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
20 March 2003
KAZAKHSTAN: Fines on unregistered religious communities stepped up
A series of raids on Baptist churches that refuse on principle to register with the authorities and fines imposed on their leaders under the administrative code have highlighted continuing attempts by local officials to punish unregistered religious activity, although Kazakhstan's religion law does not make unregistered activity illegal. Jehovah's Witnesses – who do not refuse registration - report that they have seen 28 administrative cases over the past year against communities that have been denied registration on various pretexts. Ninel Fokina of the Almaty Helsinki Committee told Forum 18 News Service that the religion law has greater weight than Article 375 of the administrative code – under which the fines have been imposed - and therefore officials have no right to "persecute" believers for refusing to register a religious community.
19 March 2003
AZERBAIJAN: Baptist warned not to hold home meetings
Anzor Katsiashvili, a Baptist in Belokani in north western Azerbaijan, was summoned by the local procurator on 13 and 14 March and warned not to hold religious meetings in his home. "He told me I don't have the right to preach as I'm not an Azerbaijani citizen," Katsiashvili told Forum 18 News Service. "At the same time I've been denied citizenship for the past few years because I preach. It's a vicious circle." However, Ilham Babayev, head of the local passport department, denied that his office had obstructed Katsiashvili's application for Azerbaijani citizenship and local registration. "As soon as he comes in we'll give it to him – tomorrow if necessary," he told Forum 18. Katsiashvili rejects the procurator's claim that he cannot gather fellow believers for religious meetings: "I believe I have the right to preach God's word in my own home."
19 March 2003
UZBEKISTAN: Long sentences for five Tashkent Muslims
Five Muslim men in their twenties and thirties have been sentenced in Tashkent to long periods of imprisonment on charges relating to what the authorities allege was their membership of the banned Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which aims to establish an Islamic state in Central Asia. The men maintained they were simply ordinary Muslims seeking to study their faith. "The accused did indeed know members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, but they themselves were not engaged in political activity," Ismail Adylov of the Independent Human Rights Organisation of Uzbekistan told Forum 18 News Service. "They were simply trying to gain a more profound knowledge of Islam." Thousands of Muslims are serving sentences in Uzbekistan on charges of belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir or distributing its leaflets.
18 March 2003
KAZAKHSTAN: Interrogations and threats follow charity action
Nurbai Arystanov, a Protestant who lives in the town of Arys in South Kazakhstan region, was threatened and briefly detained on 5 March by police, who objected to the fact that he was distributing gifts from the Good Samaritan international charity. One local Protestant, who asked not to be named, claimed to Forum 18 News Service that the Arys deputy police chief, Kurmanal Rakhmatulayev, personally interrogated believers who were listed as having received gifts, and confiscated gifts from those who had received them. He also threatened believers that he would plant hashish in the gifts. "It's all nonsense," Rakhmatulayev told Forum 18, denying that he had threatened Arystanov. But, citing Arystanov's lack of a local residence permit, Rakhmatulayev warned: "I will not allow him to operate in our town."
18 March 2003
RUSSIA: Pacific island keeps Protestants in check
A recent regional press campaign of "sensational and accusative" articles targeting the Sakhalin-based Victory Chapel Pentecostal church was spearheaded by the local Orthodox bishop Daniil (Dorovskikh), the church's pastor, Paris Dominguez, a United States citizen, told Forum 18 News Service. Journalist Anna Bilega, who published an article criticising the church, claimed to Forum 18 that a great many foreign missionaries were trying to foist their ideology onto Sakhalin residents and speculated that they might be working for foreign intelligence agencies, but the local authorities "don't do anything, as usual". One local official denied that the authorities shared any views the bishop might have about "sects", yet a regional justice official refused to tell Forum 18 why the Victory Chapel congregation – a member of a registered Pentecostal Union – is among Protestant churches refused registration.
17 March 2003
UZBEKISTAN: Muinak Pentecostals fear new charges
Pentecostals in Muinak in Uzbekistan's western region of Karakalpakstan fear that two church members, Kuralbai Asanbayev and Rashid Keulimjayev, may again face punishment under the administrative code for meeting together as Christians, less than three months after the two were beaten and imprisoned for five days. Local officials denied to Forum 18 News Service that the two were beaten in December. The leader of the local Pentecostal community, Salavat Serikbayev, has told Forum 18 that Protestants in the town have virtually no way of meeting together and live like the first catacomb Christians under the Roman Empire.
17 March 2003
TURKMENISTAN: Orthodox to be main victims of clampdown?
The clampdown launched in the wake of the apparent assassination attempt on President Saparmurad Niyazov last November will make life more difficult still for Turkmenistan's religious believers. As religious minorities – especially Protestant Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses – had already suffered the brunt of government pressure, it is difficult for their position to get any worse. Protestant Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hare Krishna devotees, Baha'is, Jews and even the Armenian Apostolic Church had already been denied any public religious activity. With the Sunni Muslim community and the Russian Orthodox under tight state control, it seems that ordinary Orthodox believers are likely to suffer most from the latest crackdown.
14 March 2003
UZBEKISTAN: Andijan Pentecostal pastor threatened
Bakhtier Tuichiev, pastor of the Full Gospel Pentecostal Church in the city of Andijan in the Uzbek part of the Fergana valley, was summoned to the regional internal affairs administration on 10 January and warned that if the church did not halt its activity in the absence of registration, then "serious trouble" was in store for him. On 11 January the deputy head of the city department of internal affairs, Major Sumanov, came to a church service and asked why the church was operating without registration. The church has been trying to register for more than a year – so far in vain. "Of course, I have submitted the registration documents, but I am sure we will be refused," Tuichiev told Forum 18 News Service back in January. As of mid-March, the church had not been registered. Tuichiev reports that he is under National Security Service surveillance.
13 March 2003
UZBEKISTAN: Baptist pastor narrowly escapes charges
Charges against a pastor of a registered Baptist church for holding a small-scale service last December in a private home owned by a church member have now been withdrawn, yet Dmitri Pitirimov, spokesman for the Uzbek Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists, said the church remains pessimistic. "Although the administrative charges against Pastor Nikolai Obyedkov have happily now been dropped," he told Forum 18 News Service on 9 March, "persecution of Baptists is continuing in a whole series of districts of Uzbekistan." Pitirimov pointed to several other raids on Baptist meetings in recent months, one in the run-up to Christmas which for the families present, he complained, "spoiled the occasion in advance".
13 March 2003
RUSSIA: Moscow Baptists barred from renting public buildings
A 300-strong unregistered Baptist community is searching for a new place to worship after being informed that they can no longer rent premises at a public library near Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery where they have met after opening hours for the past six years. In January, the library's administration unexpectedly informed the Baptists that they could no longer use the premises and returned an advance rental payment. Pastor Aleksei Kalyashin told Forum 18 News Service that "pressure from above" was the only explanation given for the termination of the congregation's verbal rental agreement, about which the library's administrator would not elaborate. A city official has confirmed to Forum 18 that only legal entities can rent public facilities for religious services.
12 March 2003
UZBEKISTAN: No hope of registration for minority faiths?
"We have now lost all hope of registering our church. The authorities deliberately keep coming up with new excuses to refuse us registration," Khym-Mun Kim – a leader of the Peace Presbyterian church in Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan in north west Uzbekistan - told Forum 18 News Service. "The authorities say we have no right to hold meetings without registration. And in fact the police could descend on any of our services." Kim believes that the Karakalpakstan authorities are deliberately creating "intolerable" conditions for religious minorities. Only one non-Muslim religious community has managed to gain registration in the autonomous republic.