SOURCE: KESTON INSTITUTE <http://www.keston.org>

KESTON INSTITUTE, OXFORD, UK ______________________________________

KESTON NEWS SERVICE, 11.00, 11 November 2002. Reporting on violations of religious liberty and on religion in communist and post-communist lands. ______________________________________

KAZAKHSTAN: HOME BIBLE STUDY ENDS IN POLICE RAID. On 8 September police and officers of the National Security Committee (KNB, former KGB) raided the apartment of a Baptist church leader Kormangazy Abdumuratov, where Baptists were studying the Bible. After taking details, searching and videoing the flat and those present, the Baptists were taken to police headquarters, where all were interrogated. After between one and two hours of interrogation, everyone was released except Abdumuratov. The police told him to write a statement declaring that he would stop holding religious meetings in his home. He refused and was threatened with imprisonment because he had been caught three times taking part in unregistered religious meetings. One policeman even hit him, but after six hours he was released. Subsequently, hostile TV footage was shown on the Baptists and Abdumuratov was expelled from the Institute where he was a student, as he was said to be a traitor to the Kazakhs and to have been bought off by foreigners.

KAZAKHSTAN: HOME BIBLE STUDY ENDS IN POLICE RAID

by Igor Rotar, Keston News Service

A small Baptist community in the town of Atyrau on the Caspian Sea in north-western Kazakhstan is under intense pressure from the authorities. On 8 September, eight police and officers of the National Security Committee (KNB, former KGB) entered the apartment of the church’s leader Kormangazy Abdumuratov, where eight Baptists were studying the Bible. Abdumuratov told Keston on 6 November that the officers checked the identity documents of all those present and wrote down their names and details. They searched every room, asking who owned the religious books and Bibles they found. Then they began to write out an official report on them for holding a church meeting “unlawfully” (on the grounds that the group was unregistered). Two of the officers went back to their cars and returned with a camera and video recorder. They filmed each person separately, and took video footage of all the books and Bibles they could find and of each room of the apartment.

The Baptists were then forced into cars and taken to the police headquarters, where all were interrogated. After between one and two hours of interrogation, everyone was released except Abdumuratov. The police told him to write a statement declaring that he would stop holding religious meetings in his home. When Abdumuratov refused, the police threatened him with imprisonment because he had been caught three times taking part in unregistered religious meetings. One policeman even hit him. However, after six hours he was released.

A few days later, parts of the video footage that the police had filmed illegally in the apartment was shown on local Atyrau television. The television commentator reported that the Baptists were a “dangerous cult” that deceived people and took children away from their parents. He claimed that its leaders demanded large sums of money from people once they had become members. The commentary warned the public not to accept religious books from anyone other than the official mosque and to be on their guard against religious “cults” of this kind.

The following week, two KNB agents visited the home of another Kazakh Protestant, interrogated him and threatened him with imprisonment.

Orinbasar Kushkenbayev, a captain from the internal affairs administration who led the raid, defended the police’s action: “We had every reason to search Abdumuratov’s home because unlawful religious meetings were regularly being held there and we were constantly receiving reports on this,” he told Keston on 7 November. “I can read out to you an article from the law on religion which states directly that the activity of an unregistered religious community is forbidden.”

It was only after a lengthy discussion that Kushkenbayev admitted to Keston that the religion law said nothing about any ban on the activity of unregistered religious organisations. However, immediately afterwards, Kushkenbayev cited article 375 of the Administrative Code. This article does indeed provide for prosecution (a fine) for “a refusal by leaders of religious associations to register those associations with agencies of the state administration, for activity by a religious association that is at odds with its aims and goals as defined in its statute (constitution), for participation in the activity of political parties and provision of financial support to them, and for breaking the rules on holding religious ceremonies away from the location of the religious association”.

However, given that Abdumuratov had tried to register the Atyrau church the legality of applying this article is questionable. “We submitted documents for our community to be registered over a year ago. But the regional department of justice has refused to register us under various pretexts,” Abdumuratov complained. “Besides, I cannot understand how it can be against the law for friends to meet – remember there were only eight people in my home – to discuss the Bible over a cup of tea.”

Nevertheless, Kushkenbayev was adamant the police action had been completely lawful. “No-one beat Abdumuratov – that is pure slander. Because not one of those gathered in the apartment, apart from Abdumuratov himself, had any documents, we did indeed take them to the regional administration of internal affairs, and once we had checked their documents we let them go straight away,” he told Keston. “It is true that Abdumuratov was interrogated, as the organiser of an unlawful religious gathering. We handed the record of the interrogation to the regional procuracy and we can expect Abdumuratov to be fined under Article 375 of the Administrative Code.”

Abdumuratov told Keston that he had been expelled in May from the Atyrau oil and gas institute because of his religious beliefs. He claims that a dean of the faculty called him into a meeting room where several people had already gathered: the head of department, the head of the computer department, another professor, the institute’s faculty head, who oversees all the departments, and two men from the KNB. One of the KNB men was Kazakh, the other was of another non-Russian nationality. They took turns to ask Abdumuratov questions about other Kazakh believers.

They told him he was a traitor to the Kazakhs and that he had been bought off by foreigners. “We don’t need a student like you,” the institute’s faculty head told him. “Your influence will ruin our other students. You won’t be studying at our institute any longer. Leave Atyrau and go back to Taraz where you came from.” They gave Abdumuratov a piece of paper and forced him to write a statement about his beliefs and religious practices. Although his final exams were scheduled for the following week, his professor refused to let him take them. As a result Abdumuratov was expelled from the institute. He believes he was simply being punished for refusing to renounce his religious convictions.

Last year, while Abdumuratov was pastor of a small Baptist community in the town of Kulsary, the administrative centre of Jiloi district in Atyrau region, he faced pressure to halt that church’s activity on the grounds that it was not registered. The town’s public prosecutor claimed that Kazakh law banned the activity of unregistered religious communities (see KNS 16 May 2001), a similar argument now being used against the church he leads in Atyrau. (END)

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