AZERBAIJAN: Conscientious objector prisoner freed

Azerbaijan has freed a Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector prisoner, Samir Huseynov, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Huseynov was freed from jail on 1 May, despite his appeal against his sentence being refused. "Because I have not been cleared, I now have a criminal record," Huseynov complained. "If I want to get a job, any employer will find this out and will treat me with more caution." He insisted that "the state one hundred percent had no right to imprison me," telling Forum 18 that "I have rights guaranteed under the European Convention of Human Rights." Jehovah's Witnesses state that no other of their young men are facing prosecution for refusing compulsory military service on religious grounds, although several have this year been harassed by military conscription offices. When it entered the Council of Europe in 2001, Azerbaijan promised to introduce an Alternative Service Law by January 2003. But it has not done this. An official claimed that an Alternative Service Law "will be adopted this year."

13 May 2008

COMMENTARY: Why can't all religious communities have places of worship?

One of the biggest problems faced by religious believers in Turkmenistan is not being able to freely maintain public places of worship, a Turkmen Protestant from a region far from the capital argues in a personal commentary for Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org. "You cannot build, buy, or securely rent such property, let alone put up a notice outside saying 'This is a place of worship'," the Protestant comments. "All kinds of obstructions are imposed, whether through rules or just in practice," the commentary continues, noting that "whenever officials raid our meetings the first thing they ask is: 'Where's your registration certificate?' The government likes to be able to say to outsiders 'We have registration' and show them communities in Ashgabad. But people don't look at what we experience in places away from the capital, where we have no hope of registration." The Turkmen concludes that "without freedom to meet for worship it is impossible to claim that we have freedom of religion or belief."

12 May 2008

BELARUS: KGB pressure Orthodox not to venerate Soviet-era martyrs

Belarus discourages the commemoration of Orthodox Christians killed for their faith by the Soviet Union, Forum 18 News Service has found. Today's KGB secret police have sought to have icons of the New Martyrs, as they are known by the Orthodox Church, removed from Grodno Cathedral. Russian Orthodox Deacon Andrei Kurayev told Forum 18 that "Some comrades from the local KGB asked local clergy why they were inciting the people in such a way." While there was no official order to remove the icons – "it was on the level of a chat" - Kurayev reported that Bishop Artemi (Kishchenko) of Grodno and Volkovysk refused to take them down. "He told the KGB that he couldn't rewrite history." KGB officers also often monitor visitors to Kuropaty, where New Martyrs are probably among mass graves of Stalinist repression victims, a local Orthodox source told Forum 18. The act of going there – even to light candles - is "fraught with tension" with the current Belarusian regime, according to the source. An Orthodox chapel planned for the site has never been built.

8 May 2008

TRANSDNIESTER: Still banned from worshipping in church

A Pentecostal church in the internationally unrecognised entity of Transdniester is still banned from worshipping in its church building, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Pastor Yuri Semenyuk told Forum 18 that he is also now facing criminal prosecution for alleged forgery of documents, although he has not been given a copy of the charges. Prosecutor Vasily Tarnukov categorically denied this to Forum 18, but an independent legal source confirmed that state Commissioner for Religious Affairs Pyotr Zalozhkov had instigated the charges. Jehovah's Witnesses in the entity are also facing sustained harassment and refusals to register some of their congregations. However, after the entity's President Igor Smirnov received "many appeals" from local unregistered Baptists about harassment and fines against them, a presidential official told church leaders that they could meet and that officials "didn't have the power to ban them." The entity's parliament is considering drafts of a restrictive Religion Law and a National Security Concept, which are likely to hit hardest independent Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Bessarabian Orthodox Church.

6 May 2008

KAZAKHSTAN: "A Law on Non-Freedom of Conscience"

Leaders of many religious communities have expressed serious concerns – in some cases without wishing to speak publicly - to Forum 18 News Service about active proposals in parliament to harshen the Religion Law and a number of other laws. Lutheran Bishop Yuri Novgorodov complained that "If adopted, this would be a Law on Non-Freedom of Conscience." Religious communities and human rights activists are especially concerned about: sweeping restrictions on "missionary activity" by anyone; state review of religious beliefs of registered communities; a ban and increased penalties on unregistered activity; compulsory re-registration of all communities; the impossibility of registering communities that work in several regions only (such as Russian Orthodox or Catholic dioceses); severe restrictions on smaller religious groups; a need for state permission to build places of worship; a requirement that children have written permission to take part in any religious youth event; and compulsory censorship of all imported religious literature. The new Law is being considered amid increasing official intolerance of freedom of thought, conscience and belief.

1 May 2008

UZBEKISTAN: Last Passover in Tashkent for Chief Rabbi?

Nearly 90 members of Tashkent's Jewish community have signed a letter to the Justice Ministry calling for their Chief Rabbi Abe David Gurevich to be allowed to stay, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. "We do not want him to stop ministering to us," they told the Ministry. The accreditation for Gurevich and his wife, who also works for the Hasidic World Lubavitch Movement, ran out on 1 April and has not been renewed. "Now we are hanging on the air with no status," Gurevich complained to Forum 18. "We remain here in Uzbekistan with expired visas and no accreditation." Forum 18 has been unable to reach Jalol Abdusattarov, the official at the Justice Ministry who refused to extend their accreditation. The Religious Affairs Committee refused to discuss the case. Gurevich said many more people had come to the Passover celebration in Tashkent this April than usual. "It may be that they were afraid that they would not be able to see us again." In recent years Uzbekistan has expelled foreign citizens who have been working in religious communities.

30 April 2008

KAZAKHSTAN: Alarm at state-backed planned new Religion Law

Kazakhstan is planning more restrictions on freedom of thought, conscience and belief, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Human rights activists and some religious communities have expressed alarm at a planned new Religion Law penalising "unapproved" religious activities. The proposals include banning missionary activity by people who do not both represent registered religious communities and have state accreditation, and banning small religious communities from maintaining public places of worship or publishing religious literature. Prime Minister Karim Masimov has backed the latest draft, writing that "perfecting" legislation at the "contemporary phase of state-confessional relations" is "timely and necessary." Fr Aleksandr Ievlev of the Russian Orthodox Church vigorously defended the proposals, telling Forum 18 that "the current Law has allowed sectarians to spread in the country." He complained that "the proposed amendments do not at all restrict the rights and freedoms of religious organisations – those that say otherwise are lying." Accompanying the draft Law, the mass media is being used by officials and parliamentary deputies to promote intolerance of religious communitioes they dislike.

29 April 2008

UZBEKISTAN: Is a four-year sentence for religious activity too harsh?

Jehovah's Witness Olim Turaev has begun a four-year labour camp sentence imposed in Samarkand on 25 April to punish him for holding an unapproved religious meeting and teaching religion without state permission, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. His appeal is pending. The 34-year-old medical doctor, who is married with three children, is the third Jehovah's Witness currently serving a criminal sentence for his peaceful religious activity. Bakhrom Abdukhalilov, advisor to President Islam Karimov on ethnic minorities and religion, showed no concern for Turaev, insisting that Jehovah's Witnesses should not violate the law. He refused to say if he thought the four-year sentence was too harsh. Jehovah's Witnesses in Samarkand and elsewhere have been repeatedly denied the state registration the authorities insist is necessary before a religious community can conduct any religious activity. April also saw Full Gospel and Baptist church members fined in various cities, with one church leader handed a three-day administrative arrest.

29 April 2008

BELARUS: Official justifies rejection of religious freedom petition

Three human rights defenders have been punished for organising the mass petition to challenge the 2002 Religion Law. The three were each fined two months' average wages in late April, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. "There is a procedure for such initiatives in any democratic society, and they didn't follow it," Yuri Kulakovsky, chair of the parliamentary Human Rights, Ethnic Relations and Media Committee, insisted to Forum 18. He named Norway as a country that he claimed imposes such procedures. However, Gunnar Martin Ekeløve-Slydal of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee confirmed to Forum 18 that in Norway there is "no need at all to ask for permission to collect signatures in support of peaceful activity". Kulakovsky also claimed that the Religion Law's requirement for compulsory registration of religious organisations, geographical restrictions on their activity, a requirement for state permission for services outside designated houses of worship and a ban on foreign citizens founding or leading religious organisations are fully in line with Belarus' Constitution.

25 April 2008

KAZAKHSTAN: Growing threats to religious property

A building used for worship by the Protestant New Life Church in Alga, north-west Kazakhstan, is under threat of confiscation by the authorities, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Although the building, which was a disused kindergarten when the church acquired it ten years ago, has been extensively renovated by the church, the authorities are not offering either compensation or another building. Sangazy Kurmanalin, Deputy Head of the local state Economic Department, insisted that recovering the former kindergarten was in line with a decree of President Nursultan Nazarbaev in 2000. "The church officially does not own the building now, so they must vacate it". The church's lawyer, Vasili Kim, told Forum 18 that confiscation of the building will leave the church without a legal address. Similarly, the remaining buildings of the Hare Krishna commune outside Almaty remain under threat of demolition by Kazakh authorities. Religious communities fear that these threats are part of a wider state campaign to target their property, also citing the 2007 confiscation of a mosque from independent Muslims.

24 April 2008

RUSSIA: Visa changes leave religious communities in uncertainty

Visa rules introduced in October 2007 allow foreigners with a business or humanitarian visa – which includes religious work – to spend only 90 out of any 180 days in Russia. While not targeted at religious communities, they are having a harsh impact on many that depend upon foreigners. "Our priests are really, really suffering from this," one Russian Catholic told Forum 18 News Service. Many of the over 90 per cent of Catholic priests who are foreign citizens are now forced to spend long periods abroad or even commute into Russia for Sunday Mass. One foreign Protestant told Forum 18 that he and others are in three-month "exile" in Georgia as they have used up their time in Russia. Religious communities now need to get work permits for their foreign workers, but complain that these are subject to general regional quotas for all foreigners. "These criteria aren't acceptable for religious work," religious rights lawyer Vladimir Ryakhovsky told Forum 18. "The state shouldn't say who the leaders of a religious community should be; it's their internal decision." Government religious affairs official Andrei Sebentsov agrees. But, he told Forum 18, "There would need to be a change in the law for anything to happen."

23 April 2008

ABKHAZIA: Only Georgian Orthodox priest expelled

The internationally unrecognised entity of Abkhazia has expelled a Georgian Orthodox priest, Fr Pimen Kardava, after a "special decree" of the canonically unrecognised Abkhaz Orthodox Church. Independent sources who preferred not to be identified have told Forum 18 News Service that the expulsion was carried out by the entity's SSS security police. Fr Kardava's expulsion, just before the Orthodox celebration of Easter, leaves the entity's Georgian Orthodox believers without any priests. Yuri Ashuba, head of the SSS security police, declined to speak to Forum 18, but a subordinate stated that "You should speak to Fr Vissarion Aplia of the Abkhaz Orthodox Church." He admitted that Fr Aplia is not a state official but would not say why he was the appropriate person to answer questions. The Abkhaz diocesan administration's telephone was not answered. Also, Batal Kobakhia, chair of the entity's parliamentary Human Rights Committee, told Forum 18 that a Religion Law is being prepared.