TURKMENISTAN: "Ilmurad will pray and praise God at Christmas in the labour camp"

Turkmenistan has not released any of its nine known religious prisoners of conscience in its latest prisoner amnesty, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The latest prisoner of conscience sentenced for exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief - Protestant pastor Ilmurad Nurliev, given a four year jail term with forcible "medical" treatment in October – is among those excluded. Among the other prisoners of conscience also excluded is Ahmet Hudaybergenov, a Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector sentenced to one and a half years in September. Pastor Nurliev's wife Maya – who is under MSS secret police surveillance – told Forum 18 that her husband has been sent to Seydi Labour Camp. Previous Baptists and Jehovah's Witness prisoners in the Camp appear to have been tortured with psychotropic [mind-altering] drugs, and a former prisoner of conscience described conditions in the Camp as "like something from the Middle Ages". Maya Nurlieva told Forum 18 that "Ilmurad will pray and praise God at Christmas in the labour camp – he has composed hymns and songs in Turkmen and Russian".

21 December 2010

UZBEKISTAN: Heavy sentences at further mass trial of Muslims

At the end of a two month trial which was closed to human rights defenders, 18 Muslims were given prison terms of between three years three months and nine years accused of membership of a "religious extremist" group, Saidjakhon Zainabitdinov, a human rights defender from Andijan, told Forum 18 News Service. A further seven were given suspended sentences. All 25 were members of Shohidiya, an Islamic religious movement which follows the Koran but not the hadiths, the oral traditions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad's sayings. Court and Prosecutor's Office officials refused to discuss the cases with Forum 18. Meanwhile, Baptists are again asking the Supreme Court to re-examine the ten year sentence handed down on Tohar Haydarov. He is not being given letters sent to him at his labour camp "because they were full of religious words like God, and needed to go through censorship," camp officials told his fellow Baptists. Despite also not being given a Bible sent to him, one camp official told Forum 18: "We have religious freedom in our prison."

20 December 2010

TURKMENISTAN: Will government respond to OSCE call for Religion Law changes?

Nearly three years after Turkmenistan's government declared "reform" to the Religion Law to be a "priority", the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has published a legal review of the current Law criticising many of its provisions for violating international human rights standards. The Review calls for many changes, including an end to the ban on unregistered religious activity and on the private teaching of religion. Officials in the capital Ashgabad refused to discuss whether they will amend the Law in line with the OSCE recommendations. Pirnazar Hudainazarov, Chair of the Mejlis (Parliament) Committee on the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms, refused absolutely to discuss the OSCE review. He referred Forum 18 News Service to the Foreign Ministry, but no-one there was prepared to discuss this. Turkmen citizens have told Forum 18 that they remain sceptical that legal changes will end continuing state violations of freedom of religion or belief, They comment that the actions of officials directly attacking people exercising the internationally recognised right to freedom of religion or belief, and other fundamental human rights, are more important than Turkmenistan's published laws.

16 December 2010

AZERBAIJAN: "You don't need a licence to talk about chess or football, but you do about religion"

More than 15 police officers, as well as journalists with a video camera and a state religious affairs official raided the Saturday morning worship service of the Seventh-day Adventist congregation. Police questioned the ten church members present how much they were paid to be Christians, and two were given heavy fines, Protestants complained to Forum 18 News Service. Police insisted to Forum 18 the meeting had been illegal as the congregation is waiting for registration: "You don't need a licence to talk about chess or football, but you do about religion." Protestants complained about an Interior Ministry press release on the raid which said Adventists represent "a faith prohibited by law". "Adventists have lived in Azerbaijan for more than 100 years and have never been banned," Protestants told Forum 18. Fines for religious activity seem set to rise sharply if proposed amendments are approved in Parliament on 21 December. And a Muslim's legal attempt to recover books confiscated by the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations has been dismissed - despite the confiscations being against the Constitution and law.

14 December 2010

RUSSIA: Orthodox can get Catholic and Lutheran churches – but Catholics and Lutherans can't

Seeking the return of the century-old Holy Family Catholic Church in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad in vain over nearly two decades has been the local parish of the same name, which still worships in a temporary structure. However, the church – as well as former Lutheran churches and several castles – was suddenly handed to the Russian Orthodox, who have never owned them, under two local Laws. Catholic parish priest Fr Aleksandr Krevsky told Forum 18 News Service "there were hopes" earlier for the church's return, but now: "All lies in the hands of the Lord." Handing such property to the Orthodox is "fully justified", Inna Moreva of the Kaliningrad Government insisted to Forum 18. Asked why it was right that property confiscated during the Soviet period from Catholic and Lutherans was handed to another religious community, she responded: "You're not Russian, you won't understand." One Kaliningrad official told Forum 18 anonymously that the decision was unfair. "It was a surprise for us officials as well."

10 December 2010

AZERBAIJAN: Harsher punishments for religious activity "a question of national security"?

Minimum fines for those who conduct religious worship without state approval could rise 15-fold, if proposed amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences now awaiting consideration by Azerbaijan's full parliament are approved. "It's so that they realise the responsibility for their actions," Rabiyat Aslanova, chair of parliament's Human Rights Committee, told Forum 18 News Service. "People are not fined just for praying to God. This is a question of national security." Human rights defenders and religious communities which are regularly penalised under the Code are concerned. A reader of the works of the Muslim theologian Said Nursi told Forum 18 that "we will suffer even more" if these increased fines are approved – "and so will others". Ali Huseynov, chair of parliament's Legal Policy and State Building Committee, told Forum 18 that Azerbaijan will not seek a legal review of the proposed amendments from the Council of Europe. "Why should we? We have our own experts."

8 December 2010

ARMENIA: Growing concern over proposed legislative changes on religion

Human rights defenders and religious communities have harshly criticised proposed amendments to several Laws imposing new restrictions on and punishments for religious activity. The state would conduct a "theological expert examination" before granting registration to religious communities, while those that fail to provide full information about all their activities could be liquidated. Sharing faith is a particular target, with penalties for violations of up to three months' imprisonment. "If adopted, they will create two kinds of citizens in Armenia – those of the Armenian Apostolic Church on one side, and then the rest," Pastor RenÃ© Leonian of the Evangelical Church told Forum 18 News Service. "It is difficult for us to accept in an independent and democratic state that there can be two classes of citizen." The amendments, prepared by the Justice Ministry, only became known when placed on the Council of Europe's Venice Commission website on 30 November. "Such secrecy and silence is unacceptable," Larisa Minasyan of Armenia's Open Society Foundation told Forum 18.

7 December 2010

ARMENIA: 73 religious prisoners, but will proposed amendments help?

As of 1 December, 73 Jehovah's Witness young men were serving prison sentences for refusing military service or military-controlled alternative service on grounds of conscience, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. All but one are serving terms of between two and three years' imprisonment. Six or seven more await trial. Lieutenant-Colonel Sasun Simonyan, Deputy Head of the Defence Ministry's Legal Directorate, told Forum 18 that amendments to the 2003 Law on Alternative Service his Ministry prepared are now with the Justice Ministry for review. He claimed the so-far unpublished amendments would ensure civilian control over alternative service. But he then said the Defence Ministry would be one of three ministries exercising control and if those doing the service commit criminal offences, they would be investigated by the Military Prosecutor's Office. "For the alternative service to be acceptable, there must be zero involvement of the Defence Ministry," Avetik Ishkhanyan, head of the Armenian Helsinki Committee, told Forum 18. "It sounds like this will be a step forward, but may not fully resolve the problem."

3 December 2010

TAJIKISTAN: Why should one small village have three mosques?

Jumokhon Giyosov, Deputy Chair of the Government's Religious Affairs Committee in Dushanbe, has defended the government moves to bring back about 1,700 Tajik students studying Islam abroad, of whom he says 719 have already returned. "We need to bring order to the process of going abroad to study religion," he told Forum 18 News Service. He rejected suggestions that the instructions violated students' right to gain religious education of their choice. Khusravbek Rakamov, Deputy Head of Badakhshan Regional Administration's Religious Affairs Division, defended the enforced closure in November of 32 unregistered Sunni Muslim mosques in his mountainous region. Ten of them are now seeking registration, and Rakamov claimed to Forum 18 that the rest "agreed with us to discontinue their activity". "Why for instance should there be three mosques in Zing village of Darwaz – a small village where only 600 people live?" he asked. Officials told Forum 18 that those continuing to operate unregistered mosques will be punished.

1 December 2010

RUSSIA: City administration considered liquidation of religious community "necessary"

Intensive work by the city administration over many years against the Jehovah's Witness community in Gorno-Altaisk in southern Siberia was revealed by city official Irina Moshkareva in the criminal trial of local Jehovah's Witness leader Aleksandr Kalistratov. Despite a lack of written complaints against the organisation, administrative or criminal convictions or any official warnings to the Jehovah's Witness community, she told the court that she had prepared a January 2008 appeal from Mayor Viktor Oblogin to Altai Republic Supreme Court calling for the activity of the community to be halted and its organisation to be liquidated, a transcript of the hearing seen by Forum 18 News Service reveals. Asked by Kalistratov's defence why the move to halt the community's activity had been initiated, Moshkareva responded: "Because our leadership considered it necessary." No official was prepared to explain to Forum 18 why such a move – which the Altai Republic Supreme Court rejected – was initiated, and why officials then used Russia's 2002 Extremism Law to pursue the same aim.

30 November 2010

RUSSIA: First post-Soviet criminal trial of Jehovah's Witness "ludicrous"

The first post-Soviet criminal trial in Russia of a Jehovah's Witness for sharing beliefs with others – which may conclude as soon as 17 December – is causing increasing alarm, Forum 18 News Service notes. Aleksandr Kalistratov is accused under the Criminal Code's Article 282, which the Prosecutor in defending the trial has described as "amorphous and so does not require concretisation". Mikhail Odintsov of the Office of Russia's Ombudsperson for Human Rights said he had read the charges and attentively listened to the evidence presented by the Public Prosecutor, but had "failed to find a single convincing conclusion". He described the trial's expert analysis as "unscientific" and concluded that relying on it "is fraught with further miscarriages of justice and may prove a detonator of mass violations of human rights". Prosecutors in other regions who have launched similar criminal extremism cases against Jehovah's Witnesses are awaiting the outcome of the Gorno-Altaisk trial before proceeding. Exactly the same extremism-related charges that Kalistratov is facing were used to convict Ilham Islamli, the first reader of the works of the late Muslim theologian Said Nursi to have been convicted under the Criminal Code.

26 November 2010

UZBEKISTAN: Scepticism that any new Administrative Code will end punishments for religious activity

After a mass police raid on a Protestant church in Chirchik near the capital Tashkent, assistant pastor Vladimir Kim was fined 80 times the minimum monthly wage, while the church's pastor received a fine of 40 times, church members complained to Forum 18 News Service. They were fined under the Code of Administrative Offences for "violation of the procedure for holding religious meetings" as they had not informed the authorities that they would be meeting for worship in their registered church building. Some 20 police officers had caught them during a raid, eleven days after the Harvest Festival at another registered Protestant church in the town was broken up and the pastor fined. Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov told parliament that a new Code of Administrative Offences will be prepared, but religious believers told Forum 18 they are sceptical that any new Code will end punishments for religious activity. As well as regular fines, Forum 18 knows of 22 religious believers to have received prison terms of 3 to 15 days under the Code in 2010.