Latest News:

By Magda Hornemann, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

The links between violations of freedom of religion or belief in China and state media policies and practices need to be analysed, Forum 18 News Service notes. It is difficult to demonstrate a causal linkage, not least due to a lack of reliable information. But the available evidence suggests a link between the state media's encouragement of popular indifference or hostility towards religious matters and the state's repression of religious freedom. Self-censorship in the Chinese media reflects the cautious attitude displayed by state officials. This makes it very difficult for people in China to obtain reliable information on and form their own opinions about religious people, groups and ideas that the state is hostile to. These include the Falun Gong spiritual movement and Shouwang Protestant Church in the capital Beijing. Reform of the media is a requirement for real and lasting improvements in Chinese religious freedom to take place. [read more...]

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

At least 20 police officers – including the local police chief – took part in a raid on a Seventh-day Adventist Church in Gyanja in Azerbaijan on 12 May, Forum 18 News Service has learned. The local head of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations took part in the raid, but denied this to Forum 18. Police initially searched for foreigners in the congregation, and when they found none then started checking whether all the approximately 50 children present had written permission to be present from both their parents. After questioning church members and children for several hours, police warned those they questioned that prosecutions would follow with fines. At least one congregation member has been heavily fined, without going through a court trial. The raid came two weeks after the home of a Jehovah's Witness in Sumgait was also raided and religious literature confiscated. Sumgait Police told Forum 18 that "no-one was raided". Baptists have also been stopped while sharing their faith, and a court in the capital Baku has handed down a verdict liquidating Greater Grace Protestant Church. The Church will appeal against this, the first enforced liquidation of a religious community since a harsh Religion Law was adopted. [read more...]

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

For the second time in 2012, a Jehovah's Witness in Turkmenistan has been sentenced to four years in a labour camp for allegedly "distributing pornography". His fellow-believers insist to Forum 18 News Service that – like the first such prisoner Vladimir Nuryllayev - the charge against Aibek Salayev is fabricated to punish him for his faith. Salayev was sentenced on 12 April by the same Judge at Dashoguz City Court, Akmurad Akmuradov, who sentenced Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Navruz Nasyrlaev to the maximum two-year strict regime labour camp sentence for this "offence". Salayev was brutally beaten by the ordinary police and MSS secret police "in the stomach, on the kidneys and on the head. As a result his face swelled up and he could not eat", local Jehovah's Witnesses who wished to remain unnamed for fear of state reprisals told Forum 18. Another conscientious objector, Juma Nazarov, has been arrested, and there are six other known Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector prisoners of conscience. There are also an unknown number of Muslim prisoners of conscience jailed for exercising their freedom of religion or belief. One other Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector is on a suspended sentence. [read more...]

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

At least 16 raids took place early on 4 May on Jehovah's Witness homes and places of worship in five towns in Russia's Orenburg Region, Forum 18 News Service has learned. The raids followed criminal investigation on "extremism"-related charges. Orenburg Region Investigation Committee press secretary Anzhelika Linkova told Forum 18 on 15 May that "there are no specific suspects at the moment, the facts are being established". Jehovah's Witness spokesperson Grigory Martynov commented to Forum 18 on 14 May that "they have legally existed there for some two decades, and suddenly this case comes and they are regarded as law-breakers – it is all nonsense". Elsewhere, in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, the FSB security service is continuing its attempts to prosecute Amir Abuev, a Muslim who reads Said Nursi's works, and to subject him to psychiatric examination. Abuev told Forum 18 after the latest summons for psychiatric examination that "I don't intend to go". And in Dagestan in the North Caucasus, Nursi reader Ziyavdin Dapayev continues to challenge a court order that around 70 Muslim books confiscated from him should be destroyed. [read more...]

By Olga Glace, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

Relatives of executed death row prisoners in Belarus remain unable to recover their bodies for burial, Forum 18 News Service notes. In the latest case the mother of Vladislav Kovalev, executed on 15 March, tried to claim her son's body for burial. Lyubov Kovaleva told Forum 18 News Service that "it is important to give Vladislav - like other people - a Christian burial". Death row prisoners are not told until the last minute the date and time of their execution, so they also do not have the chance to receive a visit from a priest. Nor are families of executed prisoners told when and where they are buried. Political prisoners' rights to freedom of religion or belief also continue to be violated, with denials of access to literature such as the Bible and visits by clergy. Correspondence by family and friends with political prisoners has also been blocked. Conscientious objectors to compulsory military service also continue to be punished. Jehovah's Witness Artem Strelchenko has been threatened that, if he does not report for military service, "a complex of measures for the legal evaluation of the given fact" will be undertaken. [read more...]

By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

Uzbekistan continues punishing people exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief without state permission, Forum 18 News Service notes. In one incident, police and the NSS secret police raided Protestants meeting in the home of Natalya Kim in Yukori-Chirchik, claiming at the time, local Protestants said, that a bomb was in the home. While searching for the alleged bomb, police confiscated Christian books and a laptop. Subsequently, 14 members of the unregistered Protestant Church were fined for an "unsanctioned meeting in a private home". The verdict was supplied after the legally required time, thus preventing an appeal being lodged. Natalya Kim herself was given the biggest fine, of 60 times the minimum monthly salary. Investigator Farhod Raimkulov told Forum 18 that "when many people gather in a certain place, it is the local police officer's duty to inspect and see what is happening". When Forum 18 asked whether the police can or should raid Inspector Raimkulov's home when he holds a party or some other event, he claimed that he was not part of the raid on Kim's home. [read more...]

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

With new state Censorship Regulations for almost all religious literature and objects produced in or imported into Kazakhstan now in force, only some religious books – all Muslim – have so far successfully undergone the censorship process, Forum 18 News Service notes. As of 8 May, 182 Muslim works had gained the Agency of Religious Affairs (ARA) approval required before they can be distributed. Those distributing uncensored religious literature risk fines. Although the maximum period the ARA has to conduct its censorship is 60 days, some religious communities complain they have had no response to applications "for months". No ARA official was immediately available to say how many books or religious items are awaiting approval, if any have so far been refused, why no non-Muslim books have yet been approved and whether religious books already in use are legal or not. Officials have already confiscated religious books – including children's books on the lives of Russian Orthodox saints – from libraries for checking. [read more...]

By Olga Glace, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

On 17 April Jehovah Witness Aleksandr Belous was told criminal charges for refusing military service on grounds of religious conscience had been dropped, but that he is being called up yet again for compulsory military service. "I'll have to start from scratch, but I'm not going to the army," he told Forum 18 News Service. Gomel Military Commissioner Vladimir Efimchik told Forum 18 this is "standard procedure" and claimed most of the few young men who refuse military service are forced to accept after Prosecutors launch or threaten to launch criminal cases. On 2 May a pacifist from Lida, Andrei Chernousov, was confined to a psychiatric hospital to establish if his convictions which led him to refuse call-up accord with "norms of psychiatric health". Mikhail Pashkevich of For Alternative Civilian Service complained to Forum 18 that the current draft of the Alternative Civilian Service Law under consideration – which he has seen - allows only for religious conscientious objectors, not for those who hold non-religious pacifist views, and that alternative service will be twice as long as military service. Former General Prosecutor Grigory Vasilevich told Forum 18 "it's too early to talk about alternative civilian service for all ethical objectors". [read more...]