UZBEKISTAN: Rehabilitation Centre suspended, leaders under criminal investigation

About 20 residents of a Protestant-run drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent were driven out during a 31 May Police, secret police and Tax Office raid. Officials confiscated religious literature, office equipment and money before sealing Shelter Rehabilitation Centre. An employee who taught metal-working to residents, Pyotr Tikhomirov, was fined for "illegally" storing religious literature "posing a threat to the peace and security of the population". Criminal cases were opened against him and the Centre's founder, Vladislav Sekan, for allegedly not paying taxes on wages, not having a cash-register and exploiting residents by not paying them for clearing up after themselves. "For twelve years of its work, large numbers of drug and alcohol addicts were freed from their harmful habits and restored to normal life in the Rehabilitation Centre," Sekan told Forum 18 News Service. Anti-Terrorism Police Officer Jabbor Rizkulov, who led the May raid, refused to explain to Forum 18 why the Centre had been raided or exactly what charges were brought against Tikhomirov and Sekan. Prosecutor's Office Investigator Sarvar Akhmedov refused to give Forum 18 details of the investigation or say when it will be completed.

18 September 2014

UZBEKISTAN: "We will continue fining you unless you stop storing religious literature in your home"

The police officer who led the raid on the home of a Seventh-day Adventist couple in Samarkand told Forum 18 News Service that it is illegal for them to have religious literature since the Adventist community does not have registration in the city. Protestants believe the raid was a reprisal for lodging a new registration application as the community seeks to regain the registration stripped from it in 2007. Among books seized were a Koran and Bibles in Braille. Police seized religious literature from individuals' homes elsewhere in Uzbekistan. "We will continue fining you unless you stop storing religious literature in your home," Judge Oltinbek Mansurov warned Artur Alpayev in Navoi in early September after fining him six months' average local wages for having religious literature at home. Forum 18 can find no published law which broadly bans individuals from owning religious books or other materials, though materials intended to encourage people to change their beliefs or works which, in the state's interpretation, "distort religious canons" have been banned since January.

5 September 2014

UZBEKISTAN: Why can't school-age children attend worship meetings?

On the instruction of the authorities in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent, teachers and doctors were forced to help the police identify school-age boys attending worship in mosques in late August "and to prevent them from participating in prayers, especially Friday prayers," human rights defender Abdurakhmon Eshanov told Forum 18 News Service. Officials refused to discuss the ban with Forum 18. Deputy Chief Mufti Abdulaziz Mansurov claimed to Forum 18 that both Sharia law and the Religion Law ban children from attending prayers. He then added: "I wish the Law would allow it." After Anti-Terrorism Police raids in Namangan Region on Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses, state-sponsored media attacks noted that "even under-age children" had been present at both meetings. Although the Religion Law does not ban children from attending meetings for worship, officials frequently pressure parents and religious communities not to allow them to attend.

1 September 2014

UZBEKISTAN: Raids, religious literature seizures, passport confiscations and expulsions

As a Baptist family in Navoi gathered with relatives and friends for a Sunday morning meeting for worship, 11 Anti-Terrorism Police officers and other officials raided the Alpayev family home, church members complained to Forum 18 News Service. They searched the home without a warrant and went on to search the home of another church member present, Nikolai Serin, seizing all the religious literature they could find. Police and other authorities keep telling him and other Baptists – including during the 17 August raid - that he cannot keep his Christian books and even his Bible in his home, Serin complained to Forum 18. "Isn't this a gross violation?" Artur Alpayev's mother (born in Uzbekistan and visiting from Israel) and a couple from Russia (the wife also born in Uzbekistan) were subsequently expelled from Uzbekistan. Fines are expected. Sadriddin, who introduced himself as Assistant Head of the Navoi Anti-Terrorism Police, claimed to Forum 18 that he is "new in the Police Department, and I do not know the details." Raids, literature seizures and fines have continued across Uzbekistan.

25 August 2014

TURKMENISTAN: Eleven-year wait on haj pilgrimage list?

Turkmenistan's government sought and received approval from the Saudi Arabian authorities for just 650 Muslims to travel on the haj pilgrimage to Mecca in October, a Saudi consular official told Forum 18 News Service from the capital Ashgabad. Although an increase on the usual 188 in the state-sponsored group, this is just under a seventh of the haj quota allocated by the Saudi authorities. "Turkmenistan is one of the governments not doing all it can to help pilgrims," the Saudi official noted. "We're trying to help them." Muslims in one of the country's six administrative divisions have to wait up to eleven years to reach the top of the haj waiting list, an official of Balkan Region Religious Affairs office told Forum 18. He said that 21 pilgrims from his Region are due to be selected soon to travel this year, the same number as in 2013. He claimed that Shia Muslims are not obstructed from joining the haj. The Turkmen government has never explained why it severely restricts haj numbers.

20 August 2014

TURKMENISTAN: Same court, same judge, same four-year prison sentence, different victim

Less than seven weeks after he had imprisoned a Jehovah's Witness on what his fellow believers insist were fabricated charges, Judge Gaigysyz Orazmuradov of Dashoguz City Court in northern Turkmenistan sentenced another Jehovah's Witness. 33-year-old Bibi Rahmanova was given a four-year prison sentence for assaulting a police officer and two train station employees, charges she vigorously denied. "This decision is particularly shocking considering that Bibi is the mother of a four-year-old boy and was clearly the victim of police abuse," Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. Rahmanova and her husband were both charged after they were detained for collecting religious literature from the train station. Secret police, ordinary police and a state religious affairs official detained them. Neither the religious affairs official Hudainazar Artykov nor Judge Orazmuradov would discuss the case with Forum 18. Meanwhile, Jehovah's Witness Merdan Amanov became the sixth known imprisoned conscientious objector when given a one-year sentence in July.

1 August 2014

TURKMENISTAN: Police violence, forcible injections, fabricated charges, four years jail for prisoner of conscience

For the third time in three years, a Jehovah's Witness in Turkmenistan has been given a four-year jail term on fabricated criminal charges for exercising his freedom of religion or belief. The latest victim is 42-year-old prisoner of conscience Bahram Shamuradov, sentenced on 2 July in the northern city of Dashoguz. Judge Gaigysyz Orazmuradov refused to tell Forum 18 News Service why he convicted with an apparent absence of verifiable evidence, claiming "it was all done in accordance with the law". In another case, fabricated charges of hooliganism have been lodged against Jehovah's Witness husband and wife Vepa Tuvakov and Bibi Rahmanova who were beaten by police and detained along with their four-year old son. If convicted they could each be jailed for up to five years. Also beaten in police custody in early July was another local Jehovah's Witness Mansur Masharipov. He was injected against his will with an unknown substance which caused partial paralysis, vomiting, fever and headaches. An urgent appeal about all these cases has been made to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

24 July 2014

UZBEKISTAN: Another jailing, large fines for meeting upheld, more confiscations

Igor Kulyada, a Baptist from Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent, was jailed for three days from 3 to 6 July, Forum 18 News Service has learned. His offence was to put up in public leaflets with verses from the Bible. Some of his property was ordered to be destroyed and a fine was also imposed on him. Asked why she had done this, Judge Nilufar Dadabayeva told Forum 18 that "I need to ask my superiors before I can give you information". In Syrdarya Region four Baptists have been fined 50 times the minimum monthly salary, four Baptists 20 times the minimum monthly salary and one Baptist has been fined 10 times the minimum monthly salary. The "offence" of all nine was to meet together to worship and share a meal on Palm Sunday. Protestants in the central city of Karshi have complained of an Illegal raid and house search against one of their co-believers and intrusive questioning of relatives about her. Local police officer Olim Gulomov put his phone down as soon as he heard Forum 18's name. And state confiscations of the property of Baptists in Samarkand continue to be carried out.

21 July 2014

KAZAKHSTAN: Jailings under Administrative Code continue as new Codes signed

Two new five day prison sentences have been imposed in two separate administrative cases against a Muslim and a Baptist exercising their freedom of religion or belief, Forum 18 News Service has learned. This brings to 12 the number of individuals so far known to have been given such jail terms in 2014. These cases continue as President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed into law a new Code of Administrative Offences and Criminal Code, which mainly take effect on 1 January 2015. Human rights defender Yevgeni Zhovtis, of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, described the new Codes to Forum 18 as being "like a baton, to use as a threat against those the state does not like". The new Administrative Code mainly replicates the old Codes' punishments of people exercising their freedom of religion or belief but also introduces new police powers, and the new Criminal Implementation Code's restrictions on people in jail mirror restrictions on exercising this human right throughout Kazakhstan.

18 July 2014

KYRGYZSTAN: Orthodox Bishop banned

Kyrgyzstan's State Commission for Religious Affairs (SCRA) on 14 July refused registration as missionary to Bishop Feodosy, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Kyrgyzstan, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Under the Religion Law, this prevents him from working as a religious worker in Kyrgyzstan. "This is a ban on the Bishop", Orthodox Church spokesperson Yuliya Farbshteyn told Forum 18. The SCRA claimed that the Bishop was denied registration as he "threatens the public security of Kyrgyzstan and sows religious discord among the population". Orthodox believers totally denied these claims to Forum 18. The SCRA also claimed that registration was refused as the Interior Ministry's Anti-terrorism Department was investigating the Bishop. This Department, however, told Forum 18 that it has "nothing against the Church or the Bishop". Sunday school catechist Vakhtang Fyodorov continues to be threatened with deportation. Also, the State Property Fund is again seeking – this time through the Supreme Court - to confiscate the building of the Protestant Church of Jesus Christ in Bishkek.

17 July 2014

KYRGYZSTAN: Ahmadis "must not worship together. Otherwise they will be punished"

On 10 July Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court rejected an appeal against two lower courts' support of the State Commission for Religious Affairs' (SCRA) refusal to give state registration to the Ahmadi Muslim community. Asel Bayastanova, the Ahmadis' defence lawyer, told Forum 18 News Service that "it means that Ahmadi Muslims cannot act like Ahmadi Muslims and organise meetings for worship or any other activity together". An Ahmadi Muslim, who asked to remain unnamed for fear of state reprisals, told Forum 18 that "this is equal to banning us .. If we are found by the NSC secret police, the ordinary police, or any other state agency to be carrying out 'illegal' religious activity, we will be given harsh punishments - maybe even imprisonment." The SCRA's lawyer, Zhanibek Botoyev, claimed to Forum 18 that "we are not going to send them to prisons". He also stated that "they can individually pray or read their books in their homes but they must not worship together. Otherwise they will be punished." He refused to say exactly what punishments will be imposed.

9 July 2014

KAZAKHSTAN: Two criminal cases continue as new Criminal Code signed

Retired Presbyterian Pastor Bakhytzhan Kashkumbayev and atheist writer Aleksandr Kharlamov – both in their sixties – are still being investigated on criminal charges, to punish them for exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief. Kashkumbayev – who has already been convicted in one criminal case – faces possible further punishment for allegedly harming a second church member's health. Kharlamov faces possible punishment for articles he wrote in defence of atheism. Meanwhile, President Nursultan Nazarbayev has signed into law Kazakhstan's new Criminal Code. Forum 18 News Service notes that a proposed possible broadening of the "crimes" people might be accused of for exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief is not in the final text. But the same "offences" seem likely to be in the new Code of Administrative Offences.