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
11 June 2009
BELARUS: Largest fine yet for unregistered religious activity
Belarus has imposed its largest fine yet for unregistered religious activity, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. A court in the eastern town of Osipovichi fined local Baptist Nikolai Poleshchuk the equivalent of almost three months' average salary in the town and another Baptist received a warning for running a Christian street library. However, Belarus' Supreme Court changed an earlier court order to destroy Bibles and New Testaments confiscated from Poleshchuk – they have been handed to the state instead. Asked by Forum 18 whether it is right to punish peaceful religious activity, Anna Zemlyanukhina, Head of Osipovichi District Ideology Department, replied: "I know my Constitution and human rights. It is all in accordance with the law." Separately, the co-ordinator of a rehabilitation programme for alcoholics and drug addicts, run by a Christian social organisation, has been fined for conducting unregistered religious activity. New Life Church in the capital Minsk also continues to face attempts by the authorities to stop it using its own building for worship and to evict the Church.
9 June 2009
KAZAKHSTAN: Five days jail for unregistered worship
Kazakhstan has given Baptist Pastor Vasily Kliver a five day jail term because he refused to pay fines for leading unregistered worship, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Judge Zhanar Zhubatova of the Administrative Court in Aktobe told Forum 18 that the sentence is "not persecution." Asked why Kliver is being punished for unregistered worship, Judge Zhubatova replied "it's not for that" before putting down the telephone. Prior to Pastor Kliver's jail term, three Council of Churches pastors have been sentenced since 2007 to three-day prison terms, Forum 18 notes. Separately, Protestant pastor Maksim Tashenov was today (9 June) fined for participating in religious activity in a different region of Kazakhstan from where his own church is registered. He was prosecuted after a raid involving the police, Prosecutor's Office officials and the KNB secret police. The court also banned his church for three months. Pastor Tashenov told Forum 18 that the authorities are using the case to try to close down his own Aktau congregation. No official was available to discuss the case with Forum 18.
9 June 2009
MOLDOVA: Controversial new penalties for religious activity
Moldova's new Administrative Code replaces an article condemned by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg with an almost identical article, Forum 18 News Service notes. Article 54 Part 3, which came into force on 31 May, less than three weeks after the article it replaces was condemned by the ECtHR, punishes unregistered religious activity "which contradicts the Law on Religious Denominations and its constituent parts." The only change from the condemned former Article 200 Part 3 is the replacement of the last phrase, which read "which contradicts the current legislation." The ECtHR condemned the Article, as a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, in a May judgement in the case of local Muslim Talgat Masaev who was punished for conducting unregistered religious worship. Christian, Muslim and Jehovah's Witness religious communities are also concerned at other parts of the Administrative Code, including a ban on "violating the exclusive rights of religious denominations to the publication, printing, preparation, sale or distribution by other means of cult objects."
8 June 2009
UZBEKISTAN: Enormous fines for religious activity continue
Uzbekistan continues to impose enormous fines on people exercising their freedom of religion or belief, Forum 18 News Service has learned. In total, 33 people are known to have each been fined up to 100 times the minimum monthly salary in April and May. Fines have been imposed by courts throughout the country, and in some cases appeals against fines have resulted in a reduction. An example was a reduction of fines against six Baptists from 50 times to five times the minimum monthly salary. However in most other cases reductions have not been as significant, for example fine reductions from 80 times to 60, 50 or 40 times the minimum monthly salary. Official hostility continues towards religious literature, in one case literature was ordered to be destroyed after an "expert analysis" from the state Religious Affairs Committee stated that religious books can "only" be used within the confines of the registered religious communities. "Believers are deprived of their right to hold any Christian literature in their homes," Baptists complained to Forum 18. No state officials were willing to discuss the cases.
4 June 2009
UZBEKISTAN: Appeals by prisoners of conscience rejected
Uzbekistan has rejected appeals by nine Muslim prisoners of conscience against their harsh jail terms, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Ikrom Merajov and eight other followers of the approach of theologian Said Nursi had their sentences confirmed on 2 June. Merajov was in April given nine years in jail, with terms of between five and a half years and six years imposed on the others. 25 Nursi-related prisoners of conscience have so far in 2009 been given almost 200 years in jail. Merajov's brother Ilhom told Forum 18 that "no proof of any guilt was presented in court" and that written verdicts have not been given to the nine prisoners of conscience and their lawyers. An appeal to the Supreme Court is being prepared. Meanwhile, a Jehovah's Witness prisoner of conscience, Irfon Khamidov, has been freed at the end of his sentence but almost immediately deported to Tajikistan. He was allowed to see his two-year-old son for the first time for one night only. Short-term imprisonments for up to 15 days and massive fines continue to be used to punish Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses. No state officials were willing to discuss the cases with Forum 18.
3 June 2009
AZERBAIJAN: Repressive new Religion Law and new punishments enter into force
Azerbaijan's repressive new Religion Law, and amendments to both the Criminal Code and the Administrative Code came into force on 31 May, Forum 18 News Service has learned. New "offences" - such as more severe censorship - and new punishments are introduced for religious activities and organisations the government does not like. All registered religious organisations must re-register by 1 January 2010, the third time re-registration has been demanded in less than twenty years. It is implied that unregistered organisations are illegal, and stated that "all religious organisations" can act only after gaining state registration. Parliamentary Deputy Fazil Gazanfaroglu Mustafaev told Forum 18 that "the new Religion Law will limit people's rights to freedom of conscience – that is clear." He thinks the Law should have been drafted in accordance with international human rights standards, and that this would have been more likely if expert advice from organisations like the OSCE and Council of Europe had been sought.
2 June 2009
TURKMENISTAN: Conscientious objectors jailed
Two brothers - Sakhetmurad and Mukhammedmurad Annamamedov – who object on grounds of conscience to Turkmenistan's compulsory military service have had two year suspended sentences changed to jail terms, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The two Jehovah's Witness prisoners of conscience are among five known conscientious objectors. It is unknown whether the remaining three will also now be jailed. Six months into their suspended sentences the Annamamedovs were called to their local military conscription office, allegedly to be given an amnesty. Three hours after arriving at the office they were jailed for the full two years, with their terms to expire in May 2011. Their father was denied access to the court, and the brothers and family were told that they would never be given a copy of the court judgement. Forum 18 has been unable to gain any comment from the authorities on these prisoners of conscience. Meanwhile, the authorities have not yet made further moves against Baptist leader and former prisoner of conscience Shageldy Atakov.
2 June 2009
RUSSIA: Widespread protests at new "Inquisition"
Widespread protests by Russian religious communities and human rights defenders followed the appointment of "anti-cultists" and controversial scholars of Islam to a state body with sweeping powers to investigate religious organisations, Forum 18 News Service notes. Particularly striking opposition to the Justice Ministry's Expert Council for Conducting State Religious-Studies Expert Analysis has come from the Old Believers, a group not directly threatened. They view the body's re-organisation as "a direct threat to the constitutional rights of the citizens of Russia to freedom of confession [which] could serve as a dangerous catalyst for inter-confessional strife, a prologue to the beginning of struggle against religious dissent, oppression of believers, the restoration of religious censorship and inquisition." The Old Believers have called for the complete abolition of the Council. The Justice Ministry has failed to respond to Forum 18's questions, including why the Council is needed. The state's position is not unanimously supportive of the Council, and if the authorities heed the widespread protests its activity may be significantly curtailed.
28 May 2009
KYRGYZSTAN: Crackdown follows new Religion Law
Since the entry into force of Kyrgyzstan's new Religion Law in January, officials of the Prosecutor's Office, Police, National Security Service secret police, local Executive Authorities and the State Agency for Religious Affairs have checked up on many religious communities, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Jehovah's Witnesses in Maili-Suu faced raids and summonses in April. "The Police told our members that in the light of the new Law they have no rights to distribute or to keep any religious literature at their homes," their lawyer Mikhail Kokhanovsky told Forum 18. Police told Forum 18 they had to confiscate the literature to check if it is "legally permitted". Officials have checked up on whether Protestant churches have been involved in sharing their faith and whether children are involved in religious activity. One foreign Protestant was forced to leave the country in early May. Bishkek's Hare Krishna community – which has been told a "secret instruction" bans it from registering – fears it will never be able to gain legal status.
27 May 2009
KYRGYZSTAN: Will restrictive provisions of new Religion Law be removed?
Officials have claimed to Forum 18 News Service that they have formed a Commission of government and religious representatives to resolve three controversial provisions of the restrictive new Religion Law signed by President Kurmanbek Bakiev in January 2009. Kanatbek Murzakhalilov of the State Agency for Religious Affairs identified the three provisions as restrictions on sharing faith and distributing religious literature, and the high threshold of members required before religious communities can register and thus function legally. However, he refused to give a timetable for any decisions or to say if these restrictive provisions will be removed. He said only afterwards would regulations enacting the Law be prepared. Kyrgyzstan's Lutherans, Seventh-day Adventists, Baptists, Pentecostals and other Protestants are expected to lodge a joint challenge to the new Law in Kyrgyzstan's Constitutional Court on 4 June. Aleksandr Shumilin, Chair of Kyrgyzstan's Baptist Union, told Forum 18 this is because the Law is "very anti-democratic".
27 May 2009
RUSSIA: Notorious "anti-cultists" on new "Inquisition"
Fears by religious minorities about the Justice Ministry's reconstituted Expert Council for Conducting State Religious-Studies Expert Analysis have been exacerbated by the Minister's choice of members, Forum 18 News Service notes. The chair is Aleksandr Dvorkin, Russia's most prominent "anti-cult" activist, who has described the faith of charismatic Protestants as "a crude magical-occult system with elements of psychological manipulation". In a Moscow courtroom in 2004, Forum 18 observed Dvorkin congratulate the Public Prosecutor's Office representative who successfully pushed for the ban on the Jehovah's Witnesses' Moscow organisation. Fellow Council member Aleksandr Kuzmin wrote a leaflet alleging that "Krishnaites are involved in the drugs and arms trade" and "are prepared to murder on religious grounds", and that "beatings and rapes of teenagers in closed children's homes are attributed to Krishnaites." A Siberian court declared the leaflet extremist in March 2009. Another Council member has urged Muslims to burn Islamic books banned as extremist. Forum 18 asked the Justice Ministry whether Council members will have the right to speak for the Ministry and whether Kuzmin will be excluded from the Council. The Ministry has not yet responded.
26 May 2009
RUSSIA: A new "Inquisition"
The powers of the Russian Justice Ministry's Expert Council for Conducting State Religious-Studies Expert Analysis were considerably widened in February 2009, allowing it to investigate the activity, doctrines, leadership decisions, literature and worship of any registered religious organisation and recommend action to the Ministry. The subsequent appointment of renowned "anti-cultists" and controversial scholars of Islam to the Council – and the choice of prominent "anti-cultist" Aleksandr Dvorkin as its chair - have led a wide range of religious representatives to liken the Council to a new "inquisition", Forum 18 News Service notes. If the Council is given free rein, it is likely to recommend harsh measures against certain religious organisations. At the Council's first meeting, Dvorkin named the Russian Bible Society as a possible target for investigation, but its executive director told Forum 18 no action has followed. Forum 18 asked the Justice Ministry how many commissions it is likely to give the Council each year, whether the Ministry will automatically accept its conclusions and, if not, who will decide. However, the Ministry has so far failed to respond.