BELARUS: 'Forbidden Christ' and right to legally challenge warnings forbidden

'Forbidden Christ', a Belarusian film documenting Soviet-era persecution of Protestant churches, was banned from a Catholic film festival by the Belarusian State Plenipotentiary for Religious and Ethnic Affairs, Forum 18 News Service has learned. It was seized from film director Aleksei Shein and sent for an "expert analysis" to the KGB secret police. However, the KGB told Forum 18 that it would be returned to Shein. He told Forum 18 that "perhaps the authorities fear that some believers will see a parallel with what is happening in our country now". Separately, the latest attempts by Jehovah's Witnesses to establish the right to legally challenge official warnings against literature distribution have failed. Both the Supreme Court and Gomel Regional Prosecutor's Office have rejected the right to make such legal challenges - despite a Constitutional Court decision upholding the right to make them. One Jehovah's Witness community has been warned that it faces liquidation if it continues to distribute literature.

10 November 2010

BELARUS: Bible school food fine, frozen church bank account

A pastor in Belarus has been fined for alleged unsanitary conditions for food served to children at a summer Bible school. Trouble began when local Ideology official Vladimir Zagorsky with two other officials visited the Bible school. Zagorsky maintained that schools have the "duty to control children going to churches during school holidays". He was unable to explain to Forum 18 what law imposed this "duty", or how this matched individuals' right to a private life. Also, for more than two months New Life Pentecostal Church in the capital Minsk has had to exist without a legal bank account. It was frozen after two large fines were imposed in July. "By law, all the contributions we receive have to be placed in our bank account by the following day. We can't do this", the church's lawyer told Forum 18. Paying staff wages and pension contributions is now difficult, and some charities the church supports will not accept gifts in cash, he added. "The church's life and worship continues, but administratively things are difficult."

29 October 2010

RUSSIA: Presenting Islam as "the true faith" = extremism?

Muslims in Russia's Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk are challenging a court's designation as "extremist" another work by the Muslim theologian Said Nursi, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The verdict also declares the work liable to confiscation wherever it is found. However, the 2002 Extremism Law only permits the confiscation of material if it is published, distributed or stored with the aim of distribution. Krasnoyarsk's Zheleznodorozhny District Court declared that the Russian translation of "Tenth Word on the Resurrection of the Dead" is "extremist", after Krasnoyarsk Muftiate had published 500 copies of the book. A proof copy was sent by the FSB security service to the Rector of Viktor Astafyev University for analysis. The Court based its judgment on that analysis – but refused to accept another analysis refuting extremism claims by three experts in psychology and philosophy from Moscow State University. An appeal brought by the Muftiate is due to be heard by Krasnoyarsk Regional Court on 29 November.

12 October 2010

BELARUS: Executed prisoner denied religious burial

The mother of executed prisoner Andrei Zhuk has filed a legal case against Belarus' refusal to release her son's body or to tell her where he was buried. Svetlana Zhuk complained, in an appeal seen by Forum 18 News Service, that she was "denied the possibility to bury my son in accordance with the demands of Orthodox Christianity". She insists this was a religious freedom violation under Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). "Whatever an individual's crimes, according to church canons relatives have the right to pray for the deceased and bury them with church rites," a Russian Orthodox priest told Forum 18. "We should pray for such individuals deeply, as we pray for all sinners." Human rights defender Raman Kisliak commented to Forum 18 that "such a violation of freedom of conscience is impermissible in a state that is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." The Interior Ministry wrote to Svetlana Zhuk, stating that under Belarusian law: "Bodies are not handed over for burial and the location of burial is not communicated." No date has yet been set to hear the case, but officials expect it to be heard within ten days.

22 September 2010

RUSSIA: Will Russia extradite reader of Muslim theologian to Uzbekistan?

Bobirjon Tukhtamurodov, an Uzbek reader of the works of Muslim theologian Said Nursi, has been arrested in Russia after a request from Uzbekistan, Forum 18 News Service has learned. He fled Uzbekistan after being warned his arrest was likely, after his brother, another reader of Nursi's works, was given a six year jail sentence. A prosecution official told Forum 18 that the extradition decision will be taken by the General Prosecutor's Office in Moscow. Yelena Ryabinina of the Moscow-based Human Rights Institute told Forum 18 that "people are being sought and prosecuted not because of any extremist actions, but because of what they read. The Uzbek authorities regard any religious or political dissidence or independent activity as a threat that must be crushed", she told Forum 18. "There is an international ban on extraditing individuals to countries where torture is practised – and Russia should abide by this. We are ready to take this case as far as the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg if we have to," she added.

7 September 2010

RUSSIA: Congresses disrupted, website blocked

Police and local officials who disrupted a Jehovah's Witness congress in southern Russia in July used cars, dustcarts and power cuts to prevent it from going ahead, before sealing off the building on alleged security grounds, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Other congresses elsewhere were disrupted or blocked. "Everywhere the pattern's the same," Jehovah's Witness Grigory Martynov told Forum 18. "The police seal the building saying they're looking for a suspicious item. When nothing is found, it doesn't matter – the main point is to disrupt the congress." Meanwhile, as part of a crackdown on websites with "extremist content", a court in the Russian far east has – for the first time - ordered an internet service provider to block local access to the Jehovah's Witnesses' Watchtower website. Other sites – including YouTube – have also been ordered blocked on prosecutors' suits, but Valentina Glazova of Khabarovsk Regional Prosecutor's Office denies that these represent censorship. "Our office supervises the implementation of the law," she told Forum 18. "Access to extremist material on websites should be blocked." As of 7 September, the Russian Federation had not challenged a European Court of Human Right ruling in favour of Moscow's Jehovah's Witness community, which becomes final on 10 September.

26 August 2010

RUSSIA: First criminal charges against Jehovah's Witnesses, Nursi reader sentenced

Ilham Islamli has become the first reader of the works of the Muslim theologian Said Nursi – some of which are banned in Russia - to be convicted under the Criminal Code and punished under extremism-related charges, Forum 18 News Service notes. After two months' pre-trial detention, Islamli was given a suspended sentence on 18 August by a court in Nizhny Novgorod for publishing Nursi's works in Russian on a website he ran. A criminal case against another Nursi reader continues in Dagestan, though the case against a third has been dropped. For the first time, extremism-related criminal cases have now also been opened against three named individual Jehovah's Witnesses. Launched after mass raids on his congregation, the case against Jehovah's Witness Maksim Kalinin is said to have involved FSB security service surveillance using a secret video camera in his home, as well as their tapping of telephone calls made by seven other Jehovah's Witnesses. In Altai Republic, extremism charges have already been brought against local Jehovah's Witness leader Aleksandr Kalistratov, who faces possible imprisonment of up to three years if convicted.

12 August 2010

RUSSIA: "A plan of organisational and operational search measures"

Russian state officials have repeatedly refused to explain why and by whom moves against Jehovah's Witnesses and readers of the works of Muslim theologian Said Nursi were initiated. Forum 18 News Service notes that internal government documents, from a wide geographic spread of regions, reveal that the campaign is co-ordinated at a high level. Both Jehovah's Witnesses and Nursi readers have been targeted in ways that suggest that their believers and communities are closely watched by the police and FSB security service – both within and outside their communities. One police document cites "a plan of organisational and operational search measures to expose, warn and stop the illegal activity of representatives of the religious organisation the Jehovah's Witnesses". Another document refers to an Interior Ministry directive "with the aims of securing law and order, anti-terrorist protection and security at especially important and government sites, and aggression in countering the intrusion of xenophobia, and racial and religious extremism". A further document reveals that police shared "operational information" about a named Jehovah's Witness with a Russian Orthodox Church diocese. Private employers and public libraries have also been ordered to co-operate in the campaign.

4 August 2010

RUSSIA: Jehovah's Witness war veteran prosecuted for extremism

An 85-year-old veteran of the Second World War is the first Russian Jehovah's Witness known to have been prosecuted for "production and distribution of extremist materials", Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The prosecution is the latest turn in the ongoing nationwide state campaign against the Jehovah's Witnesses. Aleksei Fedorin, the veteran, denied the charges, explaining that police gathered various Jehovah's Witness titles he distributed for several years before they were banned, and that he was ill on the recent days he is alleged to have distributed them. Fedorin was also interrogated for eight and a half hours continuously, although he suffers from dizziness and faints. The judge in the case refused to comment on her decision to Forum 18. Earlier prosecutions for producing and distributing religious literature have involved controversially banned Islamic titles. Previous cases against Jehovah's Witnesses have rested on little-used provisions of some regional Administrative Codes. In at least one case, an attempt appears to have been made to recruit a Jehovah's Witness as an FSB informer.

2 August 2010

RUSSIA: Baptist and Jehovah's Witness worship services raided

Worship services of Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses have suffered recent raids by Russian law enforcement agencies, many involving the FSB security service, Forum 18 News Service has learned. After the latest, 9 July raid on Jehovah's Witness worship, officials - including an FSB officer and two Prosecutor's Office investigators – found nothing illegal but still held back all who had taken part in the service, writing down their names, addresses and telephone numbers. From 12 July, investigators interrogated more than 20 congregation members, proving most interested in the structure of the community, its aims and goals, members' religious convictions and the distribution of religious literature. A Baptist congregation similarly treated was given as authority a poorly photocopied court decision justifying the raid "in view of the fact that meetings of an unregistered religious organisation" were held in the raided building. Russian law does not require religious communities to register or seek state permission for home worship. Officials have been unwilling to discuss their actions with Forum 18.

30 July 2010

BELARUS: "Appropriate permission is needed"

The pastor of a Belarusian village Pentecostal church has been fined three times in one day for sharing his faith outdoors in a nearby village, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Viktor Novik has decided not to appeal and to pay the fines, telling Forum 18 that "we resolved to suffer for God." The verdict claimed that Pastor Novik "understands that to hold events, appropriate permission is needed." Novik told Forum 18 that – as the verdict confirms - he had applied several times for this and to rent a building for a meeting, but each time this was refused. One local official dnied this, telling Forum 18 that "he never applied, verbally or in writing," before stating that no building would be made available. Elsewhere, courts have refused to acquit one person for the "crime" of conscientious objection to compulsory military service, but two others have been acquitted. Fears have been expressed that at least one of the three may be prosecuted again for the same "crime". A coalition of civil society groups has presented published proposals for an Alternative Service Law to a state working group on the subject, but has yet to receive any acknowledgement of this.

29 July 2010

BELARUS: Another massive fine, right to worship on own property denied

New Life Pentecostal Church in Belarus' capital Minsk has had a massive fine imposed on it today (29 July), for alleged "environmental damage", Forum 18 News Service has learned. Added to an earlier fine, the two fines and "compensation" total 265,750,000 Belarusian Roubles (542,850 Norwegian Kroner, 68,250 Euros, or 89,300 US Dollars). Sergei Lukanin, the church's lawyer, told Forum 18 that the Church will pay neither fine, arguing that if there is any pollution at the site it dates from the time before the church owned the property. He insisted that the church has kept the building and site in good order, a contention which Forum 18's own observations on visits support. A city environmental official claimed in an official report on the Church before the fines that grass growing for a children's playground damaged the environment. Meanwhile, two small Pentecostal churches in villages near Minsk have been fined for using the properties they own for worship. Officials claim the properties are registered for domestic use and therefore worship is illegal. The small congregations will struggle to pay these fines, a church member said. "The fear is that officials could do this again – the mechanism is there," Forum 18 was told.