Forum 18 News: Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan
14 May 2008
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."
15 May 2008
Tajikistan: Last days for country's only synagogue?
Tajikistan's only synagogue could be bulldozed in days, its Rabbi, Mikhail Abdurakhmanov, has told Forum 18 News Service. The synagogue has long been under threat, supposedly because of reconstruction in the capital Dushanbe, and in February 2006 the authorities began bulldozing it. A court has now ruled that the 350-strong Jewish community must leave their synagogue by Sunday 18 May, when demolition is threatened to resume. The court refused to accept evidence that the synagogue belongs to the Jewish community, and after the case officials told Rabbi Abdurakhmanov that the community could demolish the synagogue itself if it wanted to save the materials. Officials have repeatedly refused to discuss the case with Forum 18, including whether compensation will be given. The church of the Nani-Hayat (Bread of Life) Protestant Church is also threatened, and although compensation has been offered officials refuse to say how much this will be. Several mosques were demolished in Dushanbe in 2007 because they did not have approval from the Justice Ministry, but no mosques have been demolished in the city in 2008.
13 May 2008
Turkmenistan: 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."
Source: www.forum18.org