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
15 March 2004
RUSSIA: Pentecostals & Orthodox to lose buildings on Pacific coast?
Two congregations on Russia's Pacific coast – the Grace Pentecostal Church and the Orthodox parish of the Annunciation – may lose their places of worship after the Sovetskaya Gavan city council abruptly cancelled a contract it had given for the use of a state-owned building, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The cancellation of the Pentecostal's contract came after the town gained a new mayor, Valeri Shevchuk, and a council official told Forum 18 that the Orthodox parish is in the same position as the Pentecostals. "We had a 20-year contract – so why should we move?" the Grace Church's former deacon Andrei Nadtochi told Forum 18 News Service. He said officials have hinted to church members that rental payments for their building under a new "commercial" agreement would be so high that they would give it up of their own accord. The church says it does not have the money to challenge the decision in court or pay higher rent.
12 March 2004
TURKMENISTAN: Scepticism and optimism greet surprise presidential decree
Despite a surprise 11 March decree from President Saparmurat Niyazov lifting the requirement that a religious community must have 500 adult citizen members before it can register, officials have insisted that unregistered religious activity remains illegal. Bibi Tagieva of the Adalat (Justice) Ministry told Forum 18 that the decree does not mean that unregistered religious communities can start to meet freely in private homes. Some believers are optimistic that the decree might be a signal of a relaxation of Turkmenistan's harsh restrictions on religious communities – which have seen all Protestant, Armenian Apostolic, Shia Muslim, Jewish, Hare Krishna, Baha'i and Jehovah's Witness communities banned. "The authorities have tried up till now to use repressive measures and have understood this is unsuccessful," one Protestant told Forum 18. "They seem now to be trying to bring religious communities under state control – perhaps a cleverer policy."
11 March 2004
MOLDOVA: Muslims vow to defy "illegal" worship ban
Police banned a Muslim community in the capital Chisinau from meeting for worship after raiding the place where they meet after Friday prayers on 5 March. They detained several Muslims and three Syrian citizens were expelled from the country. "The situation is getting worse, with the police arriving at least every other week," community leader Talgat Masaev told Forum 18 News Service. He and a colleague have been repeatedly fined for leading a community which does not have state registration, although the fines so far have been overturned. Forum 18 has been unable to find out from officials why police raid the Muslim community and have refused it registration for the past four years. "They have the right to meet without registration, provided they do not break the law," human rights activist Stefan Uritu insisted.
9 March 2004
AZERBAIJAN: Senior official "slanders Adventists"
Adventists and Muslims have rejected as "slander" accusations by Azerbaijan's senior religious affairs official that an Adventist pastor, Khalid Babaev, tried to gain converts through bribery, that the Adventist relief organisation ADRA is seeking to attract converts "at all costs" and that religious liberty group IRLA is an "Adventist organisation" funded by the United States "special services". Rafik Aliev made the claims in television interviews, but Forum 18 News Service has been unable to reach him to find out why he made the allegations. Babaev was forced to flee the Nakhichevan exclave after receiving death threats. IRLA's secretary general in Azerbaijan, Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, imam of Baku's Juma Mosque, is awaiting trial while a court has ordered the community expelled from the mosque.
8 March 2004
TURKMENISTAN: Why was former chief mufti given long jail term?
Reliable sources in Turkmenistan have told Forum 18 News Service that they believe the country's former Sunni Muslim chief mufti, Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, was sentenced to a long jail term for his opposition to tight presidential control over the Muslim community. Government prosecutors claimed he was part of an assassination attempt against the president. Although previously known for his obedience, Ibadullah began to oppose the cult of personality around the president by reportedly obstructing the use in mosques of the president's moral code Ruhnama (Book of the Soul). Imams are forced to display this book prominently in mosques and quote approvingly from it in sermons, as are Russian Orthodox priests in their churches. Ibadullah is also believed to have been targeted as an ethnic Uzbek, Forum 18 having noted the government removing ethnic Uzbek imams to replace them with ethnic Turkmens.
8 March 2004
UZBEKISTAN: University attacks Hare Krishna followers, along with secret police
Claiming without evidence that Hare Krishna followers were terrorists, had tried to stage a putsch in Russia and are now trying to stage a coup d'etat in Uzbekistan, Razumbai Ischanov, dean of Urgench University's Natural Sciences Faculty, has reportedly said he will expel all students who are Hare Krishna followers. Since the speech by the Dean, which had the support of University authorities, rumours have been spread that female Hare Krishna students are prostitutes, causing several planned weddings to be cancelled, and a lecturer in the natural sciences faculty forced a student Krishna devotee, against their religion, to eat meat and drink vodka. The NSS secret police have also started monitoring Hare Krishna students since the speech.
5 March 2004
AZERBAIJAN: Muslims await police expulsion "with fear and flowers"
Muslims of Baku's historic Juma mosque are continuing to reject the 1 March court order that they must leave "immediately" the place of worship they have been using for the past twelve years. A court executor visited yesterday (4 March) and warned that next time he will come with police to expel them by force. "This has put the believers into a state of fear," mosque spokesman Seymur Rashidov told Forum 18 News Service. The Muslims have not been told when the police will arrive, but pledge they will greet the police with flowers. The planned expulsion has been widely condemned, with the US Helsinki Commission calling it "a page out of Azerbaijan's communist past".
4 March 2004
TURKMENISTAN: State interference with Islamic religious life in the north east
The Turkmen government has been replacing ethnic Uzbek imam-hatybs (mosque leaders) with ethnic Turkmens, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The authorities are also forcing imam-hatybs to place the Turkmen flag above mosque entrances, to begin every sermon by praising "Turkmenbashi", "Father of the Turkmens", as President Saparmurat Niyazov insists on being called. Also, a copy of Niyazov's book, the Ruhnama (Book of the Soul), must be placed at the entrance to every mosque and Muslims must touch it as if it were a sacred object. Similar instructions have reportedly been given to other Sunni Muslim mosques and Russian Orthodox Churches. These are the only two confessions allowed some limited freedom to operate in Turkmenistan.
4 March 2004
UZBEKISTAN: Authorities close Christian church in Khorezm
On 27 February, Forum 18 News Service has learnt that the authorities in Khorezm region decided to close the Urgench Baptist Church. The only other church in the region is the Protestant Korean Church. It was decided to close the church as it had been working with children and would not revise its statute. Statute revision requires church re-registration, which the authorities have denied to other churches making them illegal. The authorities claim that children's work was taking place without parental consent, but parents had given their consent – only to have the NSS secret police pressure them into denying this. Those parents have now asked the church's forgiveness, Forum 18 has been told. Article 3 of Uzbekistan's law on religion forbids "the enticement of underage children into religious organisations, as well as the religious instruction of children against their or their parents' will". Unregistered religious communities are illegal and banned from operating, which provision is against international law.
1 March 2004
AZERBAIJAN: Court decides to "immediately" expel Muslims from mosque
A court has decided today (1 March) to "immediately" expel the Muslim community of the 1,000 year-old Juma mosque in Baku's Old City, Forum 18 news Service has learnt. This is an apparent punishment for the community's independence from the authorities, and for its stance defending human rights, including religious freedom, for all in Azerbaijan. The Muslims now fear that police could expel them at any moment. Ilya Zenchenko, head of Azerbaijan's Baptist community, called the ruling a "blatant injustice". "The government fights not only against dissidents, like Christians and others, but even against Muslims, its own," he told Forum 18. "It is not even a Muslim government. It is against God." He said the government wants everyone to worship and fear it, and not to speak out. "It is trying to take the place of God."
1 March 2004
AZERBAIJAN: Adventist pastor flees serious death threats
Adventist pastor Khalid Babaev and his family have fled Nakhichevan (Naxçivan) in fear, being forced to flee by the refusal by police to protect them from serious death threats, Form 18 News Service has learnt. The state official in charge of religious affairs locally has claimed to Forum 18 that he didn't "know that there are people here who hate others for religious reasons" and that he is "too busy to look into the case," even though he has been told by Pastor Babaev of the death threats. It is believed that the threats are related to the commemoration by Shia Muslims of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, grandson of Islam's prophet Muhammad, which is often a tense time.
26 February 2004
TURKMENISTAN: Carpet seized to pay illegal Baptist fine
Forum 18 News Service has learnt that officials have seized property from Baptists, in order to pay a fine imposed last year for unregistered worship in a private flat. The prosecution is illegal under international law and breaks the human rights agreements Turkmenistan has signed. The Baptists, Yelena and Vladimir Lemeshko, believe they are innocent of any offence. The local court has refused to give them a copy of the order confiscating their property and officials have refused to talk to Forum 18.