8 February 2010
KAZAKHSTAN: Women's prayers lead to massive fine – and more? |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Kazakhstan has fined Zhanna-Tereza Raudovich 100 times the minimum monthly wage for hosting a Sunday morning worship service in her home, attended by local Baptist women and their children, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Police who raided Raudovich's home drew up an official record that "they had discovered an illegally functioning religious community", local Baptists complained to Forum 18. An appeal is due to be heard on 11 February. It remains unclear how Raudovich could pay the fine, as she has six children and does not have paid work. She has been warned that she will face criminal charges if she does not pay the fine. Meanwhile, Kazakh police have told Forum 18 that Kazakh-born Baptist Dmitry Leven will be deported for "illegal missionary activity" unless an appeal to Kazakhstan's Supreme Court against his conviction is successful. As the Supreme Court has refused to even consider an appeal, it is unclear what will happen to Leven. "I just want to be able to remain here," Leven told Forum 18. "I don't want to go anywhere else." |
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3 February 2010
TURKMENISTAN: Sentences on conscientious objectors a "state secret"? |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
The City Court in Dashoguz – which sentenced 18-year-old Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Navruz Nasyrlaev to two years' imprisonment in December 2009 – refused to discuss his case with Forum 18 News Service. Asked if it is a state secret, a woman at the court responded: "Yes." His case brings to five the number of Jehovah's Witnesses imprisoned for refusing compulsory military service in Turkmenistan, with a further three serving non-custodial sentences. Five of the eight sentences were handed down by Dashoguz City Court. Nasyrlaev's imprisonment comes as the Turkmen government's January 2010 report to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee made no reference to any right to conduct alternative civilian service. |
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2 February 2010
TURKMENISTAN: Exit bans, haj ban, visa denials part of state religious isolation policy |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Taken off an aeroplane in the capital Ashgabad just before departure in October 2007, Protestant pastor Ilmurad Nuliev has been unable to leave Turkmenistan since. Like many who are on the exit blacklist, the Migration Service refuses to tell him why. He told Forum 18 News Service the ban could only have been imposed to punish him for his religious activity. The exit blacklist is part of the Turkmen government's long-standing policy of trying to isolate religious communities within the country from their fellow-believers abroad, which has included expelling legally resident foreigners who engaged in religious activity. In 2009 it banned even the small number of Muslims allowed to go on the haj pilgrimage to leave for Mecca, citing health grounds. One foreign Protestant told Forum 18 the Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs refused to authorise a planned visit to fellow believers in Turkmenistan in 2009. Local people who are able to travel abroad face routine confiscation of religious literature on their return, which is often destroyed. |
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1 February 2010
BELARUS: Conscientious objector jailed |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Ivan Mikhailov, a Messianic Jew, has today (1 February) had a three-month jail term imposed on him by a court in Belarus for refusing compulsory military service. His brother-in-law told Forum 18 News Service that "The sentence has nothing to do with justice." His lawyer, Svetlana Gorbatok, argued that the absence of an Alternative Service Law is not a legal basis for violating Mikhailov's rights. He has been in pre-trial detention since 15 December 2009, and must serve another six weeks unless he wins an appeal he will make. Also present in court was Mikhail Pashkevich of 'For Alternative Civilian Service', which has launched a civic society petition calling for civilian alternative service. Prosecutor Aleksandr Cherepovich, asked by Forum 18 who had suffered from refusal to undertake compulsory military service, replied: "The state." Meanwhile, the launch of a CD compilation of Christian songs at a Catholic church has been stopped under state pressure. Senior religious affairs official Alla Ryabitseva angrily told Forum 18 that: "Concerts don't take place in churches." |
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1 February 2010
TURKMENISTAN: Worship without state registration "illegal" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Turkmenistan continues to raid Protestants meeting for worship in different parts of the country, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. One such raid was led by Turkmenistan's former Chief Mufti, Rovshen Allaberdiev, who is now imam of Dashoguz Region as well as being the senior regional Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs official. Allaberdiev and accompanying officials confiscated Christian books during the raid, including personal Bibles. All 22 people present were taken to a local government building, questioned and pressured to sign statements not to attend the church in future. "Some people signed and now some are afraid to come to services, especially new people," one church member told Forum 18. "We were told it is illegal to meet without state registration. But we told them we have already applied for registration and are waiting for a response." In a separate raid in another region, police accused a pastor of violating the Religion Law by praying at a birthday party. |
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28 January 2010
RUSSIA: Muslims raided, more Jehovah's Witness literature banned |
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Following an 11 December raid on a Makhachkala flat by "a whole busload" of armed and masked rapid reaction police led by a Dagestani FSB security service investigator, some 30 readers of the works of the late Turkish Islamic theologian Said Nursi were taken for questioning. Six homes of other Nursi readers in Dagestan were raided. Ziyautdin Dapayev, one of two of those held who could face criminal charges of participating in a banned religious extremist organisation, lamented to Forum 18 News Service that Nursi readers are becoming "victims to the incompetence of some employees of the law enforcement agencies". Dagestan FSB told Forum 18 no one could answer questions about the investigation. Nursi's works have been banned in Russia, despite a 2007 Turkish government statement that they "contain no statements whatsoever aimed at inciting religious hatred". Moscow Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed to Forum 18 that it had issued an extremism warning to Ravil Gainutdin, chair of the Russia-wide Council of Muftis, for inviting a Turkish Nursi follower to a Moscow conference. Meanwhile, Jehovah's Witnesses have lost their latest appeal against an extremism ban on more of their publications. |
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27 January 2010
UZBEKISTAN: Crackdown on devout Muslims continues |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Uzbekistan continues to arrest religious believers, primarily Muslims, throughout the country, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Around 57 Muslims are being held in the central Syrdarya region on unknown charges. It appears that a common factor linking some was that they were devout Muslims who went to gether to mosques to pray. In the south-western Kashkadarya region the son-in-law of Mekhrinisso Hamdamova, a Muslim woman arrested for holding religious meetings in her home, was himself arrested on 16 January 2010. It is thought that his arrest is linked to the authorities' anger at the flight from them of women threatened with rape if they did not testify against Hamdamova. Also, the fate of several men put on trial in 2009 for following the approach to Islam of the late Turkish Muslim theologian Said Nursi still remains unknown, despite requests by Forum 18 to the relevant courts for information. These cases appear to be part of an ongoing crackdown on peaceful devout Muslims and followers of other faiths exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief independent of state control. |
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21 January 2010
AZERBAIJAN: Nakhichevan authorities crack down on Ashura commemorations |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Authorities in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan warned employees of state enterprises and students not to attend mosque during Shia Muslim commemorations of Ashura in December, local human rights activist Malahat Nasibova told Forum 18 News Service. She said she had seen plain clothes police officers turning away young men from a Nakhichevan city mosque. A massive crackdown in the Nakhichevan village of Bananyar the day after the Ashura commemorations saw dozens detained, including some in psychiatric hospital. It is not clear if this was official punishment for their Ashura commemoration or to prevent potential opposition. Parliamentary deputy Ismail Hajiev denied to Forum 18 any crackdown in Bananyar, adding: "All mosques in Nakhichevan are working normally." Nasibova also said three young men who attended the Turkish-built Sunni mosque in Nakhichevan city were detained for 15-days in November and told to go to a Shia mosque instead. Forum 18 notes that small Adventist and Baha'i minorities have already been forced out of Nakhichevan. |
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18 January 2010
BELARUS: Alternative Service Law withdrawn as prisoner awaits trial |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Arrested by Belarus on 15 December, after his demands to do alternative civilian service were rejected, Messianic Jew Ivan Mikhailov is due to go on trial on 29 January on charges of refusing compulsory military service, Minsk District Court told Forum 18 News Service. After a gap of nine years, Dmitry Smyk, a Jehovah's Witness from Gomel, was found guilty on the same charge in November 2009 and given a large fine, which he is still appealing against. A Law on Alternative Service was initially included in the 2010 Legislative Programme but was removed "for some reason" at the last minute, an official of the National Centre for Legislation and Legal Research told Forum 18. The failure to introduce alternative service comes a decade after a May 2000 Constitutional Court ruling declaring its introduction "urgent". Meanwhile, the Supreme Court denied Jehovah's Witnesses in Gomel the right to challenge an official written warning, despite a 2007 Constitutional Court decision upholding religious organisations' right to make such challenges. |
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15 January 2010
RUSSIA: Supreme Court ban on Jehovah's Witnesses begins to bite |
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Although 34 Jehovah's Witness publications described as extremist have not yet been added to the Federal List of Extremist Materials, public prosecutors in several Russian regions have begun issuing extremism warnings to Jehovah's Witness communities, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Also, in what is thought to be the first instance in post-Soviet Russia of extended detention in connection with sharing beliefs, two Jehovah's Witnesses informally accused of distributing extremist literature in Bryansk Region were detained for six days for "petty hooliganism". Mikhail Odintsov of the office of Russia's Human Rights Ombudsman told Forum 18 – in what he stressed was his personal view – that there was a realistic chance Jehovah's Witnesses could appeal successfully to President Dmitry Medvedev to defend their rights, if complaints were formulated in purely legal terms. He characterised the overall situation as "threatening", maintaining that "reverse Sovietisation" was taking place. "We are returning to the ideological roots of state dislike of certain religious organisations," he remarked. "These people [Jehovah's Witnesses] have no defence. What defence do they have when a court is negatively predisposed towards them, pro-Orthodox, believes that one religion should be protected from another?" |
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14 January 2010
UZBEKISTAN: Illegal Christmas as unregistered religious activity punished |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Uzbekistan continues in 2010 to punish unregistered religious activity, in defiance of international human rights standards, Forum 18 News Service has learned. On 3 January, eight police officers raided a Christmas gathering organised by an officially registered church. Asked why celebrating Christmas was illegal, police told Forum 18 that the Full Gospel Holiness Church is "not registered" in Umid village. Three leaders of the Church face administrative charges as a result. Also, following unregistered religious activity in the southern Surkhandarya Region, Pastor Bakhrom Nazarov has been fined over 83 times the minimum monthly wage. 21 people are known to have suffered short-term jail sentences between February and August 2009. However, there were no known short-term jailings of people for exercising their freedom of religion or belief in the latter part of 2009. Asked why, a Judge told Forum 18 that "it may be because of the liberalisation of Uzbekistan's Judiciary, which is underway at the moment." |
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6 January 2010
BELARUS: "We don't have such persecution here. We're absolutely democratic" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Belarusian officials continue to harass New Life Full Gospel Church, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. On 4 January the church received a summons from the Minsk City Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Committee, claiming that the church had polluted the ground around its building with oil, causing large amounts of damage. Church members reject the allegation, Sergei Lukanin noting that "for some reason they only took samples from the road which comes into the car park. Of course they're going to find traces of oil there." Belarus also continues to people for the "offence" of unregistered religious activity. Challenged about two heavy fines of a pensioner for this "offence", Lyudmila Paprakova of Grodno Ideology Department told Forum 18 that "we don't have such persecution here. We're absolutely democratic." After a woman was fined for allowing her home to be used for unregistered worship, Alla Starikevich of Brest City Ideology Department described the role of officials who started the case as "to maintain mutual relations with religious communities." |
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5 January 2010
BELARUS: Two Catholic parish priests banned from religious activity |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Two Polish Catholic parish priests in Belarus are the latest foreign citizens to be denied permission to carry out religious activity, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Both Capuchin priest Fr Jan Bonkowski, who was parish priest of Mizhevitsi village for twenty years, and Jesuit priest Fr Edward Smaga had to halt all religious activity at the end of 2009. A third priest was also threatened with denial of permission, but told Forum 18 that "everything is OK now". Fr Aleksandr Amialchenia, who speaks for the Belarusian Catholic Bishops' Conference, said no reasons were given for the refusals. He stressed that the two priests have not been barred from Belarus. Igor Popov, of the Grodno Religious Affairs Department, refused to answer any questions, asking "What priests?" before putting the phone down. Forum 18 estimates that more than two-thirds of the 33 foreign citizens barred from conducting religious work have been Catholic. Priests and nuns engaged in tackling social issues, such as alcoholism, in a very public manner appear to be particular targets. |
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23 December 2009
KAZAKHSTAN: "There is no persecution in Kazakhstan" |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
As Kazakhstan is about to begin the role of 2010 Chairperson-in-Office for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the country continues to violate its OSCE human rights commitments. One Protestant pastor is facing criminal charges for "causing severe damage to health due to negligence" because he prayed with a woman about her health, at her request. The KNB secret police declined to explain why a pastor praying for people attending his church should be a matter for criminal charges. Asked whether Pastor Kim is being targeted for his faith, a KNB officer told Forum 18 News Service that: "There is no persecution in Kazakhstan". The authorities also continue to throughout Kazakhstan close Christian-run rehabilitation centres for people suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. And a Muslim secondary school teacher has been warned not to wear a hijab to school, although she continues to be able to do this. The cases are part of a pattern of systematic violations of freedom of religion or belief and other fundamental freedoms in Kazakhstan. |
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22 December 2009
AZERBAIJAN: "The authorities are already preparing to destroy the mosque" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Rovshan Shiraliev, lawyer for the only mosque in the Yeni Guneshli residential district of Azerbaijan's capital Baku, told Forum 18 News Service he fears that the authorities are already preparing to demolish the Fatima Zahra mosque. This is despite the community intending to take their case to the Supreme Court. Baku Appeal Court failed to uphold the community's challenge against a lower court decision to evict the community, demolish the Fatima Zahra mosque and return the land to the local administration. "The most important thing is that the court decision should be in favour of God," community leader Tofik Razizade told Forum 18. In Baku alone the authorities have demolished one mosque and closed three others, including Fatima Zahra. Several commentators bitterly pointed out to Forum 18 that the mosque closures and demolitions came while Baku was one of the four Capitals of Islamic Culture for 2009. |
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21 December 2009
AZERBAIJAN: Restrictions imposed as registration deadline approaches |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Less than two weeks before Azerbaijan's 1 January 2010 deadline for religious communities to re-register to continue to legally exist, Forum 18 News Service has found that more than four fifths of religious communities have apparently been unable to get re-registration so far. They are liable to liquidation through the courts, unless they are able to re-register before 2010. Muslims have complained to Forum 18 News Service that only communities affiliated with the Caucasian Muslim Board are now eligible to apply for registration, while non-Muslim communities complain that officials of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations - which conducts the registration - is forcing communities to include restrictions in their statutes. The so-called "model statute" reinforces restrictions included in the 2009 Religion Law, and also imposes unclear wording that may be used against peaceful religious activity. One reinforcement of restrictions is a requirement that the State Committee will be informed when religious education is given to a community's young people and adults. It appears that in the Nakhichevan exclave no re-registration is taking place. |
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17 December 2009
KYRGYZSTAN: Religious freedom survey, December 2009 |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>, and
John Kinahan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
In its survey analysis of freedom of religion or belief in Kyrgyzstan, Forum 18 News Service finds that the state continues to violate its commitments to implement freedom of religion or belief for all. Limitations on this fundamental freedom and other human rights have increased – in both law and practice - under President Kurmanbek Bakiev. A harsh new Religion Law was adopted in 2009, despite international protests, and a similarly harsh new Law on Religious Education and Educational Institutions is being drafted. There are also plans for a new Law on Traditional Religions. State actions, including banning unregistered religious activity and raids on meetings for worship, show little sign of either a willingness to implement human rights commitments, or an understanding that genuine security depends on genuine respect for human rights. As a Baha'i put it to Forum 18: "Our country has so many urgent problems - poverty, the lack of medicine, AIDS, crime, corruption. Why don't officials work on these instead of making life harder for religious believers?" Kyrgyzstan faces the UN Universal Periodic Review process in May 2010. |
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15 December 2009
AZERBAIJAN: Jehovah's Witness claims police beating, interrogation and strip-search |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Police in Azerbaijan's northwestern district of Zakatala have refused to explain whether, and if so why, they beat a 71-year-old Jehovah's Witness Lydia Suleimanova. She states that a beating from police left her requiring medical attention, and that police questioned her for many hours at the police station, accused her of being a prostitute and stripped her naked for a drugs search. Deputy police chief Kamandar Hasanov asked Forum 18 News Service: "Why are you getting involved in things here that have nothing to do with you?" Despite repeated calls, no duty officer at the police station was prepared to discuss Suleimanova's case. She has lodged an appeal against her maltreatment with the General Prosecutor's Office, the Interior Ministry's Inspection Department and the Human Rights Ombudsperson. Police elsewhere in Azerbaijan have also been involved in harassment of Muslim and Protestant religious believers. Also, Jehovah's Witness Mushfiq Mammedov has failed in his appeal to overturn his criminal conviction for conscientious objection to military service. He is preparing an appeal to the Supreme Court. |
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10 December 2009
TAJIKISTAN: More than half of religious communities to be "illegal"? |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Less than a month before the re-registration deadline of 1 January 2010 imposed by Tajikistan's restrictive new Religion Law, officials have conceded to Forum 18 News Service that less than half the religious communities in the country have been re-registered. Under the Law, communities which do not want to register or fail to gain re-registration will be illegal. Deputy Culture Minister Mavlon Mukhtarov and Idibek Ziyoyev of the Culture Ministry's Head Department for Religious Affairs (HDRA) – which oversees registration - told Forum 18 that unregistered religious activity will not be allowed, despite this breaching international human rights standards. Some mosques have already been refused re-registration, and many are waiting for registration along with the Baptist Union and the country's only synagogue. When re-registering some non-Muslim communities the HDRA has imposed territorial restrictions on their activity. If the number of mosques in a local area exceeds the Law's mosque quotas, Deputy Culture Minister Mukhtarov told Forum 18 that "we will close down mosques which exceed the quotas." |
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8 December 2009
RUSSIA: 34 Jehovah's Witness publications and one congregation banned |
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>, and
Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Russia's Supreme Court has today (8 December) upheld a Rostov-on-Don Regional Court ruling finding 34 Jehovah's Witness publications "extremist", ensuring that their distribution will be banned nationwide. The Supreme Court also upheld, as part of the ruling, the liquidation of the Taganrog Jehovah's Witness congregation as extremist. The congregation's property will now be confiscated, and it will be banned from meeting as a community. Asked why the Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision, the secretary for the Supreme Court's Civil Cases Division, who would not give her name, told Forum 18 News Service: "The Jehovah's Witnesses are extremist." Asked if they have for example killed anyone, she responded: "To a certain extent, yes." The court ruling opens the way for the distribution of all Jehovah's Witness literature in Russia to be banned in future. Grigory Martynov of the Jehovah's Witnesses expressed disappointment, telling Forum 18 that "the decision was taken very quickly and they gave no explanation as to why they upheld the Rostov decision." He also stated that they will consider whether to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg. |
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7 December 2009
UZBEKISTAN: State close to removing Baptist leadership |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Baptists in Uzbekistan have told Forum 18 News Service that they fear the head of the Baptist Union, Pavel Peichev, and the Union's accountant Yelena Kurbatova will now be removed from their roles leading the registered Baptist Union. This follows a Criminal Court in the capital Tashkent upholding the criminal conviction of the two, as well as of a Baptist layman Dmitri Pitirimov. The Court also upheld a three-year ban on each holding responsible positions. However, the court overturned massive fines on each. The three continue to insist that the charges against them of evading taxes and involving children in religious activity without their or their parents' consent were fabricated. Peichev stated that an appeal to the Supreme Court will probably be made. "The conviction was unjust and we want it overturned," he told Forum 18. Baptists in Uzbekistan have repeatedly insisted to Forum 18 that the authorities' main aim was to remove the leadership of the Baptist Union, continuing a pattern of state interference in the leadership of religious communities such as the Muslim and Jewish communities. Also, the Justice Ministry has forced a church website to close. |
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3 December 2009
AZERBAIJAN: Officials deny Alternative Service commitment, as victim challenges sentence |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Sentenced by Azerbaijan in 2006 for conscientious objection to compulsory military service on grounds of religious faith, Jehovah's Witness Mushfiq Mammedov has been sentenced again on exactly the same charges in October 2009 and fined. He is challenging this in Baku's Appeal Court. The judge's assistant told Forum 18 News Service that the hearing, which began on 2 December, is due to resume on 9 December. Jehovah's Witnesses pointed out to Forum 18 that Azerbaijan's Constitution and Criminal Code do not allow criminal charges to be brought against someone twice for the same crime. Meanwhile, despite Azerbaijan's commitment to the Council of Europe to have already adopted a Law on Alternative Service, a senior parliamentary official has said the draft will not be presented to Parliament until the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is resolved. Andres Herkel, co-rapporteur of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, told Forum 18 that "this can't be a universal excuse for Azerbaijan not to fulfil its obligations and standards on human rights and basic freedoms". |
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2 December 2009
TAJIKISTAN: Court bans Baptist church |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Members of a Baptist congregation in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe have appealed to the City Court against a ban on their activity imposed because they meet for worship in a private home without state registration. But Judge Soliya Ismailova of Somoni District Court, who handed down the ban, defended her decision and denied that this violated the Baptists' freedom of worship. "The Law demands that all non-government organisations register," she told Forum 18 News Service. The court-imposed ban came after a 9 October raid on a church service by officials of the City Administration, Dushanbe city Prosecutor's office, police and NSC secret police. Baptists told Forum 18 they are continuing to meet for worship despite the ban. State control of religious activity has been steadily tightening in 2009, including through a new Religion Law. |
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1 December 2009
KAZAKHSTAN: "I could now be deported at any time" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Kazakh-born Viktor Leven, who holds a German passport, is once again due for deportation to punish him for leading worship of a Council of Churches Baptist congregation in Akmola Region. On 26 November, the collegium of the Regional Court reinstated the initial court decision that he had successfully overturned on appeal. "I could now be deported at any time," Leven told Forum 18 News Service. Deportation would separate him from his wife and their six children, the youngest just three weeks old. The case came as local papers reproduced a hostile article by state-funded "anti-cult" activist Gulnara Orazbaeva, accusing Baptists of spreading the H1N1 virus, accusing Leven's brother David of causing the death of one of his children because of his faith and accusing Baptists of not reading newspapers or watching television. One newspaper wrote that material for the article was provided by the KNB secret police, but the KNB and Orazbaeva denied it to Forum 18, as did the newspaper's editor. Told that the Baptists complained that the article stirred up inter-religious hatred of them, the editor laughed. |
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23 November 2009
RUSSIA: Proposed missionary restrictions - a paper tiger? |
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Justice Ministry proposed amendments to the 1997 Religion Law and the Administrative Violations Code imposing draconian controls on religious activity have provoked protest from religious communities and have now been removed from the Ministry's website. Andrei Sebentsov, secretary of the government's Commission for Issues Concerning Religious Associations, told Forum 18 News Service that the parliamentary Religion Committee has refused to consider the proposals, leading the Ministry to approach the parliamentary Security Committee. He says the proposed draft is "so clearly against the demands of the Constitution that the presidential administration would hardly support it." Yet Muslims, Old Believers, Protestants and some Russian Orthodox remain concerned. The draft echoes proposals the Ministry made unsuccessfully in 2006, but Vitali Vlasenko of the Baptist Union believes the threat of their adoption is now greater, since "society is scared by religious extremism". |
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19 November 2009
COMMENTARY: The European Court of Human Rights - Out of step on conscientious objection |
By Derek Brett, Conscience and Peace Tax International <http://www.cpti.ws> |
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR) has recently made a very dangerous judgement for freedom of religion or belief in the Bayatyan v. Armenia case which puts it out of step with the international standards on conscientious objection to military service and with the Council of Europe's own human rights agenda, notes Derek Brett of Conscience and Peace Tax International http://www.cpti.ws in a commentary for Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org. The Court, apparently unaware of the recent parallel jurisprudence under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, found no violation of the freedom of thought, conscience and religion in the imprisonment of a Jehovah's Witness for his refusal on grounds of conscientious objection to perform military service, or the subsequent increase in the sentence, which had been partly justified by his reasons for refusal. Brett argues that it is vital that the Grand Chamber of the ECHR agrees to hear the appeal in the Bayatyan case, as it alone can overturn the precedent which this will otherwise set for future ECHR cases. |
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18 November 2009
UZBEKISTAN: Repression of Muslim and Christian religious activity continues |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Mekhrinisso Hamdamova, a Muslim holding a state appointment, has been arrested for holding unauthorised religious meetings in her home, Forum 18 News Service has learned. She faces very serious charges, the authorities claiming that she was attempting to overthrow the President and the "constitutional order", and inciting religious hatred. Over 30 of her family and others have been arrested, human rights defender Surat Ikramov told Forum 18. The official overseeing religious issues in Hamdamova's city told Forum 18 "probably she did something unlawful so she was arrested." 11 Protestants have been fined because they were together for a meal in a friend's house, the fines ranging between 50 and 10 times the minimum monthly wage. Similarly 17 Protestants have been fined for possessing "illegal" religious literature. The judge in the latter case, asked why he ordered a copy of the New Testament in Uzbek and other literature to be destroyed, angrily told Forum 18 that "it was all kept illegally." Finally an appeal following the conviction of Baptists for running a children's holiday camp is due on 4 December. A mysterious "burglary" of a relative of one of the Baptists has also taken place. |
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13 November 2009
KYRGYZSTAN: Legal status applications almost impossible |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Although unregistered religious activity in Kyrgyzstan is now banned, against international human rights standards, religious communities also cannot gain legal status, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. However, two mosques do appear to have been registered. The State Commission for Religious Affairs (SCRA) says that religious communities must wait for the Regulations to apply a restrictive new Religion Law, which came into force in January 2009. SCRA officials told Forum 18 that "the Regulations have been prepared but not signed into force." Meanwhile, SCRA officials have contradicted themselves on whether or not existing registered communities need to be re-registered. Officials claim to have made the text of the Regulations available for public discussion, although no-one who Forum 18 has spoken to – apart from officials – has seen the text. For the proposed controversial new Religious Education Law, officials claimed to have invited some named religious communities to a roundtable discussion, although the same religious communities told Forum 18 they were unaware of any invitation. Some Protestant churches have decided to protest at the restrictions in the Religion Law by refusing to apply for registration. |
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11 November 2009
BELARUS: "We have Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims – all the others are sects" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
The Deputy Chief of Minsk's Frunze District Police, Dinas Linkus, said he sent the local police officer to question the Kagramanyan family, who are Pentecostals, about their religious faith. "We had a request from the Culture Department of Minsk City Executive Committee several weeks ago to find out whether any religious activity was going on at this address, to establish whether a church was active there or not," he told Forum 18 News Service. "We have Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims – these are the religions. All the others are sects." Meanwhile Transfiguration Baptist Church in Vitebsk Region was fined for using a private house for religious worship, despite having official permission to do so. Jehovah's Witness Dmitry Smyk has been fined for refusing compulsory military service on religious grounds, but criminal charges against one other conscientious objector have been dropped. |
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6 November 2009
KYRGYZSTAN: Why is new Religious Education Law being hurried? |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
State religious affairs officials failed to invite all religious communities to a 21 October roundtable in the capital Bishkek to discuss the controversial proposed new Religious Education Law, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. At a 29 October conference, where the draft Law was briefly discussed, Kanatbek Murzakhalilov, Deputy Head of the State Commission for Religious Affairs, gave religious communities one week to submit comments. Murzakhalilov refused to tell Forum 18 why discussion is being rushed or why his agency is refusing to allow the publication of the legal review of the draft by the OSCE requested by his agency and received in late October. Several directors of medreses (Muslim secondary schools) across Kyrgyzstan were afraid to comment to Forum 18 on the draft Law for fear of reprisals from the authorities. |
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5 November 2009
KAZAKHSTAN: "They can meet and pray to God, but the Law says they have to register" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Two brothers from Kazakhstan, both Baptists, have been prosecuted for religious worship without state registration, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Both were prosecuted under articles of the Administrative Code which violate international human rights commitments, and which the government is set to retains almost intact in a revision of the Code. An Internal Policy Department official defended the fine, telling Forum 18 that "they can meet and pray to God, but the Law says they have to register." In a case from another region, a member of New Life Church also convicted under one of the Administrative Code articles set to be retained, has lost her appeal against deportation and a fine, and has been deported to Uzbekistan. Her "offence" was giving a 12-year-old girl a Christian children's magazine. The deportation cuts her off from her four grown-up children. |
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3 November 2009
NAGORNO-KARABAKH: "If they violate the law by meeting together for religious purposes, they will be fined" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Jehovah's Witnesses in the internationally unrecognised entity of Nagorno-Karabakh, in the south Caucasus, have lost a legal challenge to the entity's refusal to grant them legal status, Forum 18 News Service has learned. An appeal to the entity's Supreme Court may be made. Ashot Sargsyan, head of the Department for Ethnic Minority and Religious Affairs vigorously defended to Forum 18 denial of registration to Jehovah's Witnesses and a local Protestant Church. Sargsyan said that, without registration, individual believers have the right to conduct religious activity – such as to pray - alone at home. But he said neither of the two groups can meet together as a community, even in private. "If they violate the law by meeting together for religious purposes, they will be fined," Sargsyan pledged. Both groups have told Forum 18 that low-profile meetings are not currently being obstructed. |
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30 October 2009
BELARUS: "To prevent them from continuing their worship service" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
The Prosecutor who authorised a six-hour raid on a Protestant Sunday worship service in a private home in eastern Belarus has refused to explain why it happened. "It was an official action and I can't discuss it," Vitaly Kovalev, Prosecutor of the Chausy District, told Forum 18 News Service. He also refused to say what will be done with boxes of Bibles, Christian books and films confiscated during the raid, or whether the church's pastor, Irina Marshalkovskaya-Grik, will face further action. Anna Danisevich, an official of the district Ideology Department, led the raid with four police officers and three "witnesses" as some 20 church members were singing hymns. Danisevich denied the raid was a raid. "We acted strictly in accordance with the law. We live in a democratic state," she claimed. Asked why she and officials stayed at the house for six hours, she told Forum 18: "To prevent them from continuing their worship service." Meanwhile, the trial of Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Dmitry Smyk is set to resume on 6 November. Also, a roundtable in Minsk to discuss the text of a new Religion Law proposed by human rights defenders is hoped to take place on 13 November, despite obstruction by the authorities. |
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29 October 2009
UZBEKISTAN: Fined 260 times monthly minimum wage each – and banned from leading religious communities? |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>, and
Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Uzbekistan has fined three Baptists a total equivalent to 260 times the monthly minimum wage each, allegedly for tax evasion and teaching children religion illegally, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The three have consistently insisted that the charges are fabricated, and one suggested to Forum 18 that the real reason for the charges was to remove the Baptist Union's leadership. This is supported by the three having also been banned from all administrative and financial activity for three years – which may stop them playing any organisational role in any religious community. It is unclear what practically this ban means, as the authorities refuse to explain it to either the Baptists or Forum 18. The verdicts come as Uzbekistan continue encouraging intolerance of people exercising freedom of religion or belief, for example in a Justice Ministry seminar on "overcoming human trafficking, religious extremism and missionary activity." Sharing beliefs is a criminal offence in Uzbekistan, and the state-run media are suggesting that this is also so in "many other" unnamed countries. Also, it appears that Muslim, Christian and Jehovah's Witness prisoners of conscience, imprisoned for their faith, are being excluded from a prisoner amnesty. |
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26 October 2009
KAZAKHSTAN: "This is not persecution on religious grounds – the law demands this" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Kazakhstan-born Baptist Viktor Leven, who holds German citizenship, will be deported if a Kazakh court upholds a decision punishing him for "unregistered missionary activity", local prosecutor Kairat Ramazanov told Forum 18 News Service. "This is not persecution on religious grounds – the law demands this," he insisted, claiming that preaching at a church service represented missionary activity and was thus illegal without state approval. Constitutional guarantees of freedom to practice a faith or none are not, Ramazanov claimed, infringed by the restrictions on religious activity imposed in the Religion Law. Leven, who along with his family was born in Kazakhstan, insisted to Forum 18 that he is not a missionary. "This is where I live and all five of our children were born here," he stated. Leven also told Forum 18 that the family are in the process of renouncing German citizenship – which many people born in the former Soviet Union have received – to claim Kazakh citizenship. Also, President Nursultan Nazarbaev has announced a need for a new state body to oversee religion. |
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23 October 2009
RUSSIA: Jehovah's Witnesses to be banned? |
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Following more than 500 check-ups on Jehovah's Witness communities across Russia, prosecutors in several regions are going to court to have various of their publications declared extremist. This would see their distribution banned in Russia and cripple the organisation, Forum 18 News Service notes. Jehovah's Witnesses believe state agencies want a total ban. Rostov-on-Don Regional Court ruled 34 texts extremist on 11 September, the first court to do so. The court ruling, seen by Forum 18, claims that the sentence "true Christians do not celebrate Christmas or other festivals based on false religious ideas" represents incitement to religious hatred, while another publication which quoted Tolstoy – described as "an opponent of Orthodoxy" - created "a negative attitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church". The court also declared a local congregation extremist and ordered it liquidated. The Jehovah's Witnesses have appealed to Russia's Supreme Court. Customs continue to seize their books. The public prosecutor who raided a meeting in St Petersburg alleging "extremist activity" was going on refused to talk to Forum 18: "You could be some kind of spy." |
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20 October 2009
BELARUS: Prosecutions of conscientious objectors resume |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
The criminal trial of Jehovah's Witness Dmitry Smyk, which began in Gomel on 8 October and is set to resume on 29 October, represents the first known prosecution of a religious conscientious objector to compulsory military service in the past nine years, Forum 18 News Service notes. "I have tried to abide by the Bible in all aspects of my life and act on its teachings that one shouldn't fight or teach to fight," Smyk told Forum 18. He said he is ready to do a civilian alternative service, as guaranteed in Belarus' Constitution. However, without a mechanism to enact this, Gomel's Military Commissariat says it must pass cases of refusal to conduct military service for prosecution. "So I have the right, but can't use it," Smyk says. Two other local Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors have been referred to the Prosecutor's Office and another case is reportedly likely in Grodno. |
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19 October 2009
BELARUS: "They were not doing wrong – it's just our law" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses in Belarus continue to be raided and fined by the authorities for unregistered religious activity, Forum 18 News Service has found. The raids on meetings for unregistered worship have been strongly defended by the authorities. Anna Mukhlya, an expert in a regional Ideology Department who took part in one of the raids, conceded that the raided congregation was not harming anyone. "They were not doing wrong – it's just our law," she told Forum 18. Civil society groups continue to campaign against the Belarusian Religion Law, which makes unregistered religious activity a criminal offence. The Legal Transformation Centre and the advocacy group For Religious Freedom have drawn up an alternative Religion Law, which they think conforms with international human rights standards. However, attempts to hold an open roundtable in Minsk on 27 October on this have been frustrated by bans on renting conference facilities, imposed by Minsk city authorities. |
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15 October 2009
UZBEKISTAN: Did investigator fabricate evidence against Baptists? |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Several parents – named as victims in the indictment against three Baptist Union leaders now on trial in Tashkent – have told the court that statements that their children were taught the Baptist faith against their wishes were fabricated or dictated by Investigator Anatoli Tadjibayev, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The head of Uzbekistan's Baptist Union Pavel Peichev and two colleagues went on trial on 24 September accused of teaching religion illegally to children at church-run summer camps and evading tax on profits from the camp. They deny all the charges – which carry punishment of up to three years' imprisonment - and insist the camps made no profit and were supported financially by the Union. Asked whether Investigator Tadjibayev will be punished if the court establishes that he abused his powers, Zulfiya Ahmedova, who represents the prosecution in the case, told Forum 18: "The Prosecutor will have to decide that." |
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13 October 2009
TURKMENISTAN: State officials' dual role as clergy to suppress freedom of religion or belief |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Some state officials in Turkmenistan's Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs, which restricts freedom of religion or belief for all, have a dual role as clergy within religious communities. This was most recently demonstrated in late September 2009, Forum 18 News Service notes. Most if not all the senior Muslim clergy given new appointments then were also officials in the Gengeshi. The new Chief Mufti, Gurban Haitliev, has a staff position at the central Gengeshi, and was previously head of the Lebap regional Gengeshi as well as the region's Chief Imam. Four of the officials appointed to head regional branches of the Gengeshi were also appointed as new regional Chief Imams, officials have told Forum 18. In their dual role as Gengeshi officials and religious community leaders they work with other state agencies such as the MSS secret police. Meanwhile, residents of the capital Ashgabat have told Forum 18 that the University's [Islamic] Theology Department building has been demolished without warning. Gengeshi Deputy Chair Nurmukhamed Gurbanov told Forum 18 that "there are no problems in Turkmenistan." |
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8 October 2009
KAZAKHSTAN: Restrictive laws recycled |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Kazakhstan's proposed new Administrative Code – which continues existing punishments for exercising freedom of religion or belief – has reached the country's Parliament today (8 October), Forum 18 News Service has found. Also, the new National Human Rights Action Plan has revealed the authorities' intent to introduce in 2011 a Law "on the introduction of amendments and additions to legislation on the guarantee of freedom of thought, conscience and religion". This is a similar title to a highly restrictive 2008-9 draft Law condemned by many Kazakh and international human rights defenders, and an OSCE Legal Opinion. Ninel Fokina of the Almaty Helsinki Committee told Forum 18 that "I believe they will draw on the previous text – this text is not dead, it's just sleeping at the moment." Vera Tkachenko of the Legal Policy Research Centre told Forum 18 that it was important for civil society to monitor the Government's legislative plans and engage in constructive dialogue. |
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6 October 2009
KAZAKHSTAN: Why do the authorities want to close a rehabilitation centre? |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Kazakhstan has ordered that a rehabilitation centre for people suffering from drug and alcohol addiction be permanently closed, and has fined its Protestant Christian founder, Sergei Mironov, Forum 18 News Service has learned. The Centre, whose residents attended it voluntarily and could leave when they wished, was raided by 25 officials carrying sub-machine guns from the ordinary police, KNB secret police, and the Sanitary-Epidemiological Service. During the raid one resident was found by police handcuffed in a cellar, and both administrative and criminal charges were brought. Mironov, as well as then current and visiting former residents during the raid, strongly dispute that the resident was handcuffed and placed in the cellar by the Centre. They state that "literally minutes before the police came to our building" the man had breakfast with residents. Despite the seriousness of the criminal charge - "deprivation of liberty" - brought against Mironov, an official of the Regional Prosecutor's Office played down the seriousness of the case. "Mironov may be just fined, and go free," he told Forum 18. |
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2 October 2009
RUSSIA: "You have the law, we have orders" |
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Two Baptist preachers in Russia's Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad have been fined after their community "sang psalms and spoke about Christ" in the street, they have told Forum 18 News Service. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in the Kaliningrad police told Forum 18 that all public gatherings – whether political or religious – must be sanctioned by the municipal authorities in advance. "But they didn't have permission and they had no intention of getting it!" he remarked, clearly irritated by the Baptists' actions. Asked why permission is necessary, the source replied, "That's the law in Russia!" Aleksandr Legotin, one of the two Baptists, insisted that, as the Baptists held a religious service and not a demonstration, the legal requirement to notify the authorities in advance should not have applied. "We follow the law very carefully," he told Forum 18. "And under the Universal Declaration [of Human Rights] we have the right to freedom of conscience – the law should be doing the opposite, protecting us from such arbitrariness." |
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1 October 2009
AZERBAIJAN: Police chief deports local-born Baptist – with no documentation |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Local Baptist Javid Shingarov (who holds a Russian passport) was cut off from his wife, father and children in his native village near Yalama in northern Azerbaijan when he was yesterday (30 September) deported to Russia. Yalama's police chief Gazanfar Huseinov – who punished him under the Administrative Code with a fine and deportation order for holding religious worship in his home – refused to tell Forum 18 News Service why he had refused to give his verdict in writing and why the Migration Service was apparently not involved. An official of the Human Rights Ombudsperson's office told Forum 18 that failure to give a verdict in writing is a violation of the law and that the Law on Migration puts responsibility for deportation decisions on the State Migration Service, not the police. The Christian books confiscated from Shingarov and others during raids on 9 September have not been returned, while a Baptist whose home was among those raided was pressured to resign from his job as a school director. |
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30 September 2009
TURKMENISTAN: Two more Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors imprisoned |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Two young Jehovah's Witnesses have joined two other Jehovah's Witnesses already incarcerated in the labour camp in Seydi after being sentenced in July for refusing compulsory military service on grounds of religious conscience, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. Shadurdi Ushotov, who is 21, received the maximum two-year term, while 19-year-old Akmurat Egendurdiev received an 18-month term. Both had their appeals rejected in their absence. Jehovah's Witnesses complain three of the four have been obstructed from lodging further appeals. Egendurdiev was tried after being summoned to Dashoguz town administration, where "three elderly men tried to persuade him to change his mind" about his refusal to serve in the army, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18. Vyacheslav Kalataevsky, a former Baptist inmate of the Seydi camp, told Forum 18 it is in the desert and close to several chemical works, and conditions are not easy. "It is like something from the Middle Ages." |
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29 September 2009
KAZAKHSTAN: Officials who raid religious communities "merely fulfilling their duty" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Murad Ashkhayanov, an officer of the Police's Department for the Struggle with Terrorism in Semey, defended the police raid on the town's Ahmadi Muslim community in which he participated. However, he refused to tell Forum 18 News Service why the community was twice raided, and members asked when and why they joined the community and how their beliefs differ from those of other Muslims. Likewise officials who took part in raiding two Baptist churches in Kostanai Region rejected suggestions these were raids, despite police questioning of participants, filming against their wishes, searches of the premises and pressure to write statements. Talgat Nagumanov of the Kostanai Regional Justice Department told Forum 18 he and his colleagues "were merely fulfilling their duty". One of the pastors was today (29 September) fined the equivalent of two months' average wages locally "if you didn't spend anything on food or clothes for your family". |
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28 September 2009
TAJIKISTAN: "It seems that reading the Bible together is now a criminal offence" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Hamzaali Pulodov, the religious affairs official in the northern town of Khujand, has defended the criminal cases against up to 17 Jehovah's Witnesses on charges of inciting inter-religious hatred, which carry a sentence of between five and nine years' imprisonment. "When people break the law they are prosecuted," he told Forum 18 News Service. He says books confiscated during a June raid on a flat where they were meeting had "propagandised against the Constitution and incited enmity between citizens", but admitted he has not read them. Prosecutors and the NSC secret police refused to say how many Jehovah's Witnesses face criminal charges and when cases will go to court. Zafar Rakhimov, who is among those facing prosecution, told Forum 18 he believes two or three of their leaders will be brought to court. "Prosecutor Muzaffarov told me that the accusation is based on the fact that we interpret the Bible differently from Protestants. It seems that reading the Bible together is now a criminal offence." Jehovah's Witnesses are banned in Tajikistan. |
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24 September 2009
UZBEKISTAN: "They can drink tea – that's not forbidden" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Following 15-day jail terms handed down to two Baha'is in Tashkent, one of the two, Timur Chekparbayev, who was subsequently expelled from Uzbekistan, told Forum 18 News Service that he harbours no ill feelings. "I don't want to complain – I don't blame anyone." The authorities accused the two of missionary activity and proselytism, following a police raid on a meeting for teenage Baha'is. Chekparbayev stated that these claims are unfounded, and pointed out that the meeting was a regular activity which took place with the permission of both the authorities and the parents of the young people involved. Asked whether religious communities have to inform the authorities when they hold any religious event or drink a cup of tea together, Akram Nematov of the Justice Ministry told Forum 18 that "They can drink tea – that's not forbidden, but they must inform the Department when they hold religious education with young people." The Baha'i community is shocked and mystified by the raid and the detentions. |
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23 September 2009
KAZAKHSTAN: Religious freedom survey, September 2009 |
By Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>, and
John Kinahan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
In its survey analysis of freedom of religion or belief in Kazakhstan, Forum 18 News Service finds continuing violations of human rights commitments. The country will be 2010 Chairperson-in-Office of the OSCE, and faces the UN Universal Periodic Review process in February 2010. Serious violations Forum 18 has documented include: attacks on religious freedom by officials ranging from President Nursultan Nazarbaev down to local officials; literature censorship; state-sponsored encouragement of religious intolerance; legal restrictions on freedom of religion or belief; raids, interrogations, threats and fines affecting both registered and unregistered religious communities and individuals; unfair trials; the jailing of a few particularly disfavoured religious believers; restrictions on the social and charitable work of religious communities; close police and KNB secret police surveillance of religious communities; and attempts to deprive religious communities of their property. These violations interlock with violations of other fundamental human rights, such as freedom of expression and of association. |
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18 September 2009
AZERBAIJAN: Mosque closed four days before Ramadan ends |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Four days before the feast marking the end of Ramadan, religious affairs official Firdovsi Kerimov and the police closed the only Sunni Muslim mosque in Azerbaijan's second city, Gyanja, claiming it was not registered. Imam Ilham Ibrahimov told Forum 18 News Service the mosque has registration under the old Religion Law and has applied for re-registration under the new Religion Law, for which the deadline is 1 January 2010. He said Kerimov "believes it's his role to control religious communities". He added that police warned that if the community prays on the street they will be arrested. Most of the mosques closed over the last year have been Sunni. Meanwhile, Deputy Police Chief Elman Mamedov denied to Forum 18 that violence was used in breaking up a Baptist children's summer camp near Kusar: "No-one was beaten, no-one was insulted, nothing was confiscated. Do you think we're bandits?" One Baptist told Forum 18: "He's completely lying." |
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