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
20 August 2025
RUSSIA: Council of Churches Baptist communities banned
Council of Churches Baptists continue to meet for worship outside their church building in Kurganinsk in Krasnodar Region, three months after bailiffs sealed it. They were enforcing a September 2024 court order prohibiting the activities of the 600-strong community unless it submitted notification of its existence. Courts have banned several other Council of Churches congregations, with prosecutors seeking more. Neither Krasnodar Regional Prosecutor's Office nor Kurganinsk District Court responded to Forum 18 as to why they had been involved in prohibiting the church's activities.
14 August 2025
KYRGYZSTAN: Supreme Court permanently bans Reform Adventists as "extremist"
On 4 August, three Supreme Court judges rejected the True and Free Reform Adventist Church's appeal against their banning as "extremist". The Judges "were so swift to go through the case materials without giving proper attention to arguments" from lawyer Akmat Alagushev, Church members complain. The decision cannot be appealed. Church members intend to complain to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Religious studies scholar Indira Aslanova says the ban "raises serious concerns". "Such precedents can lead to the criminalisation of peaceful forms of religious practice."
30 July 2025
RUSSIA: Old Catholic priest fined for anti-war sermons
Fr Aleksandr Khmelyov, an Old Catholic priest, left Russia on 11 July after Telegram channels thought to be linked to state security services claimed investigators were preparing further administrative and criminal cases against him possibly for "creation of an extremist community" or "LGBT propaganda". Earlier that day, a St Petersburg court fined him for "discrediting" the Russian Armed Forces in a February 2022 sermon. A spokesperson for the St Petersburg court system ignored Forum 18's questions about why Fr Aleksandr's actions were considered "discreditation" of the Armed Forces.
29 July 2025
AZERBAIJAN: Large fines for religious meeting
Officers were watching a home in Nakhichevan where Christians were meeting. About 20 officers raided a Sunday worship meeting in April. They held three visitors from Baku for two days without food. Police brought cases against them and two local people. Nakhichevan City Court fined the five up to three months' average wage each on 19 June. The five will struggle to pay the large fines, an individual familiar with the cases said. Also fined and apparently deported were members of a Korean family who allowed the meetings in their home.
25 July 2025
UKRAINE: Official claims "social outrage" prevents Romanian Orthodox registration
A Religious Association of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ukraine lodged a registration application in August 2024. The State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) did not accept or reject it by the legal deadline of November 2024. DESS head Viktor Yelensky denies it has rejected the application, but insists "broad consultations" and agreement with a different community, the state-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine, are needed. When three parishes tried to transfer from the Moscow-linked Ukrainian to the Romanian Orthodox Church, officials threatened to send priests and male villagers to the front.
14 July 2025
KYRGYZSTAN: Reform Adventist Pastor's 3-year jail term plus deportation
In November 2024 the NSC secret police arrested and tortured True and Free Reform Adventist Pastor Pavel Shreider, placing him in pre-trial detention. In March 2025 a court banned his Church as "extremist". On 10 July a Bishkek court jailed the 65-year-old for 3 years in a general regime labour camp on charges of "incitement of racial, ethnic, national, religious, or regional enmity", charges he denied. Judge Ubaydulla Satimkulov ordered his post-prison deportation. Officials brought Pastor Shreider to court in handcuffs.
10 July 2025
BELARUS: "God may be calling you to church, but prison officials decide"
Four of the freed political prisoners recount restrictions on prisoners' exercise of freedom of religion or belief. Political prisoners are barred from attending Orthodox prison chapels. "God may be calling you to church, but prison officials decide," Ihar Karnei notes. Orthodox Christian Sergei Tikhanovsky was denied access to a priest for more than 5 years. Denials of access to meetings for worship, religious literature and clergy visits violate the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Officials of four of the prisons refused to discuss the restrictions with Forum 18.
4 July 2025
RUSSIA: Buddhist leader given longest known anti-war jail term
A Moscow court jailed Buddhist leader Ilya Vasilyev on 25 June for eight years for allegedly disseminating "knowingly false information" about Russia's Armed Forces, the longest known prison term for opposing Russia's war against Ukraine on religious grounds. "We called for the voice of reason, but it seems the judge heard only the voice of the prosecutor's office," his lawyer Gevorg Aleksanyan said. A court spokesperson refused comment on the verdict or why the Judge refuses a prison visit from a Buddhist priest. Protestant pastor Nikolay Romanyuk's criminal trial may begin in mid-July.
30 June 2025
TAJIKISTAN: Denial of "qualified medical care" led to Ismaili leader's prison death?
Seriously ill prisoner of conscience Muzaffar Davlatmirov, a leading Ismaili Muslim khalifa (cleric) from Mountainous Badakhshan, and his relatives repeatedly called for his transfer from prison to hospital. Prison authorities repeatedly denied this, even when his health deteriorated from May. Officials promised Davlatmirov only to "sort things out later". The 61-year-old died in the labour camp at Yavan in Khatlon Region on 26 June. Officials at the Prisons Department of the Justice Ministry's Department for the Execution of Criminal Punishments did not answer the phone.
27 June 2025
UZBEKISTAN: Judge refuses to explain rejecting 8 Muslims' appeals
Judge Khamid Bobokulov of Kashkadarya Regional Court refused to explain why on 30 April he rejected the appeal by eight Muslim prisoners of conscience from Karshi against their lengthy prison sentences. The men were jailed after discussing their faith at a meal hosted by a provocateur. On 22 May, an apparently secret police-produced video on television claimed it "exposed a Jihadist religious extremist movement". Prison officials mocked Khasan Abdirakhimov for his faith, saying he could only perform namaz sitting down. The duty officer at Zarafshon Prison refused to respond.
25 June 2025
UZBEKISTAN: Courts hand two prisoners of conscience extra jail terms
On 5 May, shortly before his five-year jail term ended, a Bukhara Region court jailed Muslim prisoner of conscience Tulkun Astanov for 3 years, 2 months in a strict-regime labour camp. Prison officers claimed he disobeyed orders by refusing morning exercises. The 54-year-old jailed for defending Muslims' rights, repeatedly tortured for praying in prison, suffered his third stroke in prison. A Navoi court handed Fariduddin Abduvokhidov a further one-year term in April. Courts jailed him for 11 years in 2020, 10 years in 2023 and 10 years in March 2025.
19 June 2025
RUSSIA: "Missionary activity" prosecutions January 2024 to April 2025 - list
The 124 known prosecutions under Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 4 ("Russians conducting missionary activity") and Part 5 ("Foreigners conducting missionary activity") between January 2024 and April 2025 are listed. First-instance courts (in one case police) convicted 107 defendants and acquitted three. They closed or returned a further 12 cases to police or prosecutors. Two cases which reached court after the permitted three-month period were dismissed. All but six of those convicted received fines. Most appeals were unsuccessful. Of 35 foreigners charged, 18 were ordered expelled from Russia.