RUSSIA: Muslims rush to challenge Koran "extremism" ruling

"It is a provocational decision – to destroy, and not just confiscate, the Holy Book of Muslims (..) and the court case and decision took ten minutes?!" Mufti Ravil Gainutdin of Russia's Council of Muftis wrote to President Vladimir Putin after a Novorossiisk court banned as "extremist" and ordered destroyed a widely-used Russian translation of the Koran. "Muslims are angered by this lawlessness." The secretary of Judge Gennady Chanov who issued the ban told Forum 18 he "does not give comments". Stressing that the copy of the Koran translation had not yet been destroyed, she refused to say who might destroy it, or how. Lawyer Ravil Tugushev has lodged an appeal. "Muslims' rights are being violated," he complained to Forum 18. Many Muslim, Jehovah's Witness and Falun Gong works have been banned as "extremist", with punishments for those who distribute them.

18 September 2013

UZBEKISTAN: Church piano, pulpit, carpet, refrigerator seized

After a Baptist congregation in Uzbekistan's southern city of Karshi had religious literature and church property confiscated in three police raids this year, court bailiffs arrived in late July. This time they seized the Church's piano, pulpit, carpet, refrigerator and seventeen benches, as well as privately-owned property, to meet unpaid fines imposed on the home owner because the congregation chooses to meet without the compulsory state registration. Svetlana Andreychenko told the bailiffs "she had not and will not pay the fine since she does not think she is guilty of a violation," church members told Forum 18 News Service. Asked by Forum 18 why he and his colleagues took away church-owned property which did not belong to Andreychenko, one of the bailiffs was unable to answer. Meanwhile a Tashkent court suit to strip the Baptist Union of its summer camp is due to resume on 20 September. The head of the Regional Department which brought the suit refused to explain to Forum 18 why it did so.

17 September 2013

TURKMENISTAN: "If you adopt their faith I'll tear off your head"

Pastor Ilmurad Nurliev, a former religious prisoner of conscience, many of his relatives and many of his unregistered Protestant congregation have been summoned for interrogation, threats and insults since 15 September. One police officer threatened to "tear off" the head of one of his relatives if she adopted "their faith", he told Forum 18 News Service from Mary. "Who is threatening him? We simply need to know more about him," an officer of Mary police Criminal Investigation Department claimed to Forum 18. No one at Turkmenistan's Foreign Ministry could explain why it had told the United Nations Human Rights Council in follow-up to the UPR review that "no laws" restrict the rights of unregistered religious communities when wide-ranging new Administrative Code punishments have just been adopted. "Our Ambassador to the UN, Esen Aydogdyev, will be answering all these questions at the Human Rights Council session in Geneva on 18 to 20 September," one Foreign Ministry official told Forum 18 and put the phone down.

16 September 2013

CHINA: When will five-fold state-backed religious monopoly end?

The official monopoly over all religious activity by communities of the five state-backed religious headquarter bodies is gradually being eroded, Forum 18 News Service notes. In a system established by China's communist rulers in the 1950s, only Buddhist, Catholic (independent of the Vatican), Daoist, Islamic and Protestant Christian groups under these headquarter bodies can gain legal status. Russian Orthodox and Jewish leaders have pushed for state recognition for their communities, that have restricted approval to function. Seventh-day Adventist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known as the Mormons) and Baha'i communities might be next. More difficult perhaps for the Chinese authorities would be allowing independent home-grown Protestant churches or mosques to gain legal status, or Catholic churches which owe allegiance to the Pope. Even more difficult still would be allowing religious communities to function openly without any kind of legal status, as is their right under China's international human rights commitments.

12 September 2013

UZBEKISTAN: Religious books "only allowed to be read within registered religious communities' buildings"

In two separate cases on the same day in August in Samarkand and Kashkadarya, fines on 20 religious believers for "illegal religious literature" totalled the equivalent of nearly 68 years' official minimum wage, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. In the Samarkand case, the judge ordered the confiscated literature – including the New Testament and the Pentateuch – destroyed. Uzbekistan's courts routinely order destroyed Muslim and Christian literature. Begzod Kadyrov, Chief Specialist of the government's Religious Affairs Committee, insisted to Forum 18: "Those are court decisions and the courts are independent from us." Asked why such penalties are handed down, and why individuals cannot carry their religious books like the Koran or Bible with them, Kadyrov responded: "According to the Religion Law, religious books are only allowed to be read within registered religious communities' buildings."

11 September 2013

RUSSIA: Moscow Krishna devotees face eviction

Boxes of property at Moscow's only Hare Krishna temple are packed and labelled in order of priority, so that the congregation's most treasured items can be removed "within 15 minutes if the bulldozers come", the congregation's lawyer, Mikhail Frolov, told Forum 18 News Service. In November 2012, a court ruling ordering the Krishna devotees' eviction from the site came into force. Meanwhile, in May 2013 a Moscow city agency told them that building a new temple at an alternative site they had been allocated in 2007 would be "inexpedient" taking into account the opinions of local residents. Muslims and some Protestants have met similar difficulties acquiring or retaining property in the Russian capital. Pentecostals whose church was bulldozed in September 2012 now have to meet at three separate venues, the pastor told Forum 18. A Moscow city official dealing with religious issues declined to discuss these problems with Forum 18.

9 September 2013

BELARUS: Imprisoned Catholic priest "Polish spy" or religious freedom victim?

Belarusian officials have given no information about why the KGB secret police arrested Catholic priest Fr Vladislav Lazar on 31 May, Forum 18 News Service notes. He is being held in the KGB detention centre in the capital Minsk. Prison staff refused to allow a Bible, prayer book and rosary to be handed in for him. "We recently arrested one traitor who served in the special services [KGB] and who was connected with foreign states through representatives of the Catholic Church, and not only passed on information, but because of his activity people who work abroad suffered," President Aleksandr Lukashenko announced in July, giving no details. "Maybe tomorrow I'll disappear like this and my family will worry and have no information about my whereabouts," fellow Catholic priest Fr Yuri Barok told Forum 18.

6 September 2013

RUSSIA: Six-month "extremism" sentence for St Petersburg Nursi reader

After nearly six months in prison and a psychiatric examination, Shirazi Bekirov was sentenced in St Petersburg to six months in an open-regime prison. He is the thirteenth Muslim in Russia known to have received a criminal sentence for reading the works of Islamic theologian Said Nursi, many of which have been controversially banned in Russia as "extremist". A court official was unable to say exactly how Bekirov's activity was "extremist". However, she told Forum 18 News Service that Bekirov was freed on 2 September as he had already spent nearly the whole sentence in detention since his March arrest. A similar Nursi-related criminal case against three women in Chelyabinsk Region was halted after no conviction was reached within the required two-year period. Travel bans on them have now been lifted. However, Bekirov, the three women and other Nursi readers who have faced prosecution – whether or not they were convicted of any "crime" – appear on a Russian government "list of terrorists and extremists (current)".

4 September 2013

KAZAKHSTAN: Atheist freed, but criminal case continues; Pastor transferred from psychiatric hospital

Freed from prison today (4 September) in Oskemen in East Kazakhstan Region was 63-year-old atheist and anti-corruption campaigner Aleksandr Kharlamov, after nearly six months' pre-trial detention. However, the case continues against him on charges of "inciting religious hatred" for articles he had written criticising religion. Police investigator Alikhat Turakpayev "told me his writings were being sent for a further 'expert analysis', this time to Astana," Kharlamov's partner Marina Kaplunskaya told Forum 18 News Service. Meanwhile, imprisoned 66-year-old Presbyterian pastor Bakhytzhan Kashkumbayev was on 2 September discharged from psychiatric hospital in Almaty after one month's forcible detention. "I observed him for a whole month, and he is alive and well," the chief doctor insisted to Forum 18. However, she said she did not know if he had been transferred back to Almaty's Investigation Prison. Investigator Vyacheslav Glazkov refused to discuss the criminal case against him, or a separate criminal investigation against Astana's Grace Church which the pastor leads.

3 September 2013

KAZAKHSTAN: Inviting to religious worship a new offence

In what appears to be a new development under Kazakhstan's harsh controls on religious activity, Jehovah's Witness Zarina Burova was fined in June for illegal "missionary activity" after inviting friends by text message to attend a religious meeting. In a July case, four Jehovah's Witnesses were similarly fined after two or three attendees at a meeting raided by police were guests, according to the court verdicts seen by Forum 18 News Service. The five were among 13 Jehovah's Witnesses fined for illegal "missionary activity" between May and July under Administrative Code Article 375, Part 3. Judge Kuralai Tobelbasova dismissed complaints by one of those she fined that his rights had been violated, arguing that the requirement to have personal state registration as a missionary before sharing his faith "cannot be evaluated as an infringement of religious freedom". On 29 August Jehovah's Witnesses filed a further nine complaints to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee in Geneva on behalf of 15 individuals punished for "missionary activity".

29 August 2013

TURKMENISTAN: New prisoner of conscience; police raid children's camp

Yet again a court in Turkmenistan has imprisoned a young man whose conscience will not allow him to conduct the compulsory military service. Amirlan Tolkachev, who is 20, was given an 18-month prison term in Turkmenabad on 10 July, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. He is one of nine current known imprisoned conscientious objectors, all of them Jehovah's Witnesses. Fifteen sentenced conscientious objectors – many of them still in prison - have lodged complaints to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva, three of them today (29 August). Meanwhile, police raided a summer children's camp run by the Baptist church in the town of Mary. Fifteen police plus health and other officials questioned the children, took food samples and ordered the camp closed. Two fines were then handed down. The man who answered the phone of Mary's police chief refused to discuss why the camp had been raided and shut down. "Who are you?" he kept asking Forum 18.

22 August 2013

KAZAKHSTAN: Nationwide fines and raids on meetings continue

Kazakhstan continues to very frequently punish the exercise of freedom of religion or belief without state permission, Forum 18 News Service notes. Also, atheist writer and anti-corruption campaigner Aleksandr Kharlamov and Presbyterian pastor Bakhytzhan Kashkumbayev are both still in detention. In one of many recent cases, Baptist Vyacheslav Flocha was fined the equivalent of one month's average salary for participating in a meeting for worship without state permission. Judge Nurlan Kurmangaliyev, who upheld the fine, was asked by Forum 18 why he did not take account of the fact that the fine and laws behind it break the Constitution and international human rights standards. He replied that "this is not my duty". In another case, Tatyana Degterenko was fined one month's average salary because her 9-year old son David gave two Christian CDs to his teachers. His mother and father were upset when, at school headteacher Tatyana Lovyagina's invitation, police interrogated David in their absence. Asked why she called police, Lovyagina told Forum 18 that the local administration instructed headteachers to report any religious activity. Asked whether this does not sound like returning to the Soviet-era, she exclaimed "Yes!"