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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: Secret Supreme Court hearing bans Jehovah's Witnesses

A 2021 secret Supreme Court ban on Jehovah's Witnesses as allegedly "extremist" was not revealed until over a year later. "The participation of the organisation was not necessary," a Supreme Court official told Forum 18. Despite a 2022 UN Human Rights Committee View that the reasons to ban Jehovah's Witnesses were not lawful, appeals were rejected by a military court and on 31 August 2023 by the Supreme Court. A Court official refused to explain why the Court refused to heed the UN Human Rights Committee finding.

KAZAKHSTAN: Prisoners of conscience still in jail, others under multiple long-term punishments

3 Muslim prisoners of conscience remain jailed 2 years after the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for their release "immediately". 5 other Muslim men are in jail for exercising freedom of religion or belief. Also: 6 former prisoners of conscience are serving the rest of their sentences at home under restrictions; 5 other former prisoners of conscience have bans on unspecified or specified activities; 31 others who have completed jail terms or restricted freedom sentences still have bank account access blocked.

TURKMENISTAN: Raids, literature seizures, imam detained

Police in Turkmenbashi and other locations nearby raided homes of devout Muslims in mid-August. They seized religious literature, including books on sharia law and the hadith. They also seized Russian translations of the Koran, leaving only Turkmen-language Koran translations. The Ministry of State Security secret police detained an elderly imam for giving Islamic lessons to children. On 29 August, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on the regime to end its ban on "practicing religion in cases where an organization is unregistered".

TURKMENISTAN: Pensioner's pilgrimage departure blocked for five months

On 23 August, Yakutjan Babajanova finally left Turkmenistan for her umra pilgrimage to Mecca, five months after Ashgabat Airport officials refused to allow the 73-year-old to board her flight, despite having all documentation. Officials gave no reason. "We managed to break through the blank wall that the authorities erected by forbidding my mother this spring to fulfil her lifelong dream," her daughter said. Migration Service officials refused to discuss her case. More pilgrims were allowed to join the 2023 haj, but far more were denied.

KYRGYZSTAN: Fear of state reprisals for registration applications grows

Many smaller churches have not sought state registration, Protestants say, as they are "afraid of state reprisals for themselves as communities as well as their members." These fears are echoed by Hare Krishna devotees whose Bishkek community has been trying for years to register. Jehovah’s Witness communities have also repeatedly been denied state registration, against two UN Human Rights Committee decisions. State officials have claimed – wrongly – that Human Rights Committee views "are for consideration but not for implementation." Such denials have "a chilling effect," Jehovah’s Witnesses note.

KYRGYZSTAN: Raids and fines on Catholics, Protestants, Hare Krishna devotees

A Catholic church has been raided and two nuns fined for reading the Bible at Mass, following which the Catholic Church was threatened with being banned. Two foreigners at a registered Protestant church were also fined. A Hare Krishna wedding rehearsal was also raided, the host fined, and Indian students present had their visas revoked. The Interior Ministry, police "Departments for the Struggle against Extremism and Illegal Migration," the SCRA, and the NSC secret police refuse to explain why they violate legally-binding international human rights obligations.

KAZAKHSTAN: Fined, as "he had no basis for conducting a religious event"

Zakirzhan Rozmetov was fined for leading evening prayers during Ramadan in a Shymkent mosque stripped of registration in 2021. "Rozmetov broke the law – he had no basis for conducting a religious event," said Alzhan Tuyakbayev, head of Shymkent's Religious Affairs Department. Courts fined other individuals up to one month's average wage in the first half of 2023 for prayer rooms in a cafe, roadside restaurant and shopping centre. Astana Police "anti-extremism" officers inspected "illegal" prayer rooms in a technohub, IT centre and concert organisation, leading to fines.

KAZAKHSTAN: Parish ousted from church after 31 years

The Holy Apostles Peter and Paul Orthodox parish in Oktyabrskoye held its last Sunday service on 28 May in the church where it has worshipped since December 1991. On 2 June, court executors and police ousted the parish, handing the building to the Russian Orthodox diocese. "This was done on a legal basis," officials told Forum 18. The parish moved from the Moscow Patriarchate to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1997. Official documents appear to attest that the parish owned the church, not the Moscow Patriarchate Diocese.

TAJIKISTAN: Jail sentences, fines for studying Islam

Imam Mukhammadi Mukharramov, who is now 50, was jailed for eight years for privately teaching Islam to a group of 12 Muslim men throughout 2022. The 12 men – whose names are unknown and whose ages ranged between about 30 and 40 - were jailed for between 6 and 9 years. Elsewhere, a man was fined 9 months' average wages for privately teaching Islam to his brother's wife, and a Muslim woman was fined 1 month's average wages for teaching the Koran to a neighbour's 8-year-old daughter.

TAJIKISTAN: Decree bans funerals for alleged "terrorists", denies relatives bodies

President Emomali Rahmon has signed a Decree denying the families of those killed in alleged "anti-terrorism operations" the possibility of, among other things, burying their dead with the religious or other rites they would have chosen or even knowing where they are buried. A human rights defender said this is to "publicly threaten that people who protest against the government will die and will not be buried as Muslims". Another human rights defender, journalist Anora Sarkorova, noted that "the authorities are enforcing the Decree violently".

UZBEKISTAN: Devout Muslim jailed after return to country

Prisoner of conscience and devout Muslim, 52-year-old Alijon Mirganiyev has been transferred to a strict regime prison to serve a 6 and a half year sentence imposed after he returned to Uzbekistan from Turkey. He was promised he would not be arrested if he returned to end criminal charges brought against him for his exercise of freedom of religion and belief, but was arrested on arrival at Tashkent Airport. "This is one of the numerous fabricated cases made against influential Muslims," says human rights defender Yelena Urlayeva.

UZBEKISTAN: 15-day jail for haram yoghurt videos

Hojiakbar Nosirov, a 25-year-old consumer rights activist from Tashkent, posted a video on social media on 5 April declaring that the red colouring agent carmine he had found in locally-sold yoghurt is haram (forbidden) for Muslims. Police investigated and commissioned an "expert analysis" from the regime's Religious Affairs Committee that claimed Nosirov had expressed "enmity, intolerance or discord". A 3-minute closed online trial jailed him for 15 days. "The experts quickly conducted a literary examination, wrote down the conclusion and decided the fate of an individual", his lawyer complained.