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TAJIKISTAN: Jehovah's Witnesses banned

Tajikistan's Jehovah Witnesses have been banned throughout the entire country, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Culture Ministry officials handed the community a banning order stripping it of legal status and "just said we were banned and should stop all our activity. They didn't say much," Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18. Commenting on the ban, which Forum 18 has seen, a Culture Ministry official stated that the authorities' main complaint was that Jehovah's Witnesses refuse military service. "There is no alternative service in Tajikistan yet, so everyone ought to obey Tajik laws," he told Forum 18. The official then added that they also propagate their faith in public places, "which directly contradicts the Law". The ban follows a check-up by Prosecutor's Office and Religious Affairs officials on all Tajik religious communities. It is not known if the ban is related to the check-up, which resulted in some mosques being closed. Jehovah's Witnesses intend to appeal against the ban.

UZBEKISTAN: Police still hunt "wanted" Protestant

Uzbekistan is still engaged in a nationwide manhunt for a "wanted" Protestant Christian, Makset Djabbarbergenov, police have told Forum 18 News Service. Asked why Djabbarbergenov is being hunted, a police officer stated that: "He gathers people in his home for religious activity. Let him believe on his own, but this is agitation and he shouldn't do it," the officer complained. "He doesn't have permission. He must have an official religious community to be able to do it." Asked why religious believers are not allowed to practice their faith freely he responded: "That's the law." A "wanted" poster issued nationwide states that "If the whereabouts of M. Djabbarbergenov are established I ask you to detain him and inform our office. We will send an escort immediately." Religious believers continue to be fined for unregistered religious activity, the latest known case being a group of five Seventh-day Adventists fined about two weeks wages for "unlawful" religious activity.

TAJIKISTAN: Authorities demolish mosques, synagogue and churches under threat

As the Muslim holy month of Ramadan continues, Tajikistan has admitted to demolishing mosques in the capital Dushanbe. "Those places weren't registered at the Ministry of Justice as mosques and they spoiled the architecture of the city," an official of the state Religious Affairs Department told Forum 18 News Service. Haji Nematullo Ahmadzod, the assistant to the imam at one of the demolished mosques, told Forum 18 that a group from the mosque went to Vasif Rustamov, the head of the city administration, to complain, but he refused to receive anyone about the issue. Ahmadzod said the community wants to take their complaint further "but no-one is willing to receive them". A Jewish synagogue in the city remains under threat of demolition, and fears have been expressed within the country that some Christian churches are also under threat. Payam Foroughi of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) expressed concern about the demolitions. "Individuals have the right to gather with their co-believers to worship where and when they choose, all within a reasonable manner," he told Forum 18.

TURKMENISTAN: Four prisoners amnestied, one to be deported?

Four of the six religious prisoners of conscience in Turkmenistan have been amnestied, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. However, one of the four – Baptist pastor Vyacheslav Kalataevsky - remains in custody and may be deported. "We're worried as there is only a small hope that he will be allowed to stay here," members of Kalataevsky's family told Forum 18. "The family and the Church want him to stay – and he wants to stay." They say the Ukrainian embassy has also appealed to the Turkmen authorities for Kalataevsky – a Ukrainian citizen - to be allowed to remain with his family in Turkmenistan. The three other amnestied religious prisoners are all Jehovah's Witnesses who were serving suspended sentences for refusing compulsory military service on grounds of religious conscience. But not freed under amnesty were Jehovah's Witnesses Bayram Ashirgeldyyev and Begench Shakhmuradov. They are respectively serving 18 month and two year suspended sentences, which place limitations on their activities.

UZBEKISTAN: Police deny knifepoint threat to Protestant

Police officer Djamshid Klychev from Jarkurgan near Termez has denied that a member of the Surkhandarya Protestant Church, who signed a statement accusing his own church leaders, was forced to do so at knifepoint. "What are you talking about?" he told Forum 18 News Service. "You should not mention things like that." Protestants have told Forum 18 that other church members detained when police raided a birthday party on 11 September were beaten in police custody. Klychev accused them of being "traitors" and threatened to break the legs of one if he returned to the town. Asked why the police detained and questioned them, Klychev told Forum 18: "They had a lot of religious books, which is illegal." Meanwhile, Tashkent's Economic Court has annulled the 1999 purchase of a former cinema by the city's Grace Presbyterian Church. "In the acquisition and maintenance of this church property, no laws were violated," church leaders insisted to Forum 18. "It seems as though there are people that desire to take away the property for other reasons and are trying to manufacture reasons to do so." The church also faces a Tax Police investigation and a threat to its legal status, without which it cannot conduct any legal activity.

KAZAKHSTAN: "The secret police's persecution by proxy"

Members of the Grace Presbyterian Church in the north-eastern town of Karaganda – who have already faced the police, the KNB secret police, the Prosecutor's Office and the Sanitary-Epidemiological Service – now face intrusive questioning from the Tax Police. Among the questions are why they go to the church and not to the mosque. Members of the Hare Krishna commune near Almaty in the south equally face relentless pressure from a succession of different government agencies in a bid to crush their activity. Migration Police raided the commune on 20 September checking the documents of all those present at an important religious festival. "This is the KNB secret police's persecution by proxy," one observer familiar with both cases, who preferred not to be identified, told Forum 18 News Service. But Amanbek Mukhashev of the government's Religious Affairs Committee claimed to an OSCE conference in Warsaw on 26 September that "freedom of belief and freedom to express religious beliefs have become one of the leitmotivs in the work of Kazakhstan's state and local organs of power".

UZBEKISTAN: No sermons, children or cars at Ramadan night prayers

New instructions have been issued by the state-controlled Muftiate over how the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began in Uzbekistan on 13 September, is to be observed. Imams have been banned from preaching at night prayers, which must end by 10 pm, with the imam confirming this each night to the regional leader, Mukbil Toshotarov reported from Namangan for the website ferghana.ru. Children are banned from attending night prayers. Saidbahrom Gulyamov of the International Department at the Muftiate categorically denied this to Forum 18 News Service, though he conceded that "suggestions" were issued. He declined to discuss who had decided to initiate the instructions. Religious affairs officials in the Fergana Valley – where restrictions are tightest – issued blanket denials of such restrictions to Forum 18. Tashkent-based opposition activist Vasila Inoyatova told Forum 18 the government is behind the instructions. "They fear that religious people will gather at the fast-breaking meal [after sunset]."

UZBEKISTAN: "Legal" repression of Protestants and Muslims continues

As restrictions on Muslim prayers in the month of Ramadan are stepped up, Protestants in Uzbekistan are coming under continued repression Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Amongst the most recent attacks on freedom of thought, conscience and belief are: a suspended jail sentence imposed on Sharofat Allamova after police confiscated Christian literature from her; a Protestant pastor, Pastor Khyn-Mun Kim, being fined about one year's average salary for "illegal" religious activity, as well as a fine being imposed on a colleague, Me Vol Kim; and continuing state efforts to close down the Grace Presbyterian Church and confiscate its building. Twelve Protestants also face charges under the Administrative Code, after they "illegally" met for worship and police confiscated Christian literature from them. Asked by Forum 18 why religious believers face raids and punishment for meeting for worship, Klara Alasheva, Karakalpakstan's First Deputy Justice Minister, completely denied that any religious communities face difficulties.

TURKMENISTAN: Fifth Jehovah's Witness sentenced in three months

Jehovah's Witness Begench Shakhmuradov has rejected the two year suspended sentence handed down yesterday (12 September) by an Ashgabad court for his refusal to perform compulsory military service. "I believe I have the right to freedom of thought and religion and the court should have respected this," he told Forum 18. Shakhmuradov does not yet know the conditions to be imposed on him, but he is likely to have to report regularly to the police and to need permission to leave Ashgabad. Suleiman Udaev, one of the four other Jehovah's Witnesses sentenced in the past three months, has had his 18-month prison term commuted to a two-year suspended sentence with compulsory labour and was allowed home on 12 September. Meanwhile, the wife of imprisoned Baptist pastor Vyacheslav Kalataevsky told Forum 18 she does not know if he will be included in October's mass prisoner amnesty. Nurmukhamed Gurbanov of the government's Religious Affairs Committee refused to discuss any of these cases with Forum 18.

KAZAKHSTAN: Treason charges against Grace Church leaders?

Four members of the Grace Presbyterian Church – including its leader Igor Kim - are being investigated on treason charges which the National Security Committee (KNB) secret police have refused to explain to Forum 18 News Service. KNB officers in Karaganda told Forum 18 that the cases are being handled from the capital Astana, but no-one at the national KNB would talk to Forum 18. Church members are still being summoned for questioning. Pastor Vyacheslav Vorobyov of the church in Karaganda told Forum 18 that 12 church members began a hunger strike on 7 September to protest against the raids and investigations. He said the tax authorities are checking up on many of their 250 congregations across Kazakhstan, while computers and documents confiscated in 24 August raids have not been returned. Amanbek Mukhashev of the Justice Ministry's Religious Affairs Committee refused to answer Forum 18's questions by telephone. Kazakhstan's Human Rights Ombudsperson Bolat Baikadamov told Forum 18 that he has asked the KNB about the case.

UZBEKISTAN: Spies and videotape

As well as overtly cracking down on religious activity the authorities do not like, Uzbekistan's National Security Service (NSS) secret police has stepped up its covert surveillance of religious communities in recent years. Members of a variety of religious communities have told Forum 18 News Service of hidden microphones in places of worship, the presence of NSS agents during worship and the recruitment of spies within communities. NSS agents "have a vehicle with tinted windows, and ten minutes before the end of the service they wind down the window enough to allow them to film everyone leaving," one Christian reported. "The NSS especially tries to recruit among the leaders, trying to find out how what's going on within each community, who is going where, how much money each gets, where the community gets its money from," another source told Forum 18. "As in Soviet times the secret police want to know," a third source told Forum 18, "not just to smash religious communities but simply to know." NSS press spokesperson Olimjan Turakulov refused to tell Forum 18 why the NSS spies on religious communities.

TURKMENISTAN: Fifth conscientious objector to be prosecuted?

Begench Shakhmuradov could become the fifth Jehovah's Witness to be sentenced this summer for refusing compulsory military service on grounds of religious conscience. "He was called up in May and the military commission deemed him fit for service although he still suffers from tuberculosis he contracted in prison while serving an earlier sentence for refusing military service," Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service from Ashgabad. His case is with the Prosecutor's Office. Shirin Akhmedova, head of the government's National Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, put the phone down as soon as Forum 18 asked why religious believers are still being prosecuted. A planned 24-hour family visit with imprisoned Baptist Vyacheslav Kalataevsky was cut without explanation to just 40 minutes, his family complained to Forum 18. "Of course we all cried and were all upset," his family told Forum 18. Meanwhile, Merdan Shirmedov, a Protestant from Dashoguz banned from leaving Turkmenistan since January, has been able to leave to rejoin his wife and their daughter he had never seen.