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
8 December 2004
AZERBAIJAN: "We don't need Baptists here," shouts obstructive official
"We don't need any Baptists here," Najiba Mamedova, the notary of Azerbaijan's north-western Zakatala [Zaqatala] region shouted at Forum 18 News Service, asked why she has for more than a year refused to notarise the signatures on the registration application of a local Baptist congregation. "We don't want a second Karabakh," Najiba Mamedova screamed, adding "Who financed you? Go to them," before throwing Forum 18 out of her office and threatening to call the police. The church's pastor, Hamid Shabanov, told Forum 18 that "She always spoke to us like that." The church began applying for registration in 1994, making it the religious community which has been denied registration in Azerbaijan for the longest period. The head of the Aliabad administration, Gasim Orujov, has refused to allow the Baptists to build a church in the village. "There is Islam here and we have our mosque," he told Forum 18.
7 December 2004
RUSSIA: Southern Protestants' mixed fortunes
Protestants in the southern Krasnodar and Stavropol regions have all told Forum 18 News Service that their situation has improved since the 1990s, but several church leaders reported local obstructions in obtaining and using property for worship, similar to the problems faced by a local Christian university in conducting religious education. In early 2004, President Vladimir Putin's then representative in southern Russia praised Protestant social initiatives - especially alcoholism and drug addiction rehabilitation programmes - and one church leader told Forum 18 that his churches encounter no substantial state opposition to their activity. Cossack influence in southern Russia appears to be waning, after sometimes violent attacks in against Protestants during the 1990s. Local leaders of the (Nestorian) Assyrian Church of the East, Mountain Jews, and Yasin Muslims also reported variations in state policy towards their attempts to secure worship premises and provide religious education.
3 December 2004
UZBEKISTAN: Why were some Tabligh members given lesser jail terms than others?
Six month jail sentences imposed on Muslim Tabligh members were less then the five year jail terms imposed on group members earlier in the year by the same judge, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. This is possibly, a local human rights activist suggested to Forum 18, as a result of the court being visited the previous day by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. The Tabligh Jama'at movement has been, outside of Uzbekistan, linked with radical Islamists and with Al-Qaeda. But local Uzbek Tabligh members told Forum 18 that the Tabligh emphatically distances itself from politics and is entirely focused on religious missionary work, insisting that they had heard nothing about military training in some foreign affiliates. The Uzbek authorities are highly suspicious of Islamic religious movements and frequently seek to obstruct their activity. However, Tabligh members told Forum 18 that they can freely operate in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. A Kyrgyz government official agreed with this, but told Forum 18 that "so far at least, its activity in the country is minimal."
2 December 2004
AZERBAIJAN: Police disperse and harass academic religion researchers
Azeri authorities have repeatedly broken up meetings of a local academic research group investigating the state of religious freedom across the country, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Project leader Hikmet Hajizade told Forum 18 that "we wanted about eight people in each group, but even such a small group was not allowed to meet – the police often drove us out of town." Police told FAR Centre researcher Haji Hajili that "they had received instructions to drive us out and said it would be better if we left peacefully of our own accord." The researchers faced such problems as the cancellation of premises' availability, police breaking up meetings, obtrusive eavesdropping by police informers, widespread fear of the authorities' reaction amongst local participants, police surveillance of participants' homes, some Muslim participants accusing researchers of working with "enemies of Islam" and then calling police to meetings, as well as threatening other participants.
1 December 2004
AZERBAIJAN: The boy who (officially) doesn't exist
18-month-old Luka Eyvazov does not officially exist, Forum 18 News Service has found, because local authorities refuse to issue birth certificates for children with Christian names. "We have letters from village residents and 98 per cent are opposed to registering Christian names," local registration official Aybeniz Kalashova told Forum 18. Mehman Soltanov of the Justice Ministry asked Forum 18 "why did they choose a religious name?" and then speculated that it was not Luka's parents who chose his name but "some religious sect". Luka's father, Novruz Eyvazov, insists that children are from God and told Forum 18 that "We went many times to ask what basis they had to interfere in our family life. They indicated there was pressure on them from on high. When they told me to choose the name of a famous Azerbaijani poet or writer instead," he told Forum 18, "I responded that Luke, as one of the Gospel-writers, will still be famous when all the poets and writers are long forgotten." This is the latest of case of official refusal to register Christian names. Without birth certificates, people cannot go to kindergarten or to school, get treatment in a hospital or travel abroad.
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.