UZBEKISTAN: Police and Imam "forced family to bury deceased in cemetery where officers took them"

Fearing problems, a Jehovah's Witness family sought approval from the Religious Affairs Department to bury a deceased family member in a local cemetery in July. Yet police and the local Imam blocked the burial. Asked why he told them not to bury the deceased in the cemetery, Captain Ruslan Allanazarov told Forum 18 News Service: "Because it is Muslim." Police chose a cemetery for the burial 20 kms (12 miles) away and accompanied community members with cars. Officers and the Imam stood outside the family home to prevent people visiting to offer condolences. At a meeting of non-Muslim religious leaders in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent, officials proposed or ordered that ethnic Uzbek adherents of non-Muslim faiths should write a will before they die setting out their burial wishes (not required of people of non-Uzbek ethnicities, Muslims or atheists). A state religious affairs official complained about publicity over burial difficulties. "Relatives made so much noise about the cases that the state leaders, who strive for peace in the country, were disturbed," he told the meeting. One Protestant complained to Forum 18 of "pressure on Churches when they complain about burial problems publicly". After one complaint, the authorities "immediately demanded the central organ of the religious community that they make the local believers shut up".

26 November 2015

UZBEKISTAN: Police raid, torture, steal and plant drugs

Police in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent raided a Protestant worship meeting on 8 November, detaining and torturing members of the group and their nursing children, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Police also stole money and confiscated a large amount of Christian literature, as well as personal property including computers and other electronic devices. Jehovah's Witnesses in the central Samarkand Region have also been raided and fined, some also being put on 2 years' probation on fabricated drugs charges, for meeting together for worship. Police also confiscated religious literature and the private property, including computers and mobile phones, of some present. Female Witnesses were threatened with rape and tortured. Contrary to Uzbekistan's international human rights obligations, the police torturers were apparently neither arrested nor prosecuted for their actions. Instead, the police's victims were convicted of exercising freedom of religion or belief and fined. The human rights Ombudsperson's Office has said it cannot investigate these human rights violations.

24 November 2015

KAZAKHSTAN: Sixth Muslim in KNB secret police pre-trial imprisonment

Murat Takaumov became the sixth Muslim to be arrested by the secret police in Kazakhstan's capital Astana and held at the city's KNB secret police Investigation Prison. On 20 November a Judge ordered his pre-trial imprisonment for two months while he is investigated on charges of participating in the activity of a banned religious organisation, the Judge's assistant told Forum 18 News Service. The same Judge ordered the five others – arrested in September – to be held at the same Investigation Prison for a further month. They face up to six years' imprisonment if convicted of organising the activity of a banned religious organisation. During the September arrest of one, the man's wife went into premature labour "out of fear", Vitaly Ponomarev of Memorial human rights organisation told Forum 18. No officer of Astana KNB was prepared to discuss with Forum 18 why it had brought criminal charges against the Muslims and against a recently convicted Seventh-day Adventist. All six Muslims are allegedly connected to the banned Muslim missionary movement Tabligh Jamaat. Fifteen other alleged members have already been convicted since late 2014, with the harshest sentence a prison term of nearly five years.

18 November 2015

UZBEKISTAN: New fines, Bible destructions follow UN concern over religious censorship

In late September a Judge in Karshi fined ten members of a Baptist church up to 50 times the minimum monthly wage each for meeting for worship without state permission. In a regular practice for Uzbekistan, the Judge ordered that confiscated personal Bibles and song books be destroyed. Officers asked the community in August why it was still meeting after being warned in an April raid that it was "illegal". Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service of more than 75 fines of up to 20 times the minimum monthly wage between January and September 2015 after raids and literature seizures. Seven were twice stopped after making a 1,000-kilometre (620 mile) round trip from Karshi to the one registered Jehovah's Witness community in Chirchik. The United Nations Human Rights Committee expressed concern in July over religious censorship, as well as torture, prison sentences, detentions and fines to punish individuals for exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief. It called on Uzbekistan to change its laws and practices.

9 November 2015

KAZAKHSTAN: Seven years' restricted freedom for discussing faith

In a case brought by the KNB secret police, Seventh-day Adventist Yklas Kabduakasov was today (9 November) sentenced to seven years' restricted freedom by a court in Kazakhstan's capital Astana. He was found guilty of spreading "religious discord" by discussing his faith with a group of students who invited him to a flat rented by one of them. "My father's religious liberties and basic human rights were violated by the fact that he was kept under arrest without any grounds since 14 August and has now been sentenced," one of his sons Alibek Kabduakasov complained to Forum 18 News Service. The Prosecutor, the Judge and the KNB secret police all refused to discuss the case with Forum 18. Meanwhile, the auction to rent out the Din-Muhammad Mosque of Petropavl's Tatar-Bashkir community was abandoned as fewer than two bidders came forward. Community members welcomed the abandonment of officials' attempts to auction their Mosque to a third party against their wishes.

3 November 2015

KYRGYZSTAN: Will government defend judges, lawyers and residents from police?

A Jehovah's Witness mother and daughter in Kyrgyzstan have been freed from house arrest, having been held since March 2013, in what a judge described as "a fabricated case", Forum 18 News Service has learned. But NSC secret police and ordinary police 10th Department officers repeatedly illegally tried to stop the two women's lawyers participating in the appeal hearing, and then invaded the judges' deliberation room when they realised that the women might be set free. Under international law some of the police should not have been at liberty, as they were involved in torturing other Jehovah's Witnesses. The two women's defence lawyers have publicly called for the ordinary police and NSC secret police officers who openly attacked lawyers' and judges' independence to be investigated on criminal charges, and if guilty punished according to the law. Officials have refused to tell Forum 18 if these and other official attempts to obstruct the rule of law will be subject to investigation and criminal charges.

2 November 2015

KAZAKHSTAN: Last days for embattled mosque?

Without informing the community that regained the half-ruined building and restored it as a mosque in 1999, and continues to worship there, North Kazakhstan Region authorities have offered for tender the Din-Muhammad Tatar-Bashkir Mosque in Petropavl, according to the rental tender seen by Forum 18 News Service. The only eligible bidder is Kazakhstan's state-backed Muslim Board, to which the community does not belong. "An elderly lady in the community came running to us to say her son had found the announcement on the internet," community chair Ibragim Akhmedjanov told Forum 18. "She was shocked, and so is the whole community." But Kaziza Mukhamediyeva of the Regional Finance Department, which is putting up the building for auction, rejects any complaints. "It's not the property of that community," she told Forum 18. "Their praying there is illegal." Meanwhile a year after the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled that Kazakhstan had violated the human rights of Viktor Leven, a Baptist, by punishing him for participating in a religious meeting, the authorities have rejected his attempts to have them abide by their obligations.

20 October 2015

KYRGYZSTAN: Police impunity for torturing people at religious meeting?

Kyrgyzstan is refusing despite medical evidence to investigate named police who tortured seven Jehovah's Witnesses during a raid on an Osh meeting for worship, Forum 18 News Service has learned. The victims have complained to the General Prosecutor's Office. Under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Kyrgyzstan is obliged to arrest anyone suspected on good grounds of having committed torture and try them under criminal law. A 2012 UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) visit found that "torture and ill-treatment is prevalent", due to among other factors "the impunity and general lack of accountability of officials". Asked by Forum 18 why Prosecutors will not prosecute torturers but prosecuted their victims meeting for worship, Deputy Osh Prosecutor Mirlan Kongaytiyev claimed: "We just want the law and justice to be fulfilled". Osh Prosecutors continue to try to convict two Jehovah's Witnesses of, among other things, conjuring live snakes from eggs. Nadezhda Sergienko and Oksana Koryakina have been under house arrest since March 2013, despite a judge condemning "a fabricated case".

13 October 2015

KAZAKHSTAN: KNB secret police-inspired criminal prosecutions

The trial of Seventh-day Adventist prisoner of conscience Yklas Kabduakasov continues in Kazakhstan's capital Astana tomorrow (14 October). He faces between five and 10 years' imprisonment if convicted of spreading "religious discord", charges fellow church members denied to Forum 18 News Service. The secret police had monitored him for a year before they arrested him in August 2015, appear to have rented the flat to which four students invited him for religious discussions, appear to have organised the secret filming of the meetings with at least two hidden cameras, and prepared the prosecution case. Secret police Investigator Nurlan Belesov, who prepared the case, refused to discuss it with Forum 18. The secret police similarly initiated many, and possibly all, of the criminal prosecutions of at least 15 alleged members of the Muslim missionary movement Tabligh Jamaat since December 2014. One, like Kabduakasov, remains in a secret police Investigation Prison. Five more are in pre-trial imprisonment.

7 October 2015

KAZAKHSTAN: Wave of prosecutions against "extremist" Muslims

In September alone in three different cities of Kazakhstan, at least four alleged members of the Tabligh Jamaat Muslim missionary movement were convicted and five more imprisoned as prisoners of conscience in pre-trial detention for two months, Forum 18 News Service has learned. In Temirtau, Orazbek Apakashev received a term of three years' imprisonment. A court in the capital Astana imprisoned five alleged members for two months' pre-trial detention at the KNB secret police's request. Forum 18 tried to reach the head of Astana KNB, Kurman Yelyubayev, or any of his deputies. "We're such an organisation that we can't answer your questions," Yelyubayev's assistant said to explain her refusal to transfer the call. Davlet Tlemisov, who led the prosecution in court in Shymkent of three alleged Tabligh Jamaat members, defended the sentences of one year's restricted freedom each. "These are dangerous people," he told Forum 18. He then admitted that they had not set off bombs, nor murdered anyone, nor incited anyone to commit crimes. "They hold meetings and discussions directed at violating the constitutional system," he claimed, but refused to explain.

25 September 2015

TAJIKISTAN: Communities' foreign contacts blocked, websites banned, Central Asia's only legal religious-based political party banned

Several of Tajikistan's non-Muslim registered religious communities have told Forum 18 News Service that since early 2015 state officials have consistently rejected their requests to be allowed to invite fellow-believers from abroad to participate in religious events. The Orthodox Church was refused permission to invite two scholars from Uzbekistan to a July conference. Other religious communities asked Forum 18 not to name them for fear of state reprisals or to identify their would-be foreign guests. Officials have refused to explain the reasons for the ban, which appears to be part of a government desire to reduce religious communities’ foreign contacts. The state has also blocked access to some websites, including one run by prominent Tajik Muslim scholars. Also, 10 Jehovah's Witnesses, including two women framed by a police agent provocateur, have been fined for "teaching religion unlawfully". And Central Asia's only legal religious-based political party, the Islamic Renaissance Party, has been banned and its senior party figures arrested.

18 September 2015

UZBEKISTAN: Over 160 year wait to go on haj pilgrimage?

Uzbekistan continues severely restricting the Muslims who can on the haj pilgrimage to Mecca, Forum 18 News Service notes. The state imposes severe restrictions on the numbers of pilgrims and refuses to explain why it does this. People can only get onto the extremely long pilgrimage waiting lists after extensive scrutiny by state agencies including the NSS secret police. Shaira Sadygbekova of Ezgulik human rights organisation has calculated that she will need to live to be 205 years old to reach the top of the waiting list. The head of her mahalla (city district) – one of the agencies which decides who gets onto waiting lists – told Forum 18 that she "will be able to go in 20 or 30 years". Even if people reach the top of the waiting list they may be arbitrarily denied an exit visa to go on pilgrimage. State-run banks often refuse to distribute enough hard currency to pilgrims, according to human rights defenders including Surat Ikramov. A wide variety of state officials have refused to discuss the problems with Forum 18.