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
1 December 2004
BELARUS: Fate of unregistered religious communities still uncertain
The State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs has claimed that "over 99 per cent" of religious communities have re-registered under the repressive 2002 religion law, but some have undergone what the State Committee calls "self-liquidation". Forum 18 News Service notes that re-registered religious organisations have also essentially agreed to abide by harsh restrictions, such as one rejected by Baptists in Brest who do not agree with Article 14 of the law, which restricts a religious organisation to only functioning where it is registered. A charismatic church has received an official refusal as its premises have not been approved by the emergency services. One Messianic Jewish community told Forum 18 that city authorities are disputing its right to rent premises, claiming that rental of the premises concerned is prohibited. Religious groups can be liquidated if a public event they organise causes any harm to the "public interest", even alleged disruption to public transport. Non-Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox churches were effectively banned from re-registering.
29 November 2004
RUSSIA: Governor links Jehovah's Witnesses and Islamic militants as "destructive cults"
Stavropol regional governor Aleksandr Chernogorov has linked Jehovah's Witnesses and Islamic militants as "destructive cults" at a major local conference on "Totalitarian Sects – the Path to the Destabilisation of the North Caucasus". Chernogorov maintained that "Wahhabism" and "Jehovism" [a Soviet-era term for the Jehovah's Witnesses' faith] had infiltrated into southern Russia and were now "attacking those confessions which provide the foundation of civil peace" – Orthodoxy and "traditional" Islam. Jehovah's Witnesses "think that this might be the beginning of something," local Jehovah's Witness representative Ivan Borshchevsky has told Forum 18 News Service. Recently, Jehovah's Witnesses have had increasing difficulties with the authorities. The Stavropol regional religious affairs official has declined to discuss these matters with Forum 18.
25 November 2004
BELARUS: Inconsistent response to illegal religious activity
Against international law, Belarusian law states that unregistered religious activity is illegal and so unregistered religious communities are liable to be prosecuted. But Forum 18 News Service has found that the authorities' practice is inconsistent. Baptist congregations who refuse on principle to register have their worship meetings obstructed, but a Pentecostal Pastor, previously fined for leading an unregistered church, has not experienced recent problems. Most of those unable to obtain state registration are Orthodox communities outside the Belarusian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), and these churches have been treated in strongly contrasting ways. A small Buddhist group has obtained a "compromise status," but a Hare Krishna group was refused registration. Jewish communities received re-registration, and the small Islamic communities which did not receive re-registration were amalgamated with re-registered Muslim organisations.
25 November 2004
CHINA: "Religious distortion" and religious freedom
"Religious distortion," or religious teachings and activities differing from the mainstream, affect every aspect of Chinese religious life, Forum 18 News Service notes. The effects of religious distortion, in which the state plays the dominant role, include the uniquely Chinese phenomenon of female imams, state interference in Buddhist recognition of leaders believed to be reincarnated, state classification of some Catholic masses as "illegal" and "unorthodox," attempts to introduce radical changes in Protestant Christian doctrines and the removal of academic theologians who disagree. Not all the effects of religious distortion are thought by Chinese religious believers to be negative, but it has also encouraged the growth of groups harmful to Chinese society, such as Eastern Lightning. Increasing numbers of experts and advocates suggest that religious freedom pressure should focus on pressing the communist regime to observe its own growing body of laws and regulations, but it may be even more urgent to press the state to recognize and clarify the contradictions in its religious policy.
23 November 2004
RUSSIA: Mixed visa fortunes for foreign Catholic clergy
The visa situation for foreign Catholic clergy in Russia is mixed, Forum 18 News Service has found, with the length of visas granted varying from region to region. Some regions have a positive attitude to Catholic clergy, with others having a decidedly negative attitude, head of the Catholic Church in Russia Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz citing differing visa restrictions as being among the main problems faced by Catholic clergy in Russia. Foreign clergy are important for the Catholic Church in Russia, as there are only a relatively small number of ordained Russian nationals. This is because only two Catholic parishes and no seminaries were allowed to function in Soviet times. Priests in different regions have told Forum 18 that what they describe as "the human factor," rather than the law, is important in determining the length of visa they receive. None of the seven Catholic clergy denied entry to Russia since the beginning of 2001 have been able to return, but no more have been expelled.
23 November 2004
UZBEKISTAN: Varying availability of adult religious education
The availability of religious education for Uzbek religious believers varies greatly from faith to faith, Forum 18 news Service has found. For Sunni Islam, the majority faith, religious education is available, but on a very small and highly regulated scale, compared to the numbers of adherents in the country. Shia Islamic education is restricted by the authorities' unwillingness to formally recognise the training of imams outside the country – and no education for Shia imams is available inside the country. Non-Muslim religious communities generally have more opportunities to acquire religious education in their own faith. Orthodox Christians, Baptists, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Hare Krishna devotees have all told Forum 18 that the authorities do not prevent them from setting up courses on religious subjects, and Catholics and Lutherans do not yet want to set up such courses. But the authorities have not allowed the Jewish community to set up a rabbinnate, and hence a yeshiva to train rabbis.
22 November 2004
TURKMENISTAN: Why did Turkmenistan lie to the UN?
In a failed bid to head off a United Nations (UN) resolution, sponsored by the European Union and the USA, and supported by Brazil, expressing grave concern at Turkmenistan's human rights record, Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov has falsely claimed that there were "no cases of arrest or conviction on political grounds or for religious beliefs". Three religious prisoners are known to Forum 18 News Service to be held, and arrests continue to be made. On the day of the debate he claimed that there was "no truth to the allegations of limits on the rights to belief, conscience or religion," despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and the UN's two previous resolutions critical of the country's human rights record. Turkmen officials and President Niyazov have a record of making such false claims, but the country's diplomats have refused to discuss the issue of false claims with Forum 18. Countries speaking in support of Turkmenistan in the debate were Algeria, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Singapore, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.
22 November 2004
AZERBAIJAN: Police raid Adventist service, fine and threaten leader, connive at hostile TV interviews of children
While a Council of Europe delegation was examining whether Azerbaijan meets human rights commitments, police in the country's second city, Gyanja [Gäncä], raided a worship service being held by a registered Adventist congregation, arrested and interrogated two leaders, fining and threatening one with deportation, and connived at a local TV crew conducting hostile interviews with children against the protests of their parents. Interviewed by Forum 18 News Service, Firdovsi Kerimov, local representative of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations, who took part in the interrogations and TV interviews, claimed that he defends the rights of believers, "but only if they act in accordance with the law" and insisted that "everything was done in accordance with the law." The Azeri ban on foreigners conducting "religious propaganda" violates international human rights law, which does not distinguish between anyone legally resident in a country.
18 November 2004
RUSSIA: Pressure on Tatarstan Protestants
The head of the FSB security service in Aznakayevo, a town in mainly Muslim-populated Tatarstan, has strongly denied to Forum 18 News Service that his officers have tried to expel Rafis Nabiullin, the pastor of a small Evangelical church, from the town. "We have made no threats to drive Nabiullin out," the FSB officer told Forum 18. Pastor Nabiullin told Forum 18 that an FSB officer had visited his flat, and "told me he had come 'unofficially', but that the FSB authorities in the town didn't want us there and intended to drive us out." Nabiullin commented that "it seems to have been a private initiative." Other Protestants have told Forum 18 that such pressure is widespread in Tatarstan, Nabiullin telling Forum 18 that "the authorities are Muslim and don't want Christianity, though they can tolerate Orthodoxy. They want to stop our activity."
17 November 2004
UZBEKISTAN: Criminal prosecutions and threats "just a coincidence"?
An unusual surge of criminal prosecutions of religious minorities – Pentecostal Christians including one punished with a massive fine, and a Jehovah's Witness – and threats of criminal charges against a Baptist Pastor is, the head of the state committee for religious affairs has told Forum 18 News Service, "just a coincidence." The "crime" of the Jehovah's Witness, Dilshod Akhmedov, was to give a copy of The Watchtower to a passer-by on a Tashkent street. Literature, including an Uzbek Bible, confiscated from Pentecostal Bakhrom Nazarov was burnt by the authorities. Baptist Pastor Nikolai Shevchenko suggested to Forum 18 that, as this took place at the same time as an official US delegation was visiting, the government is trying to "demonstrate that it is not afraid of pressure from the international community and that it does not intend to observe international standards on the rights of believers." The last known criminal prosecution of a religious minority member was in 2002.
17 November 2004
BELARUS: Most - but not all - communities re-registered
Most religious communities denied state re-registration are Protestant, Forum 18 News Service has found. But before the deadline (Tuesday 16 November) for obligatory state re-registration under Belarus' restrictive 2002 religion law, most religious confessions – such as the Catholic, Old Believer, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Adventist, Islamic, Jewish, and Jehovah's Witness communities - told Forum 18 that most of their applications were largely successful. Registration by most non-Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox churches was effectively barred, and some other religious communities are still re-registering. Stressing that registration does not guarantee freedom of worship, one Protestant source in 2003 suggested to Forum 18 that this would happen: "They can reassure the West by saying, 'Just look how many organisations we have re-registered'." Aleksandr Kalinov of the State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs told Forum 18 that "96.2 per cent" had successfully re-registered, but that religious organisations which failed to re-register would be liquidated following the deadline.
15 November 2004
UZBEKISTAN: Are human rights activists agents-provocateurs?
Edgar Turulbekov, a Muslim human rights activist, has been jailed for organising a demonstration in front of a court in support of imam Rustam Klichev, sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment, and other Muslim prisoners. Another Muslim human rights activist, Tulkin Karayev, has told Forum 18 News Service that he too fears arrest. Local police chief Colonel Safar Sarmonov told Forum 18 that Turulbekov and Karayev are "blackmailers". "I do not believe these people are human rights activists," Sarmonov said, telling Forum 18 that "they are simply agents-provocateurs who push people into illegal activities instead of helping them." Members of Uzbekistan's minority faiths - such as Protestants or Jehovah's Witnesses - have generally not engaged in street demonstrations when their fellow-believers have been detained, beaten or imprisoned. However, lawyers who have defended their rights in court have faced harassment.