KAZAKHSTAN: Imprisoned atheist mad, bad, or neither?

Imprisoned atheist Aleksandr Kharlamov is due to undergo a second officially-ordered psychiatric examination since his 14 March arrest, as Kazakhstan's prosecutors seek to jail him on criminal charges of "inciting religious hatred". He rejects the accusation, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years' jail. "No-one suffered from what he wrote on religion", police Captain Alikhat Turakpayev admitted to Forum 18 News Service. Kuat Rakhimberdin of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law told Forum 18 that "Kharlamov is involved in many types of activity, but he annoyed the police and this appears to have been what triggered the case". Rakhimberdin added that "his writings on religion are just the excuse. But in any case, this is a violation of his right to freedom of speech and religion." Captain Turakpayev refused to discuss whether the prosecution was motivated by the police's annoyance with Kharlamov. He also refused to explain to Forum 18 on what, if any, medically-relevant evidence he ordered two psychiatric examinations of Kharlamov.

16 April 2013

KAZAKHSTAN: "He needs local state permission to preach"

Officials who raided a Protestant church in Stepnogorsk in Kazakhstan's northern Akmola Region, as the Easter Sunday morning service was finishing, have defended the raid. "The visiting pastor needed permission to preach here," Duman Uvaideldinov of Stepnogorsk police Criminal Investigation Department – who led the raid - insisted to Forum 18 News Service. "He will receive an official warning." The raid followed a visit by a dual-role official of a state-backed "anti-sect" centre and the local Internal Policy Department. Pastor Igor Andreikin and others from New Life Pentecostal Church are also concerned by an apparent attempt to discredit or blackmail them. An unidentified "law-enforcement officer" attempted to send two young women into a sauna session with men from the church, to be closely followed by two ordinary police officers. Both the ordinary police and the KNB secret police have denied to Forum 18 that they had any involvement. Pastor Andreikin told Forum 18 that as "boundaries have been crossed", there is nothing to stop officials planting drugs on church leaders or using other methods of framing them. He told Forum 18 that he was going public on this case to try to stop such methods being used in future.

12 April 2013

UZBEKISTAN: "All believers are backward-looking fanatics who drag society down"

A small Baptist church in Mubarek in south-eastern Uzbekistan which has endured more than a decade of official harassment was again raided during Sunday morning worship on 24 March, church members complained to Forum 18 News Service. The secret police officer who led the raid told the Baptists that "all believers are backward-looking fanatics who drag society down". Officers filmed those praying, took their names and without a warrant searched the house where the church meets. They seized personal notes and family photos, as well as all the money from the church's cash-box. "I don't know which agencies participated, but it definitely was not from our division," Major Rajab Shavkatov, Chief of the Criminal Investigation Division of Mubarek Police, told Forum 18. The raid came two months after bailiffs seized a washing machine and other household items to cover unpaid fines handed down on church members in 2012.

11 April 2013

UZBEKISTAN: "Unbelievable" fines after no trial and raid with no warrant

Protestant married couple Ashraf and Nargisa Ashurov were each fined 100 times the minimum monthly wage by a court in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent without a hearing, Protestants told Forum 18 News Service. Also fined was their babysitter. The fines followed a raid on the home where they are staying, conducted without a warrant, and seizure of Christian literature belonging not to them but to the home owner. "For a couple, who barely earn any living, this total fine of nearly 16 million Soms is an unbelievable punishment," a Protestant who knows the couple complained to Forum 18. An officer of the Police Criminal Investigation Division told Forum 18 that the Anti-Terrorism Police had conducted the operation.

10 April 2013

KAZAKHSTAN: Never too old to be fined

Among seven members of a small Baptist church in Ayagoz in East Kazakhstan Region punished for holding unregistered religious services were two grandmothers in their late seventies, according to the verdicts seen by Forum 18 News Service. All seven were fined the equivalent of nearly two months' local average wages for a teacher. The fines followed a 4 April police raid on a prayer service. Asked by Forum 18 whether judges and court officials were not embarrassed to be involved in punishing religious believers for meeting for prayer, the judges' assistant at Ayagoz District Court laughed. Meanwhile, a court decision on another Baptist Vyacheslav Cherkasov that Bibles confiscated from him should be destroyed has been overturned and the Bibles returned. But the fine remains. Journalist Sergei Duvanov had predicted that the book-burning would be overturned. "But this will only happen because someone was able to report on the act of vandalism being prepared to human rights defenders in Oslo and they gave it wide publicity."

8 April 2013

KYRGYZSTAN: Eight raids, two official warnings in three months

Police and secret police officers raided eight meetings for worship of Jehovah's Witnesses in the first three months of 2013, claiming that they were illegal because the communities had no individual registration. Kyrgyzstan's State Commission for Religious Affairs (SCRA) also issued two official warnings – seen by Forum 18 News Service - that their communities have broken the law. In four places – including twice in Jalal-Abad – officials have refused even to process their registration applications. Ahmadi Muslims are still challenging in court the SCRA's re-registration denial which has prevented their communities meeting since 2011. "We have freedom of assembly and freedom of religion in Kyrgyzstan," Kubanychbek Abakirov, expert on religious communities in the Presidential Administration, insisted to Forum 18 after reviewing documentation on the warnings to the Jehovah's Witnesses and their latest registration denial.

4 April 2013

AZERBAIJAN: Heavy fines follow police raids and confiscations

Judge Imanverdi Shukurov in Zakatala in Azerbaijan has fined two Baptists, Pastor Zaur Balaev and Hinayat Shabanova, more than a year's average local wages for a manual worker to punish them for exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief. "I can't pay this amount," Shabanova told Forum 18 News Service. Judge Shukurov, as well as the local police chief and the local official of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations, refused to discuss the fines with Forum 18. Balaev and Shabanova's husband have both served prison sentences for their faith and their church has been denied legal status since 1994 – an Azerbaijani record. Meanwhile, Baku-based Muslim Zeka Miragayev is lodging a further appeal in his case against the police and NSM secret police who raided his home and seized religious literature.

2 April 2013

KYRGYZSTAN: Criminal prosecutions to punish registration applications?

With at least eight raids on their meetings for worship in two regions of Kyrgyzstan since the beginning of 2013, Jehovah's Witnesses believe the criminal cases launched against two of their members are designed to punish the community for their latest registration application. A Jehovah's Witness mother and daughter in Osh are under two-months' house arrest and face up to three years' imprisonment for allegedly conjuring live snakes from eggs and then swindling two old women of their life savings. Jehovah's Witnesses described the accusations to Forum 18 News Service as "bizarre" and "ludicrous". A police investigator in one of the two criminal cases refused to say how police had identified the two women as suspects, but denied to Forum 18 that the NSC secret police had been involved. Meanwhile, the family of Uzbek former imam Khabibullo Sulaimanov is hoping a Bishkek court will decisively reject his possible extradition back to Uzbekistan when it re-hears his appeal.

27 March 2013

RUSSIA: Is "negative evaluation of Christianity" a crime?

Four Jehovah's Witness publications have been ruled "extremist" by a Siberian court since the beginning of 2013, with rulings expected soon on a further four, Forum 18 News Service notes. One "expert" analysis used by the court uncovered "propaganda" of the superiority of citizens on religious grounds and incitement of religious discord. It also pointed to the publication's "negative evaluations of Christianity and its religious leaders", but gave no examples from the text itself. The publications are expected to appear soon on Russia's Federal List of Extremist Materials. In April a court in Chelyabinsk is due to consider whether 95 further Jehovah's Witness works are "extremist". Fifteen more works by Islamic theologian Said Nursi and a Russian translation of a biography of him were added to the Federal List on 19 March. Individuals and communities who possess such works deemed "extremist" can be fined or even imprisoned.

25 March 2013

TURKMENISTAN: Ninth imprisoned conscientious objector

Despite hospital documents testifying to various health problems, Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Atamurat Suvkhanov was deemed medically fit for conscription. When he refused compulsory military service, he was again given a one-year prison term, his second. The Military Prosecutor's Office and the court refused to discuss his case with Forum 18 News Service. While awaiting his appeal, Suvkhanov "told his relatives that the authorities intend to keep him for quite a long time in the investigation prison trying to break his will," Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18. Another of Turkmenistan's nine imprisoned conscientious objectors – sentenced in January - was beaten by fellow prisoners on secret police orders in the same investigation prison, Jehovah's Witnesses added.

22 March 2013

TAJIKISTAN: Religious political party members fined for religious activity

Police, secret police and local officials are continuing to try to prevent members of Tajikistan's only legally permitted religious political party - the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) - from exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief in party-organised meetings. A women's meeting in a village of northern Sugd Region was broken up soon after they began praying and reading the Koran. Police Chief Vosip Kaziyev told Forum 18 News Service that the authorities decided to "allow the IRP to have religious gatherings only on Saturdays but [Munovar] Sadikova held her meeting on 20 February, which was a Wednesday." She was fined. When her husband objected vocally to his wife and the other participants being harangued by an administration official, he was imprisoned for 15 days for petty hooliganism. Up to five women in southern Khatlon Region were fined for taking their children to a February celebration of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's birthday arranged by the IRP.

21 March 2013

RUSSIA: Familiar twist in anti-Jehovah's Witness campaign

Russian officials are reviving old tactics in their long-running campaign against Jehovah's Witnesses, Forum 18 News Service has learned. A prosecutor in the Siberian city of Tobolsk opened a criminal case against local Jehovah's Witnesses alleging they "called upon citizens to refuse to perform their civic duties" and "motivated citizens to refuse vital medical treatment". The maximum punishment they might face if the case reaches court is four years' imprisonment. The prosecutor refused to discuss the case with Forum 18. Police and FSB security service officers raided six Jehovah's Witness homes in Tobolsk and that of another local resident, seizing religious literature and other items. In December 2012 a court in Kemerovo refused a prosecutor's request to ban the local Jehovah's Witness community on similar grounds. Officials have failed to respond to Forum 18's repeated attempts to find out why Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims who read Islamic theologian Said Nursi's works are targeted.