KAZAKHSTAN: Ten more Sunni Muslims sentenced

Sunni Muslim Baurzhan Beisembai was sentenced in Oskemen to two and a half years' imprisonment for alleged membership of Tabligh Jamaat missionary movement. Six others were imprisoned and two given restricted freedom. A further imprisonment in Aktobe means 41 such convictions since December 2014.

6 October 2016

AZERBAIJAN: 34 fines for "illegal" religious meeting

34 attendees at an "illegal" home meeting for worship on the most sacred annual observance for Jehovah's Witnesses were fined nearly a year's official minimum wage. The leader of a Sunni mosque in Baku forcibly closed in July has failed to overturn his fine.

4 October 2016

UZBEKISTAN: Contradictory "expert analyses", four people fined

Uzbekistan arrested four men, confiscating a book a government "expert analysis" stated was permitted. Adventist Pastor Andrei Ten was later shown a second "expert analysis" banning the book and fined 100 times the minimum monthly wage, the other three being each fined smaller amounts.

3 October 2016

TURKMENISTAN: Seven conscientious objectors sentenced in 2016

Courts sentenced four Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors in 2016 to two-year suspended prison terms for refusing compulsory military service on grounds of conscience. A fifth received a two-year corrective labour sentence, a sixth an 18-month suspended sentence and a seventh a one-year corrective labour sentence. Turkmenistan ignored OSCE calls for the new Constitution to recognise conscientious objection.

29 September 2016

UZBEKISTAN: Punished for religious books at home

Stanislav Kim was given two years' corrective labour in Urgench for having religious books at home, something the authorities punish as "illegal". He must live at home under restrictions with a fifth of his wages seized by the state. Courts often order such religious literature destroyed.

26 September 2016

TURKMENISTAN: Imprisoned Muslim leader – alive or dead?

Bahram Saparov led a Hanafi Sunni Muslim community in Turkmenabad. He and about 20 members of his group were given long prison sentences in May 2013. He and at least two others were transferred to the top-security Ovadan-Depe prison, where torture is frequent and prisoners are held incommunicado.

21 September 2016

TURKMENISTAN: Search, arrest, torture, escape, arrest, prison

Police raided Jehovah's Witness Mansur Masharipov's home in Dashoguz in July 2014, seized religious literature (subsequently destroyed), severely beat him, injected him in a Drug Rehabilitation Centre (from which he escaped) with unknown drugs. He was jailed after June 2016 arrest for one year.

20 September 2016

AZERBAIJAN: Police, officials close Sunni home mosques

Police, SSS secret police, State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations and local administration officials forcibly closed a home Sunni mosque in Qobustan near Baku, the latest Sunni Mosque closed. The mosque leader is appealing against a large fine for leading an unregistered community.

13 September 2016

RUSSIA: "Extremism" religious freedom survey, September 2016

Russia's "Extremism" Law and associated Criminal and Administrative Codes (with ever-harsher punishments) are used to arrest, imprison or fine individuals exercising freedom of religion and belief, punish communities for meeting, and ban publications on religion which do not encourage violations of others' human rights.

7 September 2016

KAZAKHSTAN: Mass trial of Muslims in Oskemen

In a secret police initiated case, nine Sunni Muslims are due on trial in Oskemen on 14 September accused of membership of the banned Tabligh Jamaat Muslim missionary movement. Arrested in early August, Baurzhan Beisembai faces up to six years' imprisonment if convicted.

6 September 2016

TAJIKISTAN: Last madrassahs finally closed

Of the 19 madrassahs for 16 to 18 year old Muslims that functioned with state approval before the harsh 2009 Religion Law, all have now been closed. The five remaining madrassahs in Sugd Region – suspended in 2013 – were finally closed, as was the Islamic University's madrassah in Dushanbe.

31 August 2016

KAZAKHSTAN: Pensioners fined as Parliament awaits new Law

Two Baptists in their late seventies were among seven people in East Kazakhstan Region fined for attending a home religious meeting. A new anti-"Extremism" Law, likely to reach Parliament within days, envisages further censorship of religious literature and controls on foreign pilgrimages.