The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
10 December 2021
KYRGYZSTAN: Second UN finding over registration denials
The UN Human Rights Committee has again found that the authorities violated the rights of Jehovah's Witnesses by arbitrarily refusing their communities in Naryn, Osh and Jalal-Abad state registration. The State Commission for Religious Affairs must review the denials, provide "adequate compensation", "take all steps necessary to prevent similar violations from occurring", and inform the UN of what it has done within 180 days. The SCRA ignored a similar 2019 UN decision. Deputy Director Gulnaz Isayeva refused to say why it continues to deny these Jehovah's Witness registration applications, and whether Ahmadi Muslims, who were earlier told they could not register, would succeed in any new application.
7 December 2021
RUSSIA: Jailed, awaiting appeal, deported, post-prison restrictions - list
Of 54 people given jail sentences on "extremism" charges for exercising freedom of religion or belief, 20 are serving their sentences in prison, 12 awaiting appeal, 2 were deported after completing their jail term and 16 have been released from prison but remain under restrictions or supervision. Two who have completed their jail terms have left Russia and are therefore no longer subject to the post-prison restrictions. Two left Russia before conviction. Post-prison restrictions on 46-year-old prisoner of conscience Aleksey Berchuk are due to end on 27 November 2038, when he would be 63.
3 December 2021
KAZAKHSTAN: Tighter event restrictions back in Parliament's lower house
On 2 December, the upper house of Parliament approved in revised form amendments to the Religion Law to make holding religious events away from state-registered places of worship more difficult. The amendments now return to the lower house. The Senate narrowed the type of events that would need to undergo the burdensome process of seeking special official permission in advance. A legal specialist questions whether ordinary police officers would know that the new requirements – if adopted – would not apply to religious communities meeting in rented premises. "Much will depend on the instructions of religious affairs authorities and the discretion of local or national officials," the legal specialist told Forum 18.
30 November 2021
KYRGYZSTAN: Jehovah's Witness book ban in court, criminal case, secret police ban request
Jehovah's Witness teaching "is contradictory and oriented towards people who don't know the fundamentals of religion and the Bible" and based on "the personal views of the founders of the organisation who misinterpret the Bible", NSC secret police chief Kamchybek Tashiyev claimed to the General Prosecutor in July. He called for their literature to be banned and a ban on the entire organisation to be considered (while the NSC continues a criminal case). Without informing Jehovah's Witnesses, the General Prosecutor's Office lodged a suit to Bishkek's Pervomaisky District Court for 13 books and 6 videos to be declared "extremist". The case is due to resume in court on Thursday morning (2 December).
26 November 2021
UZBEKISTAN: Religious freedom survey, November 2021
Freedom of religion and belief, with interlinked freedoms of expression, association, and assembly, remains severely restricted in Uzbekistan. Forum 18's survey analysis documents violations including: jailing and torturing prisoners of conscience whose only crime is to exercise their freedom of religion and belief; banning education and worship meetings without state permission; complete state control of all expressions of Islam; and religious literature censorship and destruction.
23 November 2021
RUSSIA: "I would like to believe" acquittal "is first of many"
For the first time since the Supreme Court ban on Jehovah's Witnesses as "extremist" in 2017, a Vladivostok court yesterday (22 November) issued an acquittal. Dmitry Barmakin walked free after the Judge cited 28 October Supreme Court amendments which direct judges to ascertain a defendant's "specific actions", their motivation, and "the significance [of these actions] for the continuation or resumption of [a banned organisation]'s activities", rather than rely on generalised claims. The prosecutor could appeal against the acquittal. A 63-year-old teacher Nakiya Sharifullina risks being jailed if Tatarstan's Supreme Court on 17 December upholds the prosecutor's appeal against her suspended sentence for allegedly organising a "madrassah".
19 November 2021
RUSSIA: "Prior conspiracy" leads to eight-year jail terms
Courts have jailed four Jehovah's Witnesses for eight years each so far in 2021 for exercising freedom of religion or belief, one in Blagoveshchensk and three in Astrakhan, equalling the term a Dagestan court handed to Muslim Ilgar Aliyev in 2018. Courts gave other Jehovah's Witnesses shorter jail terms. In Astrakhan, the judge cited as an aggravating circumstance "the commission of a crime as part of a group of persons, by prior conspiracy". Astrakhan Region Prosecutor's Office did not reply as to why prosecutors requested such long jail sentences, and why meeting for prayer and Bible reading should be treated as a criminal offence.
12 November 2021
BELARUS: "We, political prisoners, were not allowed to attend clubs, the church .."
Prison officials finally allowed Catholic political prisoner Mikita Yemialyianau a pastoral visit on 3 November. He had just ended a three-week hunger strike in protest at the denial of a clergy visit since his transfer to Mogilev prison in 2020. Prison officials prevented him from renewing a subscription to a Catholic newspaper. Prison officials finally allowed Orthodox Christian Yelena Movshuk a clergy visit in October, her first since her August 2020 arrest. Prison officials prevented her attending a worship meeting in August 2021. "We, political prisoners, were not allowed to attend clubs, the church, the gym or places of study," a political prisoner freed in September declared.
5 November 2021
AZERBAIJAN: Alternative service "not under discussion" despite latest ECtHR decision
Despite another European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decision that Azerbaijan violated the human rights of two more conscientious objectors, Saadat Novruzova of the Presidential Administration's Human Rights Protection Unit told Forum 18 that changing the law to introduce a civilian alternative to compulsory military service "is not under discussion". Azerbaijan committed to the Council of Europe to introduce an alternative service by January 2003. The 7 October ECtHR decision reminded Azerbaijan of a similar earlier decision that "calls in principle for legislative action" to satisfy "the obligations incumbent on it of assuring .. the right to benefit from the right to conscientious objection".
29 October 2021
CRIMEA: Four already jailed, 12 more to follow?
A Sevastopol court jailed 49-year-old Jehovah's Witness Igor Schmidt for six years on "extremism"-related charges to be followed by a six-year ban on specific activities although the prosecution presented no victims of any wrongdoing in court. Schmidt is the fourth Crimean Jehovah's Witness handed a long jail term. Another is on trial in Kerch and at least 11 more face criminal cases. The widow of a man shot dead by Russian forces in disputed circumstances in May has lost her appeal against the denial of release of the body for an Islamic burial.
21 October 2021
RUSSIA: "Unjustified, unmotivated cruelty against peaceful, unresisting believers"
Jehovah's Witnesses continue to be tortured, and Russia is not following its UN Convention against Torture obligations to punish the perpetrators. After one victim complained, they were amazed "that it was the very same investigator [assigned to the complaint] as is conducting the criminal case [against the other Jehovah's Witnesses]." Officials have repeatedly responded to Forum 18's enquiries by either not answering its questions, or asserting that no torture took place or that a case has not been opened against the suspect torturers.
20 October 2021
UZBEKISTAN: Jailed for learning to pray and discussing Islam
Four Muslim men jailed for up to six years in a labour camp after meeting together to learn how to pray, to discuss Islamic topics such as prayer, fasting, peaceful jihad, good deeds and other matters, and to attend a mosque. This is the latest known case where Muslim men who met to pray and discuss their faith have been jailed with the use of a police agent provocateur.