Forum 18 News: Belarus, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
5 July 2007
Belarus: Religious freedom campaigners detained
Belarusian police have, within two days, detained 19 Catholics and Protestants petitioning to change the harsh 2002 Religion Law. The arrests happened after signatures were collected at a prominent Catholic pilgrimage site, Budslav, and in the capital Minsk. One of those arrested, Sergei Lukanin, told Forum 18 News Service from Minsk's Frunze District Police Station that he and five other campaigners were "sitting in an office with three policemen who refuse to allow us to leave or to explain why we are here." Two of those detained, 16-year-old Feodora Andreyevskaya and 14-year-old Yuliya Kosheleva, were held as they collected campaign materials on freedom of thought, conscience and belief. Also arrested was Denis Sadovsky, secretary of the Belarusian Christian Democracy movement. Much literature was confiscated by police and has not been returned. This included 7,000 newsletters and 500 copies of a booklet, "Monitoring Violations of the Rights of Christians in Belarus in 2006," detailing religious freedom violations reported by independent Belarusian media sources and Forum 18 News Service. Petitions to change the law require at least 50,000 signatures to be considered by the Constitutional Court, and over 25,000 signatures have so far been collected.
4 July 2007
Turkmenistan: Conscientious objectors detained for trial
Two Jehovah's Witnesses - Nuryagdy Gayyrov and Bayram Ashirgeldyyev have been arrested in Turkmenistan for refusing to perform compulsory military service on grounds of religious conscience, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. They are currently awaiting trial. Gayyrov was jailed in 1999 for one year for the same "crime." The cell where they are being held is "very crowded with 20-30 persons sharing a cell," Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18. "Between the overcrowding, the sweltering daytime heat, and the lack of adequate ventilation, the conditions in the detention unit are deplorable." There are three other known religious believers in jail for their religious activity, the former chief mufti Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah and two Baptists, Vyacheslav Kalataevsky and Yevgeny Potolov. No officials have been prepared to discuss with Forum 18 the growing numbers of people being detained and jailed for their religious beliefs.
4 July 2007
Uzbekistan: Two Protestants receive ten-day prison terms
Hudoer Pardaev and Igor Kim, members of God's Love Pentecostal Church, spent ten days in prison in June after being found guilty of violating laws on religion and "illegal" religious teaching, Protestant sources told Forum 18 News Service. In a separate case, Baptist Sharofat Allamova was held for four days in mid-June after a late-night check on a bus taking her back to her home town of Urgench revealed she had Christian books and films in her bag. Now back at home, Allamova faces criminal prosecution for violating the laws on religion with a maximum sentence if convicted of three years' imprisonment. All three Protestants had Christian literature confiscated. In the past, courts have ordered that confiscated Muslim, Christian and Hare Krishna literature be destroyed. No official at the government's Committee for Religious Affairs in Tashkent was prepared to explain to Forum 18 why religious communities face mounting pressure.
Source: www.forum18.org