UZBEKISTAN: Teaching Islam to children a crime, raids and large fines continue

Uzbekistan is currently prosecuting a Muslim father and son who taught the Koran to school-age children in Tashkent Region, the court confirmed to Forum 18 News Service. Both men - Mirmuhiddin Mirbayzaiyev and his son Sirojiddin - face the possibility of up to three years in jail. Parents who brought their children to the Islamic religious lessons have been fined. Elsewhere, in Karshi, a member of a Baptist church, Svetlana Andreychenko, has like the Mirbayzaiyevs been prosecuted for exercising her right to freedom of religion or belief in her own home. She has been fined 50 times the minimum monthly salary. Her Church has been repeatedly raided during Sunday worship, with worshippers being taken to a police station for questioning. A state "expert analysis" of books confiscated in Andreychenko's home stated that reading them "might give rise in the individual to feelings of interest towards this religion". Other raids on meetings, prosecutions, and fines for exercising freedom of religion or belief continue.

10 July 2013

RUSSIA: Orthodox relics block Jehovah's Witness meeting

A written Russian official refusal to allow Jehovah's Witness to meet for worship in Nizhny Novgorod Region, made in consultation with a local Orthodox bishop, provides rare evidence that state opposition to Jehovah's Witnesses is fuelled by support for the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), Forum 18 News Service has found. "As the administration, we conduct all our activity in close contact with the [Moscow Patriarchate] Diocese," the official who drafted the refusal, Svetlana Zakharova, confirmed to Forum 18. "There's not a single question affecting the interests of one side or the other that we don't decide collegially." It is highly unusual for Russian officials to make such admissions, especially in writing, Forum 18 notes. Elsewhere, more Jehovah's Witness texts have been banned, and raids on and detentions and fines of Jehovah's Witnesses and Falun Gong practitioners continue. The government is also set to increase punishments for "extremist" activity under the Criminal Code.

9 July 2013

TURKEY: Constitutional Court justifies more freedom of religion or belief restrictions

Surprisingly little attention has been paid in Turkey to an 18 April decision of the Constitutional Court (Anayasa Mahkemesi – AYM), Forum 18 News Service notes. The AYM's decision goes much wider than its starting point of education in schools: it establishes new jurisprudence on "Turkish secularism" (laiklik). This new approach allows more unjustifiable state interference in freedom of religion or belief, by attributing to the state a positive obligation to both provide Islamic religious services and to reinforce restrictions on individuals and groups exercising freedom of religion or belief. This has wide and possibly unforeseeable implications, not least as the AYM's perception of Turkish society is strikingly at odds with the reality of today's diverse society. For the AYM to unequivocally protect freedom of religion or belief for all, it would have to establish a new understanding of secularism that is in practice in line with Turkey's international human rights obligations.

4 July 2013

GEORGIA: Will police protect Muslim prayers from mobs?

Since late May, mobs of non-Muslims have obstructed Muslims in the eastern Georgian village of Samtatskaro from praying freely, human rights defenders have told Forum 18 News Service. The mob threatened to burn down the imam's home and drive him from the village. Guliko Nadirashvili, head of the village, "mentioned publicly that if the majority decides that there must not be a mosque in the village, that this is Christian land and the whole village is against Muslims' prayer, we won't allow them to pray," a human rights defender told Forum 18. Nadirashvili claimed to Forum 18 that Muslims have "no problems praying". The local police chief refused to discuss the violence and threats with Forum 18 and the Interior Ministry in the capital Tbilisi was unable to say if anyone has been prosecuted over this and two similar mob attacks on Muslims in late 2012.

2 July 2013

BELARUS: Praying in homeless shelter a crime

A young Catholic layman, who turned his home in a western Belarus village into a shelter for homeless people with a prayer room, is being accused of leading an unregistered religious organisation, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Aleksei Shchedrov – who says he has helped about 100 local people since December 2011 – is being investigated on criminal charges under Article 193-1, and faces a maximum possible sentence of two years' imprisonment. The criminal investigation against 28-year-old Shchedrov followed police raids on the shelter in February and April. "I am a Christian and I started to help those who are in need," he insisted to Forum 18 from the village of Aleksandrovka, Grodno Region. "I give them food, a bed, a bath and clothes and I pray together with them. But this is no religious organisation, just charity." A priest used to visit the shelter, but stopped after the authorities pressured the Bishop of Grodno into ordering the visits to stop. Police refused to discuss the case with Forum 18.

28 June 2013

AZERBAIJAN: Conscientious objectors amnestied, imam and driver not freed

Azerbaijan's two known imprisoned conscientious objectors – both Jehovah's Witnesses - have been freed as part of a prisoner amnesty, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. However, prisoners of conscience Imam Taleh Bagirov and his driver Anar Melikov have not been freed. Imam Bagirov is known for his political opposition to the government, and also openly opposed the imposition of an imam from the state-backed Caucasian Muslim Board to lead his mosque near the capital Baku. All mosques are required by the Religion Law to be controlled by the Board, which is required to appoint their religious leadership. On 27 June a Baku court ordered the extension of Imam Bagirov's pre-trial detention by one month, while Melikov's trial is expected to begin in a different Baku court in mid-July. Both men have been detained since 31 March. They insist that state claims that they possessed heroin, a pistol, and bullets are false.

25 June 2013

UZBEKISTAN: Extradited and given 12 years' imprisonment

Extradited back to his native Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan in March, against the express wishes of the United Nations Committee Against Torture, 38-year-old Muslim Khayrullo Tursunov was sentenced in early June to a long prison term - thought to be 12 years - for alleged "extremist" religious activity. Relatives outside Uzbekistan complained to Forum 18 News Service that the case had been "fabricated" to punish him for exercising his freedom of religion or belief. In a separate case, Dilbar Turabayeva and other parents of 13 young Muslim men from Namangan in eastern Uzbekistan given long prison terms in 2010 for learning how to read the Koran and to pray the namaz in a private home have lamented their failure to have their sons freed or the case re-examined. They note that the Investigator – who they claim threatened witnesses and dictated statements - and the Judge have both been removed on corruption charges. "The fact that Turabayeva wrote complaints does not mean that she will receive a positive response," Senator Svetlana Artikova – one of the many recipients of their complaints - told Forum 18.

24 June 2013

RUSSIA: Eight readers of Islamic theologian arrested

Shirazi Bekirov – a reader of Islamic theologian Said Nursi – has been under arrest in St Petersburg since his home in the city was raided by the FSB security service late on 2 March, a fellow Nursi reader told Forum 18 News Service. Six other homes were also raided, more than ten people were briefly detained and thousands of Nursi's books were seized. Bekirov stands accused of organising the activity of banned "extremist" organisation, "Nurdzhular", an organisation Nursi readers insist does not exist. He faces up to three years' imprisonment if convicted. An Azeri named "Elnur" is among seven Nursi readers in detention in Russia's Perm Region since at least May after police and FSB raids on private homes, in which thousands of copies of Nursi's works were seized. A spokesperson for Volga Federal District's Interior Ministry told Forum 18 that all seven suspects are still in detention - "Their question is still being decided" – and that they have not yet been formally charged. He refused to name those detained.

20 June 2013

RUSSIA: Readers of Islamic theologian under house arrest, travel bans

Seven readers of Islamic theologian Said Nursi are known to be under house arrest or other travel bans in different regions of Russia, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. All are accused or suspected of organising or participating in banned "extremist" organisation "Nurdzhular" – charges they reject - and could face up to three years in prison. Gulnaz Valeyeva – one of three female Nursi readers on trial in Chelyabinsk Region - married in 2012. But she is unable to live with her husband, who works over 2,000 km away in Krasnoyarsk, another of the three told Forum 18. Another cannot visit her frail 85-year-old mother. Meanwhile, all 16 Jehovah's Witnesses on criminal trial in Taganrog of belonging to an "extremist" organisation have been under travel bans for over a year, Viktor Zhenkov, one of their lawyers, told Forum 18.

18 June 2013

RUSSIA: Imams' defence rejected "for contradicting prosecution"

Ilhom Merazhov – one of two imams given a one-year suspended prison sentence on 27 May in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk after a three month criminal trial on "extremism" charges – has expressed his astonishment. "Convicted of organising an extremist organisation when we didn't conduct extremist activity - it's nonsense!" he told Forum 18 News Service. Prosecutor's Office official Sergei Ageyev even admitted in court that "the deed of which they are incriminated does not envisage any kind of extremist activity", according to the transcript. The verdict orders a large quantity of Muslim literature from the imams' personal libraries to be destroyed as "weapons of the crime". "I'm speechless, this is the same as destroying the Koran. It's blasphemy!" Merazhov insisted. In a case on the same criminal charges in the southern Russian town of Taganrog, where the local Jehovah's Witness congregation has been banned as "extremist", the criminal trial of 16 of its members has begun.

14 June 2013

BELARUS: Raids and fines restart, eviction again suspended for now

Raids and fines against Baptists in Belarus who meet for worship without state permission have re-started, Forum 18 News Service notes. After separate raids on Sunday meetings for worship at both congregations of the Council of Churches Baptists in the south-eastern town of Gomel, three local leaders have been fined. Pastor Nikolai Varushin was fined about one month's average local wages, and Pastor Pyotr Yashchenko and Valentin Shchedrenok were fined much smaller amounts. These are the first such raids and fines in almost a year. Police told Forum 18 that one of the raids had been initiated by the KGB secret police, with the aim of "revealing criminal groups of the unregistered Baptists". "We [the police] deal with family quarrels and street fights, and are not interested in religion," the police officer told Forum 18. "In this mission we only lent assistance." And New Life Full Gospel Church in the capital Minsk has once again received an eviction order, which was today (14 June) rapidly suspended – but not cancelled.

12 June 2013

KAZAKHSTAN: Criminal trial for atheist writer imminent, pastor still in prison, new criminal case

The criminal trial of 62-year-old atheist writer Aleksandr Kharlamov on charges of "inciting religious hatred" – which he rejects - is set to begin in Ridder this month. He has been held for three months in prison and psychiatric detention, mostly in cellars, and has lost 20 kilograms in weight, his partner Marina Kaplunskaya told Forum 18 News Service. Asked who had suffered because of what Kharlamov had written on religion, Ridder's Prosecutor Vitaly Shaber told Forum 18: "This Criminal Code Article does not need victims – if there had been any, a completely different Article would have been used." Astana Prosecutor's Office told Forum 18 a criminal case on the same charges was launched in March in connection with the activity of the city's Grace Protestant Church. The church's 66-year-old pastor Bakhytzhan Kashkumbayev is already in prison facing separate criminal charges of harming health, which he rejects. The alleged victim says her health has not been harmed.