16 July 2009
BELARUS: Church fined for activity "not according to its statute" |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
A registered Protestant congregation in western Belarus has been fined for activity which officials claim was "not according to its statute," local Protestants told Forum 18 News Service. The church held a special prayer service in its registered building, which church members insist was within its statute. Trouble for the New Generation Church began when Baranovichi local Ideology Department officials saw posters in the town advertising the service. One official and two "witnesses" arrived at the church 30 minutes before the service, but left 10 minutes before it began without witnessing it. The official, Sergei Puzikov of the Ideology Department, refused to explain to Forum 18 what activity was outside the church's statute, as did the Department's head. In defiance of international human rights standards, Belarus bans all unregistered religious activity – including both unregistered communities and unregistered activity by registered communities. Religious activity is kept under close surveillance by the KGB secret police, and officials often issue warnings for activity they claim is illegal. Two such warnings can lead to a religious organisation being closed down. |
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15 July 2005
KAZAKHSTAN: Unregistered religious activity declared illegal, missionary activity restricted |
By Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
New "national security" amendments signed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev on 8 July have brought in tight new restrictions on religious activity that violate Kazakhstan's international human rights commitments. All unregistered religious activity is declared illegal and those leading or taking part in unregistered religious meetings can be fined. Missionary activity by local people and foreigners is illegal unless missionaries are from a registered religious organisation and have individual registration from the authorities of the local area where they operate. Literature for use by missionaries requires prior censorship from local authorities. The OSCE had urged that the ban on unregistered religious activity should be excluded from the law. "Unfortunately this was not done," an official of the OSCE mission in Almaty told Forum 18 News Service. The OSCE is preparing a detailed critique of the "overly restrictive" new law. |
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3 February 2004
BELARUS: Baptist pastors fined |
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Forum 18 News Service has learnt of three separate incidents in which unregistered Baptist pastors have been fined for their work. All three were fined for "the creation and leadership of a religious organisation without registering its charter (statutes) in accordance with established procedure," which is punishable under the Belarusian administrative offences code. A spokeswoman for the pastors' Moscow-based union remarked to Forum 18 that the incidents "seem to be to do with" the 2002 Belarusian religion law, which outlaws systematic unregistered religious gatherings. |
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1 September 2003
TURKMENISTAN: Baptists to be fined for each service |
By Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
In the wake of the latest raid on a Baptist Sunday service in Balkanabad on 24 August, police have banned church members from meeting for services and threatened that if they do so they will be fined for each meeting. In July and August, all its members had already been fined 48 US dollars each. "The Baptists refuse to be registered, citing the fact that they are forbidden from having contact with the secular authorities," Balkanabad's procurator Berdy Shirjanov told Forum 18 News Service. "The law is the law. We have to fine the Baptists." |
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7 April 2003
UZBEKISTAN: Muslims fined for prayers in closed mosque |
By Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Six Muslims in the village of Katarzan in the Uzbek section of the Fergana valley, including the local imam, were fined after holding prayers at their closed mosque in February to mark the Muslim festival of Uraza Bairam (Feast of Sacrifice or Id al-Adha). Local Muslims, who preferred not to be named, told Forum 18 News Service that some 300 believers had gathered for prayers on 12 February at the Aman-Buak mosque – closed by the authorities five years ago - because they had not managed to get to the nearest registered mosque five kilometres (three miles) away. The judge told Forum 18 that he could not remember if he had fined the six. "I have a lot of things to do and I simply cannot remember everything." |
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11 June 2009
BELARUS: Largest fine yet for unregistered religious activity |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Belarus has imposed its largest fine yet for unregistered religious activity, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. A court in the eastern town of Osipovichi fined local Baptist Nikolai Poleshchuk the equivalent of almost three months' average salary in the town and another Baptist received a warning for running a Christian street library. However, Belarus' Supreme Court changed an earlier court order to destroy Bibles and New Testaments confiscated from Poleshchuk – they have been handed to the state instead. Asked by Forum 18 whether it is right to punish peaceful religious activity, Anna Zemlyanukhina, Head of Osipovichi District Ideology Department, replied: "I know my Constitution and human rights. It is all in accordance with the law." Separately, the co-ordinator of a rehabilitation programme for alcoholics and drug addicts, run by a Christian social organisation, has been fined for conducting unregistered religious activity. New Life Church in the capital Minsk also continues to face attempts by the authorities to stop it using its own building for worship and to evict the Church. |
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12 December 2003
BELARUS: Pastor fined for leading unregistered worship |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
The Pentecostal Church in Kobrin, near Brest in south western Belarus, has told Forum 18 News Service that it will continue to meet for worship – even though their Pastor was yesterday (11 December) fined after police attended the unregistered church's worship. Pastor Nikolai Rodkovich told Forum 18 that "we have no intention of halting our services. We're ready for anything." Under the harsh new religion law, which came into force in November 2002, unregistered religious activity is illegal. But Pastor Rodkovich's fine is the first fine known to Forum 18 since this summer. The state official in charge of religious affairs in Brest region has declined to discuss with Forum 18 why religious communities cannot function without registration. |
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17 June 2005
UZBEKISTAN: One imprisoned, one fined, six more to follow |
By Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Nail Kalinkin of the embattled Bethany Protestant Church in the capital Tashkent was sentenced to 15 days in prison on 10 June for "illegally" teaching his faith, while his daughter Marina was fined 68 US dollars, Protestant sources have told Forum 18 News Service. After the church's Sunday service was raided by police on 12 June six more – including the pastor Nikolai Shevchenko – face administrative charges of breaking the country's religion law by leading an unregistered religious community. The church – located in a city district where mosques are also banned - has repeatedly tried but failed to register. Its latest challenge through the courts was again postponed on 17 June. Leaders of another Protestant church in Tashkent have been interrogated and threatened since mid-May, with 18 armed riot police raiding the home of one church leader. In Angren near Tashkent, the leader of a registered Pentecostal church was fined 39 US dollars. |
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7 July 2004
AZERBAIJAN: Twenty seven Juma mosque members detained, many fined, four beaten |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
In the wake of the police swoop on the Juma mosque in Baku's Old City on 30 June, 27 community members were detained and most were fined before being freed, mosque imam Ilgar Ibrahimoglu Allahverdiev told Forum 18 News Service on 7 July. He said four had been beaten in detention. He was particularly offended by the detention and interrogation on 5 July of eleven women, who were then fined. "It is an insult to arrest Muslim women," he complained. The community is still being denied access to the mosque. "We have been deprived of the right to meet collectively in God's house." Baptist pastor Ilya Zenchenko and Adventist pastor Yahya Zavrichko offered their support to the community. "The seizure of the mosque was unjust and a violation of their rights," Zenchenko told Forum 18. |
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24 May 2004
TURKMENISTAN: Unregistered religious activity still illegal |
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> |
Unregistered religious activity remains illegal, an official of the Adalat (Fairness or Justice) Ministry has confirmed, despite a presidential decree abolishing criminal penalties for worshipping without state approval. "If people act without registration they will be fined," Murat Muradov, a specialist at the ministry, told Forum 18 News Service. The ban on unregistered activity in the religion law has not been amended and Article 205 of the Administrative Code, which spells out fines of up to ten times the minimum monthly wage for leading or even taking part in unregistered worship services, remains in force. Muradov denied any harassment of believers in Turkmenistan, describing those who had told Forum 18 of such harassment as "sick". More than ten weeks after the president reduced the number of members required to register a community from 500 to five, no new communities have yet been able to register. |
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