Forum18 News: Belarus, Bulgaria, Serbia, Uzbekistan
Wednesday 29 November 2006
BELARUS: FAITH-BASED POLITICAL OPPOSITION EMERGES
When Catholic parishioners in Grodno announced a hunger strike to begin on 1 December if officials fail to overturn their decade-long refusal to allow them to build a new church, they took their inspiration from protests by New Life Church. This Minsk-based charismatic congregation held a high-profile hunger strike in October to try to prevent the authorities
seizing their church. "We are grateful to the Protestants for giving us courage," Fr Aleksandr Shemet declared. Forum 18 News Service notes that - after exhausting other methods of negotiation with the state authorities - some religious believers are adopting tactics more usually associated with secular political activism in their pursuit of religious freedom in the
country that has the tightest controls on religious activity anywhere in Europe. Forum 18 also notes that mainstream opposition activists are in turn drawing on religious ideas.
22 November 2006
BULGARIA: AHMADIS BARRED "BECAUSE IT IS AGAINST THE RELIGIONS
THAT PEOPLE FOLLOW HERE"
Bulgaria's small Ahmadi Muslim community is concerned by persistent attempts by a local prosecutor and the national state Religious Affairs Directorate to strip it of its legal status, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. One of the grounds of official Bulgarian hostility is that other countries - such as Pakistan - also attack the religious freedom of Ahmadis, who are considered to be heretical by many Muslims. Public Prosecutor Maria Zoteva told Forum 18 that the community must be closed "because it is against the religions that people follow here," but could not provide any examples of laws broken by the Ahmadi community or its members. Ivan Jelev, head of the state Religious Affairs Directorate, told Forum 18 - wrongly - that the community had misrepresented itself and also that his office had unspecified "documents" requiring it to view the Ahmadis negatively. "All we want is to be free to meet, talk and pray
together," Ahmadi leader Muhamad Ashraf told Forum 18.
Tuesday 28 November 2006
SERBIA: LEGAL STATUS TO BE DENIED TO RELIGIOUS-BASED ASSOCIATIONS?
Serbian religious-based associations, which are not churches and do not conduct worship, have expressed their growing frustration to Forum 18 News Service about unlawful attempts by the Public Administration Ministry to strip them of their legal status. This is a very serious problem for such religious associations, as this bars them from gaining access to their own bank accounts, or taking decisions as a corporate legal body. Associations affected by this state-created legal problem include the Serbian Evangelical Alliance. In an apparent attempt to avoid bad publicity, when Forum 18 made enquiries the Ministry suddenly ordered local officials
"urgently" to issue certificates confirming current registration to two Protestant associations and a Catholic group, the Pax Romana Association of Christian Intellectuals. This abrupt reversal of policy should allow these associations access to their own bank accounts. However, the Ministry is still ordering that these groups' registration as associations should be revoked, and that they must instead apply for registration at the Religion Ministry.
Monday 27 November 2006
UZBEKISTAN: COURT FINES BAPTISTS AND BURNS BIBLES
Following a 27 August raid on a Baptist church in the southern town of Karshi, two visiting Baptists were given massive fines on 25 October of 438 US Dollars each for participating in unregistered religious worship, while four local church members were given smaller fines, Protestant sources told Forum 18 News Service. The court ordered Bibles and hymnbooks
confiscated during the raid to be burnt, a regular practice with literature confiscated during raids despite official denials. The judge refused to discuss the case with Forum 18. After 30 police officers raided a Pentecostal church in the capital Tashkent on 13 November, one church
member has so far been fined. The Karshi Baptists called for Uzbekistan's harsh religion law to be brought into line with the religious freedom guarantees in the country's Constitution and international human rights standards.
Tuesday 28 November 2006
UZBEKISTAN: DESPITE OFFICIAL DENIALS, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM VIOLATIONS
CONTINUE
Repression of religious communities from the majority community Islam to religious minorities such as Christians has increased, Forum 18 News Service notes. Protestants have been attacked in state-controlled mass media, such as a student, Tahir Sharipov, accused of holding "secretive meetings with singing," and pressure is applied to stop ethnic Uzbeks
attending Protestant churches. Andrei Shirobokov, a Jehovah's Witness spokesperson, told Forum 18 that he has had to leave the country as "my friends in the law enforcement agencies warned me that an attempt was to be made on my life." Religious minority sources have told Forum 18 that schoolteachers have been instructed to find out the religious communities
schoolchildren attend and where their parents work. US designation of Uzbekistan as a "Country of Particular Concern" for religious freedom violations has drawn a harsh response. Forum 18 has itself been accused of trying "at every opportunity to accuse Uzbekistan without foundation of repressing believers."
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