TURKMENISTAN: Continued isolation of religious believers

Turkmenistan has, as part of an apparent policy of keeping religious believers isolated, denied permission for a group of Seventh Day Adventists to visit the country, Forum 18 News Service has learnt, despite the fact that their invitation came from Turkmenistan's registered Adventist church. Other religious communities facing obstacles in visiting co-religionists include Jehovah's Witnesses, Hare Krishna devotees, ethnic Uzbek Muslims, and the Armenian Apostolic Church. The head of Uzbekistan's Bible Society has also been denied entry, as was the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. The only religious community to have unimpeded travel to Turkmenistan is the Russian Orthodox Church.

25 October 2004

TURKMENISTAN: Prisoners still held, one prisoner tortured with mind-altering drugs?

Despite president Saparmurat Niyazov's proclaimed amnesty, the former chief mufti, Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, is still in jail, along with two Jehovah's Witnesses. Religious minority prisoners of conscience, who have included Baptists and other Jehovah's Witnesses, have not been released under presidential amnesties, as released prisoners are required to swear an oath on the Koran in a mosque and a national oath of allegiance, which religious minorities consider blasphemous, may also be insisted upon. The former chief mufti is the religious prisoner of conscience serving the longest sentence in any formerly Soviet country. Fears continue to be expressed for the religious prisoners of conscience, as there is some evidence that Jehovah's Witness Kurban Zakirov, like former Baptist prisoner Shagildy Atakov, was forcibly injected with psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs.

20 October 2004

UZBEKISTAN: Preacher to face criminal charges, and JW to be fired?

Dilshod Akhmedov, a Jehovah's Witness in Tashkent who was imprisoned for 15 days in May, and who refuses to give up public preaching, is now being investigated under the criminal code by police. Conviction carries a penalty of a fine of between 50 and 100 times the minimum wage, or up to three years in prison. Also, officials in the city of Samarkand [Samarqand], have threatened a female Jehovah's Witness, Lolya Nurmanova, with being fired for her beliefs. The authorities have also compelled a woman sympathetic to the Jehovah's Witnesses to report to the authorities everything that goes on in the religious community. Pressure continues on Jehovah's Witnesses throughout Uzbekistan, with some being convicted and fined without being given a chance to defend themselves in court.

18 October 2004

KAZAKHSTAN: Protestant teacher's crime: "not hiding my religious beliefs"

The KNB secret police has accused a ballet teacher, Vladislav Polskikh, of "a corruption of [children's] objective interpretation of events and adoption of certain life values", and is investigating him under an under an article of the criminal code which can lead to imprisonment of up to two years. Polskikh told Forum 18 News Service that "my only 'crime' is that of not hiding my religious beliefs" from children or parents. Even though this it is not required by Kazakh law, he told parents in writing that he was a Protestant and gained their specific written consent to "the use of any expressions or images connected with his faith during lessons." The KNB is hostile to Polskikh's church, and only began investigating him after he sued a newspaper which accused him of being a paedophile.

15 October 2004

TURKMENISTAN: Public Prosecutors assault and threaten to rape female Jehovah's Witness

Amid a continuing crackdown on religious minorities, a female Jehovah's Witness, Gulsherin Babakulieva, has been assaulted and threatened with rape by two public prosecutors, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The second prosecutor to threaten rape also said that he would then dress Babakulieva as a suicide bomber, to frame her as a terrorist. Threats of rape have been used against another female Jehovah's Witness, and at least one male Jehovah's Witness prisoner of conscience has been homosexually raped. The persecution of Jehovah's Witneses and other religious minorities continues throughout Turkmenistan.

12 October 2004

KAZAKHSTAN: Do Police and KNB want to catch criminals?

The police and KNB secret police have shown much more interest in the legal missionary activity of a Protestant church, than in apprehending and prosecuting a group of people who on two separate occasions physically attacked the Pastor and church members, punching them, throwing them from a moving lorry, stealing and destroying religious literature, as well as stealing money and a mobile phone. Such attacks are illegal under Kazakh law, but the police and KNB have repeatedly refused to explain to the church, to the chairman of the Association of Religious Organisations of Kazakhstan, and to Forum 18 why they seem more interested in missionaries than criminals.

11 October 2004

CHINA: Xinjiang - Linked religious practice and state control levels?

China maintains few controls on religious life in the mountainous Altai [Altay] region in the far north of Xinjiang, Forum 18 News Service has noted, apparently because there are only low levels of Islamic, Buddhist, Pagan, Orthodox and Pentecostal Christian religious practice among the majority ethnic Kazakhs, as well as among Chinese and most other local minorities. In contrast, Forum 18 has observed strict controls in nearby mosques amongst the Muslim Dungan people, and the visit of a Russian Orthodox priest, Fr Vianor Ivanov, was met by the authorities arresting him, as well as questioning virtually all the several dozen elderly Orthodox believers in the city Fr Ivanov visited, before deporting him.

8 October 2004

UZBEKISTAN: Headscarf ban continuing

A devout Muslim, Nigora Jalilova, is the latest woman to be pressurised by local authorities in Karshi (Qarshi) to stop wearing the hijab, the Islamic headscarf, in public, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The mahalla committee's secretary for women's affairs, Mukarram Kurbanova, questioned Jalilova closely about her religious beliefs and when she became a Muslim, but claims that "I didn't order her, I simply recommended her to dress in a more modern style." This claim is disputed, and pressure on women who wear the hijab continues in Karshi and elsewhere.

4 October 2004

TURKMENISTAN: When will Adventist worship be permitted?

Even though the Seventh Day Adventist Church has gained state registration, Adventists in the capital Ashgabad still cannot meet together for worship, Forum 18 News Service has learnt, and a ceremonial meeting to celebrate the relaunch of the church with legal status was cancelled as officials refused to give permission for the event. The Baptist Church, has still not completed the registration process and has not yet been given an official seal needed to issue legal documents. The only other religious communities to receive registration before the process stopped were the Baha'i and Hare Krishna communities, but other religious communities have got nowhere with their applications. Turkmen officials continue to claim a "liberalisation" of religion policy, but they do not explain continuing police raids and threats, why many religious minority communities who have applied for registration cannot get it, or why some of those with registration cannot meet for worship.

30 September 2004

UZBEKISTAN: Police raiders claim there's "no need" for Christians

In the latest of several attacks on Protestants, Police and National Security Service (NSS) secret police have raided a prayer meeting of the Greater Grace church in Samarkand [Samarqand]. An official claimed to Forum 18 News Service that religious meetings in private homes are illegal. All unregistered religious activity is banned, and those involved face heavy penalties. Begzot Kadyrov, an official of the government's religious affairs committee, denied to Forum 18 that this violates the right to meet freely for worship with fellow believers, as guaranteed under international human rights agreements that Uzbekistan has signed. Several police officers in the raid identified themselves as Muslims, and told the Christians that there is "no need" for any Christians or members of other faiths in Uzbekistan. A Hungarian present, Jozsef Marian, who is married to an Uzbek, was pressured to write a statement, and threats were made that he would be forced to leave Samarkand. 2004 has seen an increase in raids and fines on those involved in unregistered religious activity, especially on Protestants.

22 September 2004

CHINA: Will Orthodox Christians soon be allowed priests?

China's estimated 3,000 scattered Orthodox Christians may soon be able to have their own priests once again. Since 2003, 18 Chinese Orthodox have been studying in Orthodox seminaries in Russia with the permission of China's State Administration of Religious Affairs. "Now they are happy for Chinese to become priests," an Orthodox source from Shanghai told Forum 18 News Service. But Hong Kong-based Russian Orthodox priest Fr Dionisy Pozdnyayev told Forum 18 it has yet to be decided whether these seminarians will be allowed to become priests in China when they complete their theological education. Fr Dionisy can minister only to foreign citizens in Beijing and Shenzhen, but a Russian priest spent two weeks in June ministering to local Orthodox in Harbin with official permission.

20 September 2004

CHINA: Religious freedom in Xinjiang

Religious freedom in China's north-western Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region of north-western China (previously known as Eastern Turkestan), Forum 18 News Service has found, is dominated by pervasive state control. This affects both the indigenous Muslims, who make up about half the local population, and religious minorities. Control is enacted through national-religious committees, part of the administration of every city, which enforce compulsory registration and approve the appointment of all religious leaders. They must come to meetings of such committees. Forum 18 learnt that at such a meeting in Ghulja in August, officials threatened to dismiss a Patriotic Catholic priest if he preached again against abortion. Children under 18 are officially banned from attending places of worship, though Forum 18 observed that this rule is widely ignored. "We believe that children need to finish their education and develop their personalities before they can make an informed decision as to whether they are believers or atheists," an official of Urumqi's national-religious committee told Forum 18. Contact with fellow-believers abroad remains restricted, leaving smaller religious communities isolated.