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
15 June 2004
LAOS: The Disturbing Prospect for Religious Freedom
The religious freedom picture in Laos is complex, not least due to non-religious factors such as ethnicity, and the state's opposition to freedom of information. However, it does appear that religious freedom conditions have improved in the last few years. But the central government's political agenda remains fundamentally hostile to religious freedom, despite government claims that religious freedom violations are caused by an alleged inability to control local officials. This hostility as manifested in "isolated" incidents of religious freedom violations – against Protestants, Buddhists, Animists, Baha'is, Muslims and Catholics - seems set to continue.
11 June 2004
UZBEKISTAN: Punished for signing a failed registration application
On 1 June a court in the western town of Navoi found Jehovah's Witness Tatyana Briguntsova guilty of membership of an unregistered religious organisation, solely because she put herself down as a founding member of the community in a failed registration application some years ago. She told Forum 18 News Service that police had never recorded her as attending an unregistered meeting. As unregistered religious activity is illegal in Uzbekistan, in defiance of international agreements, this precedent means that any believer who signs a religious community's registration application that is then rejected could lay themselves open to punishment.
10 June 2004
COMMENTARY: Religious freedom, the best counter to religious extremism
Islamic religious extremism in Uzbekistan – which threatens to spread in Central Asia and elsewhere - is largely the result of government repression and lack of democracy, Azerbaijani scholar and translator of the Koran Nariman Gasimoglu, head of the Center for Religion and Democracy http://addm.az.iatp.net/ana.html in Baku and a former Georgetown University (USA) visiting scholar, argues in this personal commentary for Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org. Extremist Islamist groups, like the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir party, which do not yet enjoy widespread support, have been strengthened by repression while moderate Muslims, Protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses have suffered. The best, if not the only way to counter religious extremism, Gasimoglu maintains, is to open up society to religious freedom for all, democracy, and free discussion – even including Islamist groups. This is the only way, he argues, of depriving Islamic extremism of support by revealing the reality of what extremism in power would mean.
9 June 2004
TAJIKISTAN: Why can't women wear the hijab for internal identity photos?
Although Tajikistan permits Muslim women to wear the hijab, or head and neck scarf, for international passport photos, it normally does not permit this for internal identity documents. Many Muslims think that it is unacceptable for a woman to be photographed without wearing a hijab, so many Muslim women, especially in very devout Muslim areas, do not have an internal identity document. Pulat Nurov, of the government's committee for religious affairs, has told Forum 18 News Service that this insistence on photographs without hijabs has caused problems, but claims that only a "very small percentage" of Muslim women regard this demand as "unacceptable". He also told Forum 18 that his committee has persuaded the police to make exceptions to the general rule in individual cases.
7 June 2004
RUSSIA: No non-Orthodox places of worship wanted in Khabarovsk city centre
An unofficial "red line" bars non-Russian Orthodox from securing places of worship in the centre of the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, Baptists, Pentecostals and Catholics have told Forum 18 News Service. The local authorities "don't let us anywhere near the city centre," Pentecostal pastor Aleksandr Pankratov complained to Forum 18. One local lawyer says no Protestant church has been allocated a plot of land in central Khabarovsk for four years. The Immaculate Conception Catholic parish is even unable to regain its historical church, confiscated in 1933. "Twelve of our elderly parishioners were baptised and made their first communion in that building," parish priest Fr Joseph McCabe told Forum 18. Admitting the existence of this ban, regional religious affairs official Mikhail Svishchev maintained that "every city tries to preserve its historical part".
7 June 2004
RUSSIA: Sakhalin region restrictions on using premises for worship
Jehovah's Witnesses in Sakhalin region are facing an ongoing campaign by the authorities against their right to gather for worship in the region. Following the recent ban on Jehovah's Witness activity in Moscow, one Russian Orthodox priest, Fr Oleg Stenyayev, has suggested a similar ban in Sakhalin region, and that a new Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall be confiscated and given to local Muslims. Sakhalin's vice-governor, Georgi Karlov, responded that "we will probably make use of this splendid advice." Roman Catholics, Baptists and Pentecostals have, in their use of premises for worship, encountered few or no problems from the authorities, but Pentecostals and Jehovah's Witnesses have both had mission events barred from buildings.
4 June 2004
UZBEKISTAN: Authorities now behaving "as badly as usual" after post-bombing crackdown
Mass arrests of religious believers of all faiths, following the March/April terrorist bombs, have now virtually ceased, and Forum 18 News Service has been told by Protestants, Hare Krishna devotees and Jehovah's Witnesses that the authorities are now behaving "as badly as usual". However, over 100 people are still in custody in southern Uzbekistan, apparently for being "faithful Muslims" and several prominent Muslims appear to have been singled out by the authorities for repression in the crackdown.
3 June 2004
TURKMENISTAN: Adventists get state registration, Baha'is may be next
Seventh Day Adventists have confirmed that, on Monday 1 June, they were given state registration, the first religious group to be registered under the new state registration rules, and Baha'is are likely to be confirmed later today (3 June) as the next group to be registered. Other religious groups have expressed cautious optimism that they too may be registered, however, the state registration changes do not affect groups which refuse registration on principle, such as the "initsiativniki" Baptists. Unregistered religious activity remains, against international law, a de facto criminal offence, and it remains unclear how far newly-registered religious groups will be permitted to operate without being persecuted, or without the imposition of the heavy state control imposed on Sunni Muslims and the Russian Orthodox Church, the only groups to be state registered before 1 June.
1 June 2004
RUSSIA: Local restrictions on mission in Khabarovsk region
In the Far Eastern Russian region of Khabarovsk, religious believers can encounter state restrictions in sharing their faith, but to a lesser extent than in neighbouring Sakhalin region, Forum 18 News Service has found. Pentecostals, for example, have told Forum 18 of restrictions on missionary activity beyond the location where their church is registered, whilst Baptists have spoken of having to obtain permission for street evangelism concerts. Interviewed by Forum 18 about access to prisons and hospitals, the regional state religious affairs official commented that religious activity in state institutions is determined by each individual institution, which by now is well aware whether or not the religious representatives coming to them are "sound".
1 June 2004
RUSSIA: Local restrictions on mission in Sakhalin region
Local religious believers in Sakhalin region sometimes face state restrictions on sharing their faith, Forum 18 News Service has found. Pentecostals have been banned from showing the 'Jesus Film', and have also encountered local state bans on open-air evangelism, whilst the Jehovah's Witnesses have faced obstacles in distributing their literature. One official told Forum 18 that unregistered religious groups "can meet in private flats but not attract other people or disturb those around them."
27 May 2004
TAJIKISTAN: Who murdered Baptist missionary Sergei Besarab?
It is not yet certain who killed Baptist pastor Sergei Besarab in Isfara, but reliable sources insist to Forum 18 News Service that a previously unknown Islamist group called Bayat was behind it, a group said to be associated with the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan's Taliban. The authorities state they have arrested a group of Bayat members for the murder and other crimes, but some local Muslim politicians have denied to Forum 18 that Bayat exists. Echoing a local newspaper attack on Besarab just before his murder, Isfara's mayor, interviewed by Forum 18, attacked Besarab's missionary work, referring to his past criminal convictions and alleging that the killing was solely drug-related. The mayor produced no evidence for his allegations and Tajikistan's Baptist Church has firmly refuted them, pointing to the spiritual rebirth Besarab underwent when he became a Christian in prison, and his subsequent active growth in faith. The man thought to have carried out the murder, Saidullo Madyerov, is the son of the former imam of Isfara's central mosque. Isfara is one of the most devoutly Muslim regions of Tajikistan.
27 May 2004
UZBEKISTAN: Will Nukus Medical Institute respect religious freedom or not?
A Nukus medicine lecturer, Alima Urazova, has searched the accommodation of female Protestant students, confiscated Christian literature, and forced the students to move to university accommodation so as to monitor their religious activities. Referring to the Christian literature, Urazova told the students that "It would be better for you to work as prostitutes than to read those dreadful books." The university rector, Oral Ataniyazova, has admitted to Forum 18 News Service that Urazova had no right to do this, and has claimed that students' religious freedom will in future be respected. But before claiming that religious freedom would be respected, Ataniyazova alleged that the students were exploiting their faith to avoid being expelled, telling Forum 18 that "Protestant students have understood that they have the support of western organisations and have begun to take advantage of this." This is not the first attack on Protestants at the university, and attacks on religious freedom continue elsewhere in Uzbekistan.