Forum 18 News: Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan, Russia
30 January 2008
Kazakhstan: Secret police operation to close down entire denomination?
The KNB secret police subjected the Grace Presbyterian Church in Almaty to a 17-hour raid on 25 and 26 January. "They checked everybody and everything and confiscated all the computer hardware," Dmitri Kan of the church's headquarters in Karaganda told Forum 18 News Service. The raid is part of the campaign begun with a 15-hour raid in Karaganda last August. The Financial Police, Justice Department, and KNB have stepped up investigating and questioning Grace Church members across Kazakhstan since mid-January, he added. Leaks through the media allege that church members are engaged in spying, appropriating church members' property, failing to file financial information, inciting inter-religious enmity and holding illegal drugs, even though no-one has ever been brought before a criminal court. "All these efforts are done to close down the entire Grace Church in Kazakhstan," Kan told Forum 18. The Karaganda Regional Department of the KNB told Forum 18 that the operation against the Church is being led by the central KNB in the capital Astana. Vyacheslav Kalyuzhny, the Deputy Human Rights Ombudsperson, says the Church has not complained to his office. "People are not persecuted on religious grounds in Kazakhstan," he claimed.
31 January 2008
Kyrgyzstan: Will new Presidential Decree ban small religious communities?
A planned Presidential Decree could ban many of Kyrgyzstan's small religious communities, Forum 18 has learnt. Regulations attached to the Decree – if adopted – insist that religious communities must gain registration with the State Agency for Religious Affairs and must have 200 adult citizen members. "A provision for 200 founders would be bad, even for the Orthodox and the Muslims," Fr Igor Dronov of the Russian Orthodox Church told Forum 18. Amongst other provisions which break international human rights standards are that "universities, institutes, madrassas, seminaries, parish and Sunday schools etc." must gain official registration. "The first anyone knew about it outside a narrow circle," one source told Forum 18, was "on 11 January. And it could be adopted very quickly." Other sources state that the Justice Ministry has already approved the Decree. Officials have either denied that the Decree exists or downplayed its importance to Forum 18. The Deputy Head of the State Agency was not able to state which specific part of the current legal framework required change. Protestant churches have organised a roundtable on 1 February, which will be attended by the State Agency, Catholic Bishop Nikolaus Messmer, and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
1 February 2008
Russia: Islamic book promoting tolerance banned
Russia has outlawed another moderate Islamic theological text, Forum 18 News Service has learnt, following a similar ban on works by the moderate Turkish Muslim theologian, Said Nursi. Muhammad Ali al-Hashimi's "The Personality of a Muslim" - which Forum 18 has read - is a staple religious text for tens of thousands of Muslims across Russia. Its sole emphasis is on kindness and generosity, including towards non-Muslims. Under the Extremism Law, mass distribution, preparation or storage with the aim of mass distribution of the book could now result in a four-year prison term. The City Court which ruled the work extremist has refused to provide Forum 18 with copies of its verdict or related expert analyses. Shortly before the ban was announced, a Muslim was nearly detained after he handed out a copy of "The Personality of a Muslim" outside St Petersburg's historic mosque. "If Islamic books are banned today, tomorrow they will be Jewish, the day after tomorrow Catholic, the day after that Orthodox," Mufti Mukadas Bibarsov, Council of Muftis co-chairman and head of the Volga Spiritual Directorate, commented to Forum 18.
Source: www.forum18.org