BELARUS: Who shapes up to new religion law?

In the wake of the restrictive new religion law which came into force last November, despite widespread protests from believers, Forum 18 News Service has discovered that very few educational or monastic communities of the Russian Orthodox and Catholic Churches currently meet the tough new restrictions. Few monastic communities have the required minimum ten members, while no educational institutions have a full teaching staff who know both state languages, Russian and Belarusian. If they want to continue to operate, they must make substantial changes before the re-registration deadline of 16 November 2004.

29 May 2003

UZBEKISTAN: Jehovah's Witnesses face trial and expulsion

Ten days after his home in the village of Yubileiny was raided by police, who confiscated religious literature, Jehovah's Witness Shukhrat Ashurov and his colleague Alisher Argeliyev appeared on 28 May at Gazalkent town court. "According to my sources, at the next hearing Ashurov and Argeliyev will be charged with preaching to children," their lawyer Rustam Satdanov told Forum 18 News Service. "The leaflets were brought to Uzbekistan legally," Ashurov insisted to Forum 18. "As far as I know, there is no ban on the Bible, New Testament and Koran in Uzbekistan." Villagers have demanded that the two abandon the Jehovah's Witness faith and return to Islam, otherwise they will be expelled.

28 May 2003

TURKMENISTAN: Citizenship moves "will not affect Russian Orthodox"?

Officials of the Russian Orthodox Church – the only Christian Church allowed to register in Turkmenistan – have told Forum 18 News Service that the unilateral decision by the Turkmen leader to abolish the right to hold joint Turkmen and Russian citizenship will not affect the functioning of the Church, although membership of the Church is almost entirely made up of ethnic Russians. "There really is a problem with the abolition of dual citizenship," Father Ioan Kopach of Ashgabad's St Aleksandr Nevsky cathedral told Forum 18. "But if people ask us about it, all we can do is shrug our shoulders. It's not a religious issue. I am sure that just as before we will be able to receive religious literature without hindrance and travel to Russia." But one activist Vyacheslav Mamedov says abolition of dual citizenship will "of course" affect Turkmen Orthodox. "It will be more difficult for them to integrate with Orthodox culture and visit places of pilgrimage in their historic homeland."

27 May 2003

RUSSIA: Orthodox becoming first among equals

Without any change in the law or Constitution to provide for them, the steady increase in concordat-style agreements between the Russian Orthodox Church and various organs of state at federal and local level has given the Orthodox Church increased power, Forum 18 News Service reports after a wide-ranging survey. These agreements give the Church special access to institutions such as prisons, the police, the FSB, the army, schools and hospitals, and emphasise Orthodoxy as the legitimate ideology of Russian state tradition. It is open to question whether they violate Russia's international human rights commitments, but in practice these mini-concordats can render illegitimate the social activity of other religious organisations in the state sphere, thus leading to discrimination on religious grounds.

23 May 2003

TURKMENISTAN: Detained Baptists threatened and insulted

Law enforcement officers who broke up the Sunday morning Baptist service in Balkanabad on 11 May forcibly took all those present to the police station, where they threatened and insulted the Baptists, a church statement reaching Forum 18 News Service reported. "What's the point in talking to them, they should be put in a bus and shot!" the Baptists quoted one police officer as telling them. This latest raid on the Balkanabad church came the same day as the Sunday morning Baptist service in Turkmenbashi was raided. "We are not conducting any special campaign against Baptists," Yagshimurat Atamuradov, the country's senior religious affairs official, insisted to Forum 18.

23 May 2003

TAJIKISTAN: Authorities concerned at publicity over Jehovah's Witness fines

Media interest in the case of two Jehovah's Witnesses fined for leading a religious meeting in Tursun-Zade raided by the police has provoked serious concern among the local authorities, Forum 18 News Service has learned. They had hoped the case against them – first reported by Forum 18 on 28 April and picked up by a local television station - would go unremarked by the outside world. "We hope the authorities will not take it out on us because our case has unexpectedly received such wide publicity," one of the two, Sukhrob Maksudov, told Forum 18. The Jehovah's Witnesses expect the Supreme Court to hear their appeal against the sentences in about a month's time.

22 May 2003

KYRGYZSTAN: "Medieval khan" closes mosques

The regional Muslim leader has accused Asan Erinbayev, head of Karadarya district in southern Kyrgyzstan, of "blatantly arbitrary" action in closing six out of nine local mosques. "He behaves like a medieval khan," Dilmurat haji Orozov told Forum 18 News Service from Jalal-abad. He said the Muslim community would be campaigning for the return of the mosques to believers. When Forum 18 visited the district on 9 May, Erinbayev arrived by car within ten minutes and forced Forum 18's car to stop. He made no attempt to deny the closures, but claimed the mosques had been built on state-owned land. "Now that the mosques have been closed, I can monitor the activities of the imams on my territory," he told Forum 18.

20 May 2003

RUSSIA: Supreme Court upholds Bible college closure

Today (20 May) Russia's Supreme Court ruled that the Vladivostok-based charismatic "Faith in Action" Bible College should be closed down for conducting religious education without a state licence. Afterwards, the defence lawyer told Forum 18 News Service that the college's parent church, the Church of the Living God, could now be pressurised by the regional authorities for conducting unlicensed professional education activity.

20 May 2003

UZBEKISTAN: Total state control over Islamic faith

After a major investigation, Forum 18 News Service established that the Muslim clergy is almost completely under the control of the Uzbek authorities, while the leadership of the muftiate's spiritual administration is virtually an agency of state authority. Imams do not have the right to compose the Friday addresses themselves, but are obliged to read out texts approved by the muftiate. During the US-led war in Iraq, imams felt obliged to speak in support of the campaign, despite their own and popular opposition to it. In defiance of the law, the state appoints and removes imams. Students in Islamic colleges are closely monitored for their political reliability. Many mosques have been denied registration and Forum 18 has seen some being used, as in the Soviet period, as clubs, libraries or museums. Ironically, Islam is the faith in Uzbekistan that is most thoroughly controlled by the authorities.

19 May 2003

KAZAKHSTAN: Criminal case for refusing to halt church services

Pastor Sergei Nizhegorodtsev of Georgievka in Eastern Kazakhstan region was told on 12 May that he faces a criminal case for refusing to comply with a court-ordered ban on his church holding services, according to a 13 May statement from local Baptists reaching Forum 18 News Service. The move came two weeks after the church's Easter service was raided. Officials deny they are conducting a campaign against the church. "There is nothing illegal in the actions of the law enforcement agencies," assistant procurator Aset Biisekenov insisted to Forum 18. The launch of the criminal case against the pastor came at the same time as an international religious freedom conference was being held in Almaty to inaugurate the Kazakhstan branch of the International Religious Liberty Association.

15 May 2003

TURKMENISTAN: Threats and fines follow break-up of Baptist Sunday service

Angered by the presence of many children, secret police, police, procuracy and city administration officials broke up the Sunday morning service of a Baptist church on 11 May, held in a private flat in the city of Turkmenbashi. They threatened to confiscate the flat and deprive the parents of their parental rights. One official who participated in the raid has rejected Baptist complaints about the raid and said he expected the Baptists to be fined. "There were no violations of the law in the actions of the authorities," administration official Shanazar Kocheev insisted to Forum 18 News Service. "This was an illegal meeting and we broke it up." The Baptists have called on the procuracy "to defend our constitutional rights to believe in God and to confess our religion".

13 May 2003

AZERBAIJAN: Religious rights groups barred from registering

Six months after lodging its application with the Ministry of Justice for registration as a non-governmental organisation, the Azerbaijani chapter of the International Religious Liberty Association (IRLA) seems no closer to gaining legal status. "We applied to the Ministry of Justice six months ago but as usual it provides us with no reply," secretary-general Ilgar Ibrahimoglu told Forum 18 News Service. He said he and his colleagues intend to consult the head office of the IRLA in the United States and "will probably" challenge the denial of registration through the courts. The head of the registration department of the justice ministry said he "couldn't remember" the IRLA chapter's application. "We get many applications," Fazil Mamedov told Forum 18. At the same time, he insisted there is no ban on registering non-governmental organisations that campaign for religious freedom.