Forum 18News: Serbia, Uzbekistan

4 December 2006
 SERBIA: SIMULTANEOUSLY LEGAL AND ILLEGAL RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES
 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=882
 Nearly seven months after Serbia's controversial new Religion Law -  admitted by Serbian President Boris Tadic to break the European Convention  on Human Rights - entered into force, no so-called "non-traditional"  religious communities have received state registration and legal status,  Forum 18 News Service has found. Many communities, such as smaller  Protestant communities and Jehovah's Witnesses, that have applied have had  their applications arbitrarily stalled. Others - such as the Baptist Union  - have told Forum 18 they will not apply, as they regard the Law as  discriminatory and the conditions it sets as unacceptable. Some communities, such as the Hare Krishnas, are afraid that information  supplied to the authorities may be misused. Technically, the Religion  Ministry claims, non-registered religious communities can legally operate.  But this is legally unworkable, as to legally have a bank account, and  undertake activities such as employing staff, legal documents are  necessary - which non-registered religious communities have not been able  to acquire.
 
 

7 December 2006
 UZBEKISTAN: STATE BARS HAJ PILGRIMS FROM PILGRIMAGE
 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=884
 Uzbekistan is restricting the number of haj pilgrimages - a requirement  for all able-bodied adult Muslims who can do so - to some 20 per cent of  the country's total possible number of pilgrims, Forum 18 News Service has  learnt. Controls on pilgrims have been significantly increased, with  potential pilgrims having to be approved by local Mahalla committees,
 district administrations, the NSS secret police and the state-run Haj  Commission. "The authorities are deliberately giving a lower quota in  regions of Uzbekistan where there are more believers," an Uzbek Muslim  told Forum 18. "It would be better if most Uzbek pilgrims were elderly"  the state-controlled Muftiate told Forum 18. Turkmenistan imposes the  strictest Central Asian controls on haj pilgrims. Apart from Kazakhstan,  all the other Central Asian states also ban non-state organised haj  pilgrimages. In Kyrgyzstan last year, there were complaints that Kyrgyz  places were taken by Chinese Muslims on false passports.
 
 

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