AZERBAIJAN: "You don't need a licence to talk about chess or football, but you do about religion"

More than 15 police officers, as well as journalists with a video camera and a state religious affairs official raided the Saturday morning worship service of the Seventh-day Adventist congregation. Police questioned the ten church members present how much they were paid to be Christians, and two were given heavy fines, Protestants complained to Forum 18 News Service. Police insisted to Forum 18 the meeting had been illegal as the congregation is waiting for registration: "You don't need a licence to talk about chess or football, but you do about religion." Protestants complained about an Interior Ministry press release on the raid which said Adventists represent "a faith prohibited by law". "Adventists have lived in Azerbaijan for more than 100 years and have never been banned," Protestants told Forum 18. Fines for religious activity seem set to rise sharply if proposed amendments are approved in Parliament on 21 December. And a Muslim's legal attempt to recover books confiscated by the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations has been dismissed - despite the confiscations being against the Constitution and law.

14 December 2010

RUSSIA: Orthodox can get Catholic and Lutheran churches – but Catholics and Lutherans can't

Seeking the return of the century-old Holy Family Catholic Church in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad in vain over nearly two decades has been the local parish of the same name, which still worships in a temporary structure. However, the church – as well as former Lutheran churches and several castles – was suddenly handed to the Russian Orthodox, who have never owned them, under two local Laws. Catholic parish priest Fr Aleksandr Krevsky told Forum 18 News Service "there were hopes" earlier for the church's return, but now: "All lies in the hands of the Lord." Handing such property to the Orthodox is "fully justified", Inna Moreva of the Kaliningrad Government insisted to Forum 18. Asked why it was right that property confiscated during the Soviet period from Catholic and Lutherans was handed to another religious community, she responded: "You're not Russian, you won't understand." One Kaliningrad official told Forum 18 anonymously that the decision was unfair. "It was a surprise for us officials as well."

10 December 2010

AZERBAIJAN: Harsher punishments for religious activity "a question of national security"?

Minimum fines for those who conduct religious worship without state approval could rise 15-fold, if proposed amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences now awaiting consideration by Azerbaijan's full parliament are approved. "It's so that they realise the responsibility for their actions," Rabiyat Aslanova, chair of parliament's Human Rights Committee, told Forum 18 News Service. "People are not fined just for praying to God. This is a question of national security." Human rights defenders and religious communities which are regularly penalised under the Code are concerned. A reader of the works of the Muslim theologian Said Nursi told Forum 18 that "we will suffer even more" if these increased fines are approved – "and so will others". Ali Huseynov, chair of parliament's Legal Policy and State Building Committee, told Forum 18 that Azerbaijan will not seek a legal review of the proposed amendments from the Council of Europe. "Why should we? We have our own experts."

8 December 2010

ARMENIA: Growing concern over proposed legislative changes on religion

Human rights defenders and religious communities have harshly criticised proposed amendments to several Laws imposing new restrictions on and punishments for religious activity. The state would conduct a "theological expert examination" before granting registration to religious communities, while those that fail to provide full information about all their activities could be liquidated. Sharing faith is a particular target, with penalties for violations of up to three months' imprisonment. "If adopted, they will create two kinds of citizens in Armenia – those of the Armenian Apostolic Church on one side, and then the rest," Pastor RenÃ© Leonian of the Evangelical Church told Forum 18 News Service. "It is difficult for us to accept in an independent and democratic state that there can be two classes of citizen." The amendments, prepared by the Justice Ministry, only became known when placed on the Council of Europe's Venice Commission website on 30 November. "Such secrecy and silence is unacceptable," Larisa Minasyan of Armenia's Open Society Foundation told Forum 18.

7 December 2010

ARMENIA: 73 religious prisoners, but will proposed amendments help?

As of 1 December, 73 Jehovah's Witness young men were serving prison sentences for refusing military service or military-controlled alternative service on grounds of conscience, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. All but one are serving terms of between two and three years' imprisonment. Six or seven more await trial. Lieutenant-Colonel Sasun Simonyan, Deputy Head of the Defence Ministry's Legal Directorate, told Forum 18 that amendments to the 2003 Law on Alternative Service his Ministry prepared are now with the Justice Ministry for review. He claimed the so-far unpublished amendments would ensure civilian control over alternative service. But he then said the Defence Ministry would be one of three ministries exercising control and if those doing the service commit criminal offences, they would be investigated by the Military Prosecutor's Office. "For the alternative service to be acceptable, there must be zero involvement of the Defence Ministry," Avetik Ishkhanyan, head of the Armenian Helsinki Committee, told Forum 18. "It sounds like this will be a step forward, but may not fully resolve the problem."

3 December 2010

TAJIKISTAN: Why should one small village have three mosques?

Jumokhon Giyosov, Deputy Chair of the Government's Religious Affairs Committee in Dushanbe, has defended the government moves to bring back about 1,700 Tajik students studying Islam abroad, of whom he says 719 have already returned. "We need to bring order to the process of going abroad to study religion," he told Forum 18 News Service. He rejected suggestions that the instructions violated students' right to gain religious education of their choice. Khusravbek Rakamov, Deputy Head of Badakhshan Regional Administration's Religious Affairs Division, defended the enforced closure in November of 32 unregistered Sunni Muslim mosques in his mountainous region. Ten of them are now seeking registration, and Rakamov claimed to Forum 18 that the rest "agreed with us to discontinue their activity". "Why for instance should there be three mosques in Zing village of Darwaz – a small village where only 600 people live?" he asked. Officials told Forum 18 that those continuing to operate unregistered mosques will be punished.

1 December 2010

RUSSIA: City administration considered liquidation of religious community "necessary"

Intensive work by the city administration over many years against the Jehovah's Witness community in Gorno-Altaisk in southern Siberia was revealed by city official Irina Moshkareva in the criminal trial of local Jehovah's Witness leader Aleksandr Kalistratov. Despite a lack of written complaints against the organisation, administrative or criminal convictions or any official warnings to the Jehovah's Witness community, she told the court that she had prepared a January 2008 appeal from Mayor Viktor Oblogin to Altai Republic Supreme Court calling for the activity of the community to be halted and its organisation to be liquidated, a transcript of the hearing seen by Forum 18 News Service reveals. Asked by Kalistratov's defence why the move to halt the community's activity had been initiated, Moshkareva responded: "Because our leadership considered it necessary." No official was prepared to explain to Forum 18 why such a move – which the Altai Republic Supreme Court rejected – was initiated, and why officials then used Russia's 2002 Extremism Law to pursue the same aim.

30 November 2010

RUSSIA: First post-Soviet criminal trial of Jehovah's Witness "ludicrous"

The first post-Soviet criminal trial in Russia of a Jehovah's Witness for sharing beliefs with others – which may conclude as soon as 17 December – is causing increasing alarm, Forum 18 News Service notes. Aleksandr Kalistratov is accused under the Criminal Code's Article 282, which the Prosecutor in defending the trial has described as "amorphous and so does not require concretisation". Mikhail Odintsov of the Office of Russia's Ombudsperson for Human Rights said he had read the charges and attentively listened to the evidence presented by the Public Prosecutor, but had "failed to find a single convincing conclusion". He described the trial's expert analysis as "unscientific" and concluded that relying on it "is fraught with further miscarriages of justice and may prove a detonator of mass violations of human rights". Prosecutors in other regions who have launched similar criminal extremism cases against Jehovah's Witnesses are awaiting the outcome of the Gorno-Altaisk trial before proceeding. Exactly the same extremism-related charges that Kalistratov is facing were used to convict Ilham Islamli, the first reader of the works of the late Muslim theologian Said Nursi to have been convicted under the Criminal Code.

26 November 2010

UZBEKISTAN: Scepticism that any new Administrative Code will end punishments for religious activity

After a mass police raid on a Protestant church in Chirchik near the capital Tashkent, assistant pastor Vladimir Kim was fined 80 times the minimum monthly wage, while the church's pastor received a fine of 40 times, church members complained to Forum 18 News Service. They were fined under the Code of Administrative Offences for "violation of the procedure for holding religious meetings" as they had not informed the authorities that they would be meeting for worship in their registered church building. Some 20 police officers had caught them during a raid, eleven days after the Harvest Festival at another registered Protestant church in the town was broken up and the pastor fined. Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov told parliament that a new Code of Administrative Offences will be prepared, but religious believers told Forum 18 they are sceptical that any new Code will end punishments for religious activity. As well as regular fines, Forum 18 knows of 22 religious believers to have received prison terms of 3 to 15 days under the Code in 2010.

25 November 2010

UZBEKISTAN: "It's not confiscation, it's temporary removal"

Uzbekistan has confiscated Christian books from a youth group returning from Kazakhstan, Forum 18 News Service has learned. An Uzbek customs official claimed to Forum 18 that the confiscations were "not confiscation. It's temporary removal". Customs officials claimed that a court would decide what would happen to the literature. Baptists complained that a customs official swore at them, saying: "We are the bosses here and we will do what we like. If we need to, we'll lock you away." Officials refused to provide copies of Confiscation Certificates and the group was released after being held for nine hours. Also, the head of Ukraine's Baptist Union has been denied entry to Uzbekistan and a Protestant has been denied permission to leave, no reasons for either action being given. And two more foreign religious websites have had access from within Uzbekistan blocked. These actions appear to be part of a policy of isolating religious believers from their fellow-believers in other countries.

18 November 2010

TURKMENISTAN: Religious freedom survey, November 2010

Freedom of religion or belief in Turkmenistan is with other intertwined human rights highly restricted. Among systematic violations noted in Forum 18 News Service's religious freedom survey are: state control of religious leaders and communities; racial discrimination based on promoting a homogeneous culture; severe restrictions on religious education and sharing beliefs, including banning women from studying academic theology in the country; a ban on unregistered religious activity, and great difficulty in those who want it acquiring registration; restrictions on having a place of worship, even for registered groups; MSS secret police informer recruitment; state reprisals against those who discuss human rights violations; an exit ban list and other restrictions on freedom of movement; censorship of religious literature and other material; increasing numbers of prisoners of conscience, with one prisoner ordered to be subjected to abusive medical treatment; and the use of previous "offences" to harass those the authorities dislike. It appears that government promises of "reform" are for foreign consumption only, without any intent to end human rights violations against Turkmenistan's people.

15 November 2010

TAJIKISTAN: Authorities targeting IRP and Jehovah's Witness unregistered worship

Tajikistan is concentrating on trying to stop unregistered worship under the auspices of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), Central Asia's only legal religious-based political party, and the Jehovah's Witnesses, Forum 18 News Service has found. IRP members have been ordered to stop unregistered prayers, party member Imam Zuboidullo Rozikov has been fined for leading them, and a fire has destroyed an IRP building used as a mosque for women. The ban on Jehovah's Witnesses continues, and "because all of this we live in uncertainty and fear, and cannot worship openly," a Jehovah's Witness in Khujand – where there is a pending criminal trial - lamented. Jehovah's Witnesses have been fired from public sector jobs because of their faith. Some religious communities suspect that the current re-targeting of official efforts against unregistered activity away from them may be only temporary. Referring to the ban on all unregistered religious activity, a Baptist commented that "we will go on with our worship, and are ready for any punishment or consequences".