RUSSIA: Shock at Moscow church demolition

Unknown workers – backed by police and druzhinniki (civil volunteers) – began tearing down Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church on the eastern edge of Moscow soon after midnight today (6 September), the Church's Pastor, Vasili Romanyuk, told Forum 18 News Service from the Russian capital. By morning almost the entire three-storey building had been destroyed. "This is the Soviet approach – to come in the middle of the night with mechanical diggers," Mikhail Odintsov, an aide to Russia's Ombudsperson for Human Rights, told Forum 18. "This is unacceptable." The church has struggled to legalise the building it put up with its own money in 1995-6. Andrei Ivanov, spokesperson for the prefect of Moscow's Eastern Administrative District, defended the destruction. "Everything was done at the decision of the court," he told Forum 18.

5 September 2012

TURKMENISTAN: Upsurge in raids, threats, fines

At least five Protestants in Turkmenistan's Lebap Region have been given large fines for religious activity without state approval in three separate trials in late August, Protestants told Forum 18 News Service. One of the trials followed a meeting where the Imam, local officials and elders summoned the village population and threatened to expel all the Protestants or ostracise them, and threatened that their children will be kept under close scrutiny in school. Elsewhere, other Protestants have been summoned and threatened, including one whose business was seized. "The situation has got markedly worse since July and we don't know why," one Protestant, who asked not to be identified for fear of state reprisals, told Forum 18. No official was prepared to discuss the raids, threats and fines with Forum 18.

30 August 2012

RUSSIA: One month in prison, another to follow

Jehovah's Witnesses Igor Yefimov and Aleksei Nikolaev, arrested in Chuvashia on 26 July, have been ordered held in continuing pre-trial detention until late September. "This is the first time in contemporary Russia that a court has ordered any of our people to be held in detention simply because they are Jehovah's Witnesses," Jehovah's Witness spokesperson Grigory Martynov told Forum 18 News Service. Prosecutors tried to have three others imprisoned as they await trial on "extremism"-related charges. "The accusation that he created an extremist group is absurd," Yefimov's wife Marina complained to Forum 18. In Chelyabinsk, three local Muslim women are due to go on trial on 6 September on "extremism"-related criminal charges. "We're not extremists – indeed, we're against extremism and against violence," one of the accused, Farida Ulmaskulova, insisted to Forum 18. "Islam bans the killing of oneself or others."

28 August 2012

TAJIKISTAN: Further administrative penalties punish religious activity

Three new Articles were added to the Code of Administrative Offences to punish those violating the Religion Law's tight restrictions on sending Tajik citizens abroad for religious education; on preaching and teaching religious doctrines; and on establishing ties with religious organisations abroad. Another new provision punishes religious communities doing things not specifically set out in their statutes. For the first time, the responsibility has been given to the State Committee for Religious Affairs to hand down the fines for such "offences", Forum 18 News Service notes. "Parliament did not see any violation of rights, and so adopted these changes," Mavlon Mukhtarov of the State Committee claimed to Forum 18. One independent legal expert told Forum 18 that "it should not be the prerogative of the State Committee to hand punishments to religious communities but of the courts." "We feel like little children who need to ask permission for each step we are taking," one Protestant complained to Forum 18.

22 August 2012

TURKEY: How far will new Constitution protect freedom of religion or belief?

Turkey's Constitutional Reconciliation Commission (AUK) has begun the drafting a new Constitution. But the political parties represented on the AUK have not reached a consensus on freedom of religion or belief, Forum 18 News Service notes. What are the implications of the new Constitution's possible omission of parts of Turkey's international religious freedom commitments, affecting for example religious education, conscientious objection, and the neutrality of the state? The scope of constitutional guarantees of religious freedom in Turkey should not be limited by the boundaries of the AKP government. Constitutional provisions must reflect the provisions on religious freedom in Turkey's international human rights commitments.

17 August 2012

TURKMENISTAN: Another conscientious objector prisoner of conscience

Five conscientious objectors to Turkmenistan's compulsory military service – all Jehovah's Witnesses - have been sentenced since late May. Four received suspended sentences but the fifth, Juma Nazarov, received an 18-month prison term in July, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. This makes five currently known prisoners of conscience jailed for exercising their religious freedom. One of them, Aibek Salayev, has been severely beaten up and threatened with more beatings and being raped. Also, "thousands" of people from Mary Region alone are said by an official to be waiting for a place on the haj pilgrimage to Mecca, whose numbers are severely restricted by the government to about 188 pilgrims a year – including MSS secret police. Those who may be selected from Mary Region for 2012 are among those who lodged applications in 2004 or 2005. "We check first to make sure they are still alive," the official told Forum 18.

14 August 2012

UZBEKISTAN: Asphyxiation with a gas mask "amounts to torture"

Jehovah's Witness paediatrician Gulchehra Abdullayeva has complained to four Uzbek state agencies and the United Nations over torture she says police inflicted on her. Abdullayeva says officers made her stand facing a wall for four hours with no food or water in the summer heat. They then placed a gas mask over her head and blocked the air supply, according to her complaints seen by Forum 18 News Service. The police chief in Hazorasp in Khorezm Region refused absolutely to discuss her account of torture with Forum 18. Asphyxiation with a gas mask – known in police slang as the "little elephant" - is a common torture in Uzbekistan's police stations. "The detainee has the impression that the officers are going to kill him," a human rights defender told Forum 18 from Tashkent. "Even the strongest person can hold out for no more than 30 seconds." Forum 18 notes that the many victims (including children) of Uzbekistan's widespread use of torture normally choose not to complain or make their suffering public, for fear of state reprisals.

13 August 2012

KAZAKHSTAN: "Unlawful" fine – but will state do anything about it?

Kazakhstan continues to use property-related legal cases as a way of stopping people exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief, Forum 18 News Service has found. Officials have admitted that one fine imposed on the wife of the pastor of a forcibly closed Methodist Church was illegal. But officials have refused to admit that similar fines and bans - for example bans on Ahmadi Muslims meeting - are also illegal. They have also been unwilling to discuss halting future illegalities. In a different case, Kentau's Love Presbyterian Church has been fined and forced to close. Judge Ziyash Klyshbayeva cited alleged violations of fire safety rules in a building it rents. The verdict claimed that the Church asked that the case be heard in its absence, as it agreed with the authorities.

10 August 2012

AZERBAIJAN: Ramadan mosque bans, JW jailed, Church ban upheld

An official in Azerbaijan's second city Gyanja has admitted to Forum 18 News Service that only one of the city's six permitted mosques is allowed by the state to hold iftar meals at the end of each day's Ramadan fast. Ruslan Kardashov, whose role includes overseeing religious communities, also repeatedly refused to discuss local Muslims' complaints about a ban on the mosques holding Ahya night prayers. Also, one Jehovah's Witness from Gyanja spent three days in prison and another received an official warning in July, for being unable to pay massive fines imposed for exercising their freedom of religion or belief. Elsewhere, a Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector was forcibly conscripted into the army, but was allowed home after two weeks. And an appeal against state liquidation by Baku's Greater Grace Protestant Church has failed.

6 August 2012

UZBEKISTAN: "It is prohibited to keep such books at home"

In what some in Uzbekistan think may be a change in the authorities' repression policy, there has been an apparent increase in confiscations of privately-owned religious books from homes during raids. Associated with this have been violations of due legal process, Forum 18 News Service has learned. These include denials of legal representation, misrepresentation of whether a defendant has pleaded guilty, verdicts not being provided within the time laid down in law, and so-called "expert analyses" that have confused Protestant books with Jehovah's Witness books. As police confiscated one Bible in Uzbek, one Bible in Russian, and a book by John Bunyan from one Protestant they said: "Don't you know that it is prohibited to keep such books at home?". Police also stated that the books would be sent for "expert analysis" by the Religious Affairs Committee, and that their owner will be fined.

1 August 2012

RUSSIA: More "extremist" books to be banned?

In two separate cases Russia's FSB security service in Kostroma Region, north-east of the capital Moscow, and Prosecutors in Primorskiy Territory, on the Pacific west of Sakhalin Island, have confiscated religious literature, Forum 18 News Service has learned. In Primorskiye the Jehovah's Witness who had the literature has been fined, but it is unclear whether the Muslim in Kostroma will be fined. In both cases the literature has been sent for "expert analysis" to see if it should be declared "extremist" and banned throughout Russia. The FSB claimed in relation to the "voluntary" handover of works by Muslim theologian Said Nursi in Kostroma that it had conducted "warning/prophylactic measures among individuals inclined towards carrying out crimes of extremist orientation". Asked by Forum 18 what these "crimes" were, the FSB stated that "they were not planning explosions or murders" and would not elaborate more.

31 July 2012

RUSSIA: "A completely innocent person can be subjected to criminal prosecution"

"Extremism"-related criminal cases in Russia against Muslims who read the works of theologian Said Nursi and Jehovah's Witnesses are continuing. In the latest moves, two of four Jehovah's Witnesses facing prosecution in Chuvashia were on 30 July ordered to be detained until their trial. A further six community members are now also suspects in the criminal case. Also that day but in a separate case, prosecutors have appealed against the acquittal of another Jehovah's Witness on "extremism" charges. These moves follow the sentencing on 27 July of two Jehovah's Witnesses, Andrei and Lyutsia Raitin, to 200 hours community service each. Jehovah's Witnesses point out that "the verdict on the Raitins confirms the fact that anti-extremist laws are highly vague, which leads to the risk that a completely innocent person can be subjected to criminal prosecution".