Forum 18 News: Kosovo; Serbia; Uzbekistan
9 June 2006
KOSOVO: CHANGES TO DRAFT RELIGION LAW CONTINUE
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=801
Amid pressure from the international community to adopt a religion law ahead of talks on Kosovo's final status, changes continue to be made to drafts of the Law Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Discussion of the Prime Minister's draft and two other drafts has been postponed until a meeting now due to take place on Wednesday 21 June, when they are planned to be considered as amendments. "I am concerned that there are so many changes each time," Artur Krasniqi, a Protestant representing a coalition of Protestant Churches, told Forum 18. "We fear there will be pressure to insert new discriminatory provisions on registration." Alfons Lentze, a legal advisor to the Assembly, told Forum 18 that "This has been a very difficult issue. We want to see a religious freedom law as soon as possible in accordance with the Plan on Standards."
20 June 2006
SERBIA: RESTITUTION LAW PASSED
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=802
As Serbia and Montenegro separate, the Serbian National Assembly has passed a Restitution Law for property confiscated from religious communities. Much doubt remains about whether the Law will operate fairly, Forum 18 News Service has found. There are also concerns about how the complex legal problems involved will be resolved. This is especially the case for communities, such as Kalmykian Buddhists, with no unambiguously clear legal successor. It is also, Forum 18 has found, a problem for those - such as Adventists and Baptists - whose property was in the 1920s and 1930s formally owned by private individuals or companies, even though it was in practice owned by the church. Property such as formerly-Catholic and formerly-Methodist hospitals is barred from return. But religious communities also hope to regain some property, such as Catholic and Serbian Orthodox land given to the churches in the eighteenth century by the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa.
20 June 2006
UZBEKISTAN: "VERY REAL" THREAT OF PROTESTANT PASTOR'S ARREST
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=803
Amid rising government persecution of Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious minorities in Uzbekistan, a Protestant pastor from Andijan [Andijon] faces up to twenty years' imprisonment if prosecutors go ahead with a trial for treason, Protestants have told Forum 18 News Service. Dmitry Shestakov, known as David, who leads a registered Full Gospel Pentecostal congregation in the city, has gone into hiding for fear of arrest. "It's unclear exactly which article I'm to be prosecuted under," he told Forum 18 from his place of hiding on 20 June, adding that he has learnt that the Prosecutor's Office might have changed the accusation to one of inciting religious hatred, which carries a five year maximum prison term. "The one thing I can say with certainty is that the threat of arrest is very real." An official of the Andijan regional Prosecutor's Office told Forum 18 that the number for the investigator in the case, Kamolitdin Zulfiev, is secret. Were Shestakov to be given a long prison term it would represent a major escalation of moves against religious minorities.
23 June 2006
UZBEKISTAN: ANOTHER JW DEPORTATION, MORE PRESSURE ON PROTESTANTS AND MUSLIMS
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=804
Uzbekistan has deported a second Jehovah's Witness, a month after deporting a Russian lawyer intending to defend his fellow-believers, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Yevgeny Li's home is in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, but he was deported to Kazakhstan. Also, Jamshed Fazylov, an Uzbek lawyer intending to defend Jehovah's Witnesses in southern Uzbekistan was himself detained in a cell for 24 hours for "vagrancy". "What happened to Li sets a very dangerous precedent," a Jehovah's Witness told Forum 18. "The authorities could launch a mass deportation of our fellow-believers." The use of deportation to rid the country of religious believers the state does not like seems to be growing. Other faiths are facing growing repression, Protestant sources telling Forum 18 that twelve churches have been stripped of registration, thus banning them from conducting any religious activity. Also, the authorities are attempting to stop Muslim schoolchildren from attending mosques.
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