, "illegal religious organisations" range from bona fide peaceful religious communities to violent Islamist groups. Human rights activists, from the uprising's centre in the Fergana Valley, have told Forum 18 that they believe that harsh government repression will worsen the situation for all faiths. This view has been supported by Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses and Hare Krishna devotees. One Protestant pastor told Forum 18 that "the situation in the city remains very tense .. you hear people saying that Uzbeks need to seize state buildings, and that the police and army won't act against the demonstrators next time."

10 June 2005

TURKMENISTAN: "Same repressive measures" include bans on worship

Annamurad Meredov, the religious affairs official who led a ten-strong raiding party on a Baptist service in the town of Mary on 9 June has insisted to Forum 18 News Service that the service was "illegal", although the Church has registration at the national level. "The church's pastor asked them to explain the legal basis for the visit and to identify themselves, but this was ignored," local Baptists told Forum 18. "All those present were subjected to interrogation one by one and were recorded on video-camera." Meredov denied Baptist claims that he banned the church from meeting but refused to say what will happen the next time the Mary congregation meets for worship. "As before, the authorities continue to use the same methods against Christians, including recording personal details and places of work, demanding that they show their identity papers and banning them from meeting," Baptists complain.

8 June 2005

KAZAKHSTAN: Conference cancelled after pastor's visa denied

The New Generation Pentecostal church in Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty cancelled a conference due to have begun on 12 June after the church's Latvian-based chief pastor was denied a Kazakh visa. The Kazakh consulate in Latvia told Pastor Aleksei Ledyayev, who was born in Kazakhstan, that a visit to his homeland was "not desirable" but refused to give a reason. "We're asking the authorities for an explanation – and we'll lodge a fresh application for Pastor Aleksei to get a visa," Viktor Ovsyannikov, pastor of the Almaty church, told Forum 18 News Service. Ledyayev was added to the entry ban list by Russia in 2002 and is also barred from Belarus. Others barred from Russia on religious grounds remain barred in Kazakhstan, though Lutheran bishop Siegfried Springer, deported from Russia in April, told Forum 18 he has received a visa for Kazakhstan.

2 June 2005

UZBEKISTAN: Protestants in north-west "illegal"

The last legal Protestant church in north-west Uzbekistan has been closed by the Karakalpakstan region's Justice Ministry, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. As all unregistered religious activity in Uzbekistan is illegal, the church cannot now legally operate. Klara Alasheva, first deputy Justice Minister, denied that her ministry's closure of the church was persecution of the Protestant minority. "We warned the church last year not to conduct missionary activity but they carried on regardless," she told Forum 18. Alasheva also denied that Uzbekistan's ban on missionary activity violated its international human rights commitments. "That's what you're claiming, but we're legal specialists," she told Forum 18. The authorities in north-west Uzbekistan have long conducted an anti-Christian campaign, but Protestants in the region are known to still be active. Catholic sources have denied a claim by Alasheva that there is a registered Catholic parish in Nukus.

30 May 2005

UKRAINE: People barred entry on religious grounds now free to appeal

In a new move, the SBU security police has told Forum 18 News Service that people barred entry by other CIS countries – including Russia – on religious and other grounds can now appeal against any visa bar to Ukraine. Appeals can be made either to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry or the SBU, Forum 18 was told. The move follows the ending of an entry ban against Japanese Buddhist monk Junsei Teresawa. The SBU refused to tell Forum 18 why Teresawa had originally been denied entry, but insisted it was not for religious reasons and denied that there is a religious category for issuing entry bans. Not every religious figure banned from entry by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan has been barred from Ukraine and Latvian-based Pastor Aleksei Ledyayev - barred by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan – is now in Ukraine. One of the most prominent recent deportees from Russia was Catholic Bishop Jerzy Mazur, a Polish citizen, but the SBU told Forum 18 that "no-one with the surname Mazur is on the Ukrainian entry ban list".

30 May 2005

KAZAKHSTAN: Officials enforcing Religion Law before it is passed

The harsh new Religion Law has not yet been passed, but the authorities are already behaving as if it is law Forum 18 News Service has found. Religious communities do not yet need state registration – a requirement imposed by the new Law. But a Protestant church in the Caspian Sea port of Aytrau is the latest religious community to be attacked because it does not have registration. Diyaz Sultanov, the Prosecutor's assistant, told Forum 18 that "it is impermissible for a church to operate without registration." Another proposal put forward – but then apparently withdrawn - allowed religious communities to be closed without a court hearing. New Life Protestant Church, close to Almaty, has been "banned" by local administration chief Raspek Tolbayev, who told Forum 18 that "I will take the decision whether or not to open the church." Parliamentary deputies Forum 18 has spoken to described the new law as a weapon against the "ideological diversity" of the West.

27 May 2005

KAZAKHSTAN: Schoolchildren told prayer "causes death" and suicide bombers

Teachers north of the capital Astana are putting pressure on children not to attend Protestant prayer meetings, telling children that prayer "can even cause death," Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Children who attend prayer meetings are kept behind after school for "educational talks" in which they have been told that they are being turned into "shahids and zombies". (The Islamic term "shahid" is frequently used in former Soviet countries to describe suicide bombers.) Parents have been ordered by teachers not to take their children to prayer meetings. The head of the regional Education Department has confirmed to Forum 18 that she ordered "educational work" with children who attend prayer meetings, and also that the national Education Ministry orders officials "at every meeting" to stop children going to church. Religious believers in Kazakhstan link these ongoing actions of the Education Ministry with current parliamentary moves to seriously restrict the religious freedom of all faiths.

23 May 2005

UZBEKISTAN: Religious crackdown follows Andijan crackdown

"Purges are already underway – religious organisations have immediately fallen under suspicion," Protestants in the capital Tashkent who preferred not to be named have told Forum 18 News Service, following the Uzbek government's bloody suppression of a popular uprising in the Fergana Valley. "Local authority and secret police officials are visiting and inspecting churches, and checking up on documentation," Forum 18 was told. Such visits have taken place throughout Uzbekistan, not just in the Fergana Valley. Jehovah's Witnesses say numerous cases against members caught up in coordinated raids in March are now in the courts. "Almost weekly there are new cases of fines or interrogations – this is merely business as usual," Forum 18 was told. The official reason given for the uprising – "Islamic radicalism" - is widely disbelieved, but as long as Islam and other faiths remain highly restricted, fundamentalist Islam is seen as a valid alternative to the current political structure. Some fear the Uzbek crackdown will complicate the stuation in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.

18 May 2005

COMMENTARY: National security suffers if religious freedom attacked

Wide-ranging national security amendments now in parliament will negatively affect many groups – including the media, NGOs, business people and religious communities – but religious believers will suffer the most, argues Aleksandr Klyushev, chairman of the Association of Religious Organisations of Kazakhstan (AROK), in this personal commentary for Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org. If adopted, these amendments will cause unjustified suffering to law-abiding believers, who could be punished for peacefully practising their faith. He believes that this will cause national security to suffer, both by alienating citizens from the state and also by enabling incompetent law-enforcement personnel to claim successes in combating illegal but harmless religious organisations, instead of effectively policing real criminal and terrorist threats to Kazakh society. He calls on the international community to influence the Kazakh government not to adopt the amendments.