Forum18News: Russia, Uzbekistan.

12 October 2006

RUSSIA: WILL SALVATION ARMY'S EUROPEAN COURT VICTORY SET A PRECEDENT?

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=854

Finding against the Russian state for violating the rights of the Salvation Army's Moscow branch by refusing to give it legal status and by branding it a "militarised organisation", the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg ruled on 5 October that the state must pay the Church compensation of 10,000 Euros. Reacting "very positively" to the ruling, which came five years after it lodged the case, Aleksandr Kharkov of the Salvation Army told Forum 18 News Service: "We would have preferred to have come to an agreement in a friendly manner, without recourse to the courts." Forum 18 has been unable to find out whether the Russian state will appeal against the judgment, though it has three months to do so. In what could serve as a precedent in other cases, the ECHR ruling criticised the state's evaluation of the legitimacy of the Salvation Army's beliefs, the way officials used petty faults and subjective demands to deny registration applications, and the 1997 Religion Law's discrepancy between the religious rights of local citizens and foreigners.

10 October 2006

UZBEKISTAN: QUANTITY OF MERCY CONSTRAINED

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=852

About a dozen foreign charities engaged in humanitarian programmes in Uzbekistan have been closed down this year as part of the authorities' drive to shut down religiously-affiliated charities or those they suspect of being religiously-affiliated. Alleged missionary activity by staff members was often cited as the reason for closure. One source told Forum 18 News Service that "several hundred" foreign Protestants working in such NGOs have been forced to leave the country. Surviving recent Justice Ministry check-ups - often the prelude to such closures - have been Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity and the local branch of Hungarian Interchurch Aid, the aid arm of Hungary's Protestant and Orthodox Churches. Uzbekistan's former chief mufti told Forum 18 that the Kuwait-based International Islamic Charitable Organisation is the only foreign Islamic charity still able to work in the country. Forum 18 could not find out from government officials why foreign religious charities are mostly barred from working in Uzbekistan although this is not banned in law.

11 October 2006

UZBEKISTAN: SENTENCED FOR WAHHABISM - OR INDEPENDENCE?

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=853

Human rights activist Surat Ikramov has denounced the 17-year prison sentence on charges of "religious extremism" imposed in September on former Tashkent imam Ruhiddin Fahrutdinov, one of a group of Uzbeks deported back to their homeland by the Kazakh authorities in late 2005. He was "an educated and influential imam who did not hide his independence from the authorities", Ikramov told Forum 18 News Service. "This sums up his sole crime." Jamshid Saidaliev, the lead judge at Fahrutdinov's trial, refused to discuss the case with Forum 18. Although Uzbekistan has suffered from Islamist-related violence, it is very difficult to establish

independently how true government accusations against individual suspects are. The Uzbek authorities refuse to allow independent mosques to function, forcing all to be subject to the state-sponsored and controlled Muslim Board.

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