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
6 September 2011
KAZAKHSTAN: New proposed legal restrictions on religion reach Parliament
The proposed new Religion Law which reached Parliament yesterday (5 September), if adopted in its current form, would impose a complex four-tier registration system, ban unregistered religious activity, impose compulsory religious censorship and require all new places of worship to have specific authorisation from the capital and the local administration. A second proposed Law imposing changes in the area of religion in nine other Laws would also amend the controversial Administrative Code Article 375, widening the range of "violations of the Religion Law" it punishes. The texts – seen by Forum 18 News Service – have been approved by Kazakhstan's Prime Minister Karim Masimov, but have not yet been published.
2 September 2011
KAZAKHSTAN: New Religion Law to "bring order to our house"
Human rights defenders and members of religious communities the government does not like have already expressed concern to Forum 18 News Service over the proposed amendments to make the Religion Law harsher. President Nursultan Nazarbaev told Parliament on 1 September that the amendments are to be adopted "in the current session", which concludes in June 2012. He complained of unregistered communities which the state does not control, insisting: "We must bring order to our house." The head of the government's Agency of Religious Affairs, Kairat Lama Sharif, told the media the amendments his Agency has prepared (which have not been made public) will soon go to Parliament. Once adopted, the Law will require re-registration. "We are not expecting anything good from these new developments," one Protestant told Forum 18. Ninel Fokina of the Almaty Helsinki Committee told Forum 18 she fears the new amendments will be "essentially the same text" as the restrictive previous amendments declared unconstitutional by Kazakhstan's Constitutional Council in 2009. The OSCE told Forum 18 the Kazakh government has not asked for its assistance.
1 September 2011
KAZAKHSTAN: Expelled for preaching in own church
After legal residence in Kazakhstan for 15 years, marriage to a Kazakh citizen and a two-year-old daughter, Russian citizen Leonid Pan was in mid-August denied his application to renew his residence permit because he volunteers to preach in his local Protestant church, according to documentation seen by Forum 18 News Service. The local Internal Policy Department had already refused permission for him to become leader of the church. "How can the Migration Police, without having a Court order, demand that Leonid leave the country?" church members complained to Forum 18. The KNB secret police denied to Forum 18 it was involved in the expulsion. Meanwhile, another Baptist was in August fined nearly five months' official minimum wage for holding an unregistered worship service. State restrictions on religious communities are likely to increase with the new Religion Law amendments, due to be considered in the new session of Parliament which opened today (1 September).
28 July 2011
KAZAKHSTAN: "One nation – one religion"?
Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbaev has called for increased surveillance of religious communities. Earlier, the head of the new state Agency of Religious Affairs (ARA) stated that the country had chosen "one nation – one religion" and that the ARA will "prepare a concept on the 'Development of moderate Islam in Kazakhstan'". This may echo Muslim Board calls to "restrict permitted Islam to the Hanafi school". Local people have told Forum 18 that the ARA is also expected to work on legislation further restricting freedom of religion or belief in the country. Yesterday (27 July), a ban on Shymkent's Ahmadi Muslim Community's right to use its mosque was upheld, but the community can continue to use the building until an appeal is decided. "The authorities are not just going against us", an Ahmadi commented. Changes have also been made to the Criminal and Administrative Codes, whose overall impact is – a legal expert stated - to "give more freedom to state agencies to interfere with freedom of religion or belief and go unpunished". "Who will now protect us from 'law-enforcement' agencies breaking the law?" a Kazakh religious believer, who wished to remain unnamed, asked Forum 18.
5 July 2011
KAZAKHSTAN: "Absurd" criminal charge for praying for the sick
Pastor Yerzhan Ushanov of the New Life Protestant Church in Taraz could face up to two years' imprisonment if criminal charges of harming an individual's health, brought by the KNB secret police, reach court. The KNB claim a visitor to the church suffered after Pastor Ushanov prayed for him using hypnosis, the second time the secret police have brought such charges against a Protestant pastor in Jambyl Region. "This is not the first time the authorities in southern regions of Kazakhstan bring such absurd accusations against pastors for allegedly using hypnosis, while in reality all they do is pray for the sick," New Life Church members complained to Forum 18 News Service. The police Department for the Fight against Extremism, Separatism and Terrorism then raided the Church's Sunday worship after an alleged complaint of food poisoning and the KNB searched Pastor Ushanov's home. The KNB secret police, as well as the ordinary police Department for the Fight against Extremism, Separatism and Terrorism, both refused to comment on the case to Forum 18.
7 June 2011
KAZAKHSTAN: Ahmadi Muslim mosque closed, Protestants fined 100 times minimum monthly wage
Kazakhstan has fined an Ahmadi Muslim community – also denying it the use of its mosque and land – as well as imposed fines of 100 times the minimum monthly wage on two Protestants for religious activity without state permission, Forum 18 News Service has found. One official claimed to Forum 18 in relation to the Ahmadis that "using a dwelling house for religious purposes violates the Land Code", but was unable to say where this was stated. Officials were similarly evasive in relation to the Protestants, when asked which of Kazakhstan's laws banned religious believers from praying and reading scriptures together with their fellow believers in their private homes. One of the two Protestants was only informed of an appeal hearing six days after it took place. Kazakhstan's mass media also continues to be used for "anti-sect" propaganda, one of the aims of which appears to be to encourage support for legislation imposing more restrictions on people exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief.
6 May 2011
KAZAKHSTAN: "Great political efforts are made"
Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbaev and the Mayor of the commercial capital Almaty have recently called for greater controls on unspecified religious communities, which they describe as "sects". The calls come as smaller religious communities are experiencing greater pressure including police and KNB secret police raids, Forum 18 News Service has found. Prominent in these measures are state-funded so-called anti-sect centres, which members of many religious communities state are encouraging public hostility through statements in the state-controlled national and local mass media. Communities targeted have included Hare Krishna devotees, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Protestants, described as "destructive religious movements". Also Ahmadi Muslims in the southern city of Shymkent are facing threats by the authorities to close their community down. It has been suggested to Forum 18 that the "anti-sect" campaign is intended to prepare the ground for restrictive laws against freedom of religion or belief.
31 March 2011
KAZAKHSTAN: Punishments for worship meetings re-start
Kazakhstan has started to punish worship in private homes and worship without state permission again, Forum 18 News Service has found. Baptist Pastor Pyotr Panafidin was fined 100 times the minimum monthly wage for leading unregistered religious worship in Taraz on 4 March, the seventh time he has been fined for this "offence", local Baptists told Forum 18. He is the first Council of Churches Baptist in Kazakhstan known to have been fined since June 2010. An officer of Jambyl Regional Directorate for the Struggle with Organised Crime – which took part in raids on the congregation - insisted to Forum 18: "It's a violation if they don't register – all religious communities must be registered." In Shymkent a judge has banned the local New Life Pentecostal Church from holding worship in the house where the congregation is registered. And a local administration in Almaty has – with KNB secret police and Interior Ministry intervention – banned a university from renting its facilities to religious communities.
4 November 2010
KAZAKHSTAN: Ethnic-based mosques "cannot be opened"
Sunni and Shia Muslims from Kazakhstan's ethnic minorities have told Forum 18 News Service of great difficulties they face from the state and the state-backed Muslim Board in opening mosques for people of the same minority ethnicity. When they have been able to register Islamic houses of prayer, they are subject to state or Muslim Board limitations on religious activity – such as being banned from conducting Friday prayers. Muslims are often extremely reluctant to discuss why ethnic minorities cannot conduct religious activity together, including hearing sermons in their own language. Those who do discuss the issue indicate very strongly that they are fearful of state reactions, and often ask for anonymity. Officials also mainly refuse to discuss the issue, insisting that such mosques "cannot be opened". An independent Muslim expert on Islam within Kazakhstan, who wished to remain unnamed, told Forum 18 that the State wants to "keep the Muslim Board's monopoly over the mosques". Appointing Kazakh imams and making Kazakh the priority language in mosques may be part of a wider state attempt to make the Kazakh ethnicity dominant, the expert suggested.
14 October 2010
KAZAKHSTAN: "Mosques cannot be independent"
Kazakhstan is pressuring independent Muslim communities to join the state-controlled Muslim Board, Forum 18 News Service has found. Asylkhan Nurmagambetov of the state Religious Affairs Committee stated that "mosques cannot be independent. Just like any other religious organisation, because it belongs to a certain confession, it must be subordinated to a religious centre. Mosques also must do this". An official of the Muslim Board claimed that independent mosques "will breed terrorists". However officials were unable to explain what law demanded that mosques join the Board, or what proof there is for their assertions. In one example of pressure, five mosques in Karaganda Region have been for over two years under pressure from – among other state agencies – law- enforcement agencies, the regional Tax Authority, Emergency Service, Sanitary-Epidemiological Service, Architecture Department, Prosecutor's Office, and Land Committee to join the Muslim Board. Among conditions imposed on mosques which join the Board is that they must hand over one third of their income, one imam from a mosque under the Board observing that "mosques which want to remain independent in rural areas across Kazakhstan will not be able to do this". The imams of the five mosques insist that they do not want to join the Muslim Board, despite the state pressure.
1 October 2010
KAZAKHSTAN: Government "trying to force all foreign religious believers out of the country"?
New visa regulations that came into force in March have caused growing problems for some religious communities to invite foreign citizens for religious work, Forum 18 News Service has found. The new "missionary visa" is valid for a maximum 180 days and is not renewable. "No one wants to spend so much money to move, only to be able to stay in the country for a maximum of six months," Rabbi Elkhonon Cohen of Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Centre of Kazakhstan told Forum 18. "It will be difficult for us to open new synagogues, since it will be very difficult to invite rabbis to lead them." He insists that he and his colleagues are not "missionaries" and are in Kazakhstan "first of all to serve the Jews". After one Catholic priest failed to get a visa for two months, the nuncio spent a week going to the Foreign Ministry before a business visa was granted. Two Ahmadi Muslim imams have been forced to leave after visas were denied. Kazakhstan is "trying to force all foreign religious believers out of the country," one Ahmadi commented to Forum 18. The government's Religious Affairs Committee told Forum 18: "There are no problems with giving missionary visas, you do not need to invent these cases."
30 September 2010
KAZAKHSTAN: Ruling party's "ideological preparation" for harsh new Religion Law?
Human rights defender Ninel Fokina told Forum 18 News Service she believes an internal document from the ruling Nur Otan party attacking "non-traditional" faiths and calling for laws on religion to be harshened is "ideological preparation" for senior officials in the run-up to a new attempt to change the Religion Law. The section of the July document on religion – seen by Forum 18 – attacks groups including the Tabligh Jamaat Islamic movement, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Protestant New Life Church and Grace Protestant Church. It adds that such groups are financed by "the special services of Western countries". The report claims that tens of thousands of people in Kazakhstan are members of such groups "and need help". However, an official of Nur Otan's Institute of Parliamentarianism – which produced the report - insisted to Forum 18 that it was halted before being issued and the section on religion represented only the views of one party researcher who has since been sacked. Forum 18 has been unable to verify his claims.