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
17 June 2005
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."
15 June 2005
CHINA: State attempts to control religious leaderships
Ten years ago, China kidnapped six-year-old Tibetan Buddhist Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his family just after his recognition as Panchen Lama (they have not been seen since) and imposed a new puppet Panchen Lama. This is a dramatic example, Forum 18 News Service notes, of continuing Chinese efforts to control religious communities. Also, small numbers of Communist Party sympathisers, who may even be secret Party members, have been placed in the officially-recognised Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Muslim and Daoist leaderships. But these control attempts are increasingly ineffective for reasons such as the reluctance of ethnic minority religious leaderships, such as of the Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims, to associate with the state; the continuing strong growth of communities such as unofficial Protestants and Vatican-loyal Catholics; and a generally greater willingness to resist state control. Lower-level leaders have told Forum 18 that the Party might be able to slow and sometimes repress religious zeal, but it can no longer stop it.
13 June 2005
RUSSIA: Five-day prison for "illegally" demanding believers' rights
Three Pentecostals have been jailed and nine fined by a court for "illegally" demonstrating against the Moscow city authorities' refusal to allow Emmanuel Pentecostal Church to build or acquire a building, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Since the demonstration, Emmanuel Church appears to be making progress, as the vice-chairman of Moscow's Department for Building Policy, Development and Reconstruction, Aleksandr Kosovan, has reportedly ordered that a plot of land be found where Emmanuel can build a church centre, with all planning work paid for by the Moscow government. The demonstration was also to protest about discrimination against Protestants in Russia. Such discrimination has had the support of the Russian Orthodox Church's St Tikhon Theological Institute, which, in a letter seen by Forum 18, wrote to the local authority complaining that "unknown persons are collecting signatures in your district in support of a prayer house" and alleging that Pentecostals use "suggestive (hypnotic) techniques, trance occult-mystic practices and methods of controlling the consciousness of its adepts which endanger their mental health."
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.
9 June 2005
RUSSIA: Changes to religion law?
In what seems the most serious proposal in recent years to tighten up Russia's 1997 religion law, parliament's religion committee has begun to consider four draft amendments, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. These would make it impossible for unregistered religious organisations to hold large-scale religious meetings and allow only centralised religious organisations to invite foreigners for religious work. "If we invite a priest to Moscow as the centre of the diocese and he is to work in a completely different place, such as Kaliningrad, it will take a long time to explain to officials there why the invitation came from Moscow," Catholic Metropolitan Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz warned. Aleksandr Verkhovsky, editor at SOVA Center in Moscow, complained of another "dangerous" amendment allowing all religious communities applying for registration to have their religious doctrines analysed. "This is undesirable by its very nature in a secular society – a state should not determine which Islam (Orthodoxy, Pentecostalism and so on) is right and which is not." But religious rights lawyer Anatoli Pchelintsev remains sceptical that these proposed amendments stand a chance of being adopted.
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.
6 June 2005
BELARUS: Orthodox priest under "pressure" or "just an explanation"?
Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR - which is not part of the Moscow Patriarchate) priest Fr Leonid Plyats has had four lengthy "discussions" with officials, in the space of just over a week, and threats to punish him with jail or a massive fine if he holds any services outside his home. But local police chief Valentin Nikolaenok has denied to Forum 18 News Service that this is "pressure". Aleksandr Kozmin of the district Ideology Department told Forum 18 that "The warning was just an explanation of the law." Kozmin did not believe Forum 18 that other European states did not have Ideology Departments. But he insisted that Fr Plyats has no right to conduct any religious activity except private gatherings in his own home. ROCOR Bishop Agafangel (Pashkovsky) told Forum 18 that "I can't believe that in our time, in the centre of Europe, believers are being banned from gathering together to worship God. This is discrimination against our Church. They don't get involved in politics or opposition activity – it is a purely religious organisation."
6 June 2005
RUSSIA: State-sponsored local Muslim monopoly in St Petersburg?
The Al-Fatkh Muslim community has told Forum 18 News Service that St Petersburg local authorities are supporting a rival mosque community by preventing Al-Fatkh – in contrast to the rival Cathedral Mosque community – from acquiring land to build a mosque. The St Petersburg Funeral Services Department stated to Forum 18 that Muslim religious funerals can only be conducted with the permission of the imam of the Cathedral Mosque community, not Al-Fatkh's imam. Al-Fatkh maintained to Forum 18 that one reason why it wants to build a separate mosque is that the Cathedral Mosque is only opened once a day, even during the final period of Ramadan, when a mosque should be open constantly. Forum 18 observed one Friday that the Cathedral Mosque was emptied of worshippers and closed 30 minutes after the main Friday meeting began. (Friday is the Muslim holy day.) Islam.ru reported that it was told that the mosque was normally closed "because it needs to be - who needs to know knows why." Forum 18 was unable to ask the same question as the phone was slammed down.
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.