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KESTON INSTITUTE, OXFORD, UK ______________________________________

KESTON NEWS SERVICE, 11.00, 12 December 2002. Reporting on violations of religious liberty and on religion in communist and post-communist lands. ______________________________________

UZBEKISTAN: BAPTIST CHURCH REJECTS OFFICIALS’ CLOSURE CAMPAIGN Three weeks after writing to the justice ministry to complain about official claims that its registration in 1998 was only “temporary” and that it needs to be re-registered to be allowed to function, the United Church of Evangelical Christians/Baptists in the Tashkent suburb of Chirchik has had no reply from the ministry. “On 20 November we set out our views in a complaint to the justice ministry, but they simply haven’t responded,” the church’s pastor Stanislav Kim told Keston. He maintains that the authorities are trying to close down his church on trumped-up grounds. Officials ordered a halt to the church’s activity in July. “The United Church of Evangelical Christian Baptists in the town of Chirchik has constantly flouted the laws of Uzbekistan and has not responded to our requests to bring the church’s documents and its activity into line with the laws of Uzbekistan,” one justice department official told Keston.

UZBEKISTAN: BAPTIST CHURCH REJECTS OFFICIALS’ CLOSURE CAMPAIGN

by Igor Rotar, Keston News Service

Three weeks after writing to the justice ministry to complain about official claims that its registration in 1998 was only “temporary” and that it needs to be re-registered to be allowed to function, the United Church of Evangelical Christians/Baptists in the Tashkent suburb of Chirchik has had no reply from the ministry. “On 20 November we set out our views in a complaint to the justice ministry, but they simply haven’t responded,” the church’s pastor Stanislav Kim told Keston News Service on 5 December. He maintains that the authorities are trying to close down his church on trumped-up grounds.

Kim reported that although the church was registered on 14 August 1998 at the justice administration for Tashkent region, in July this year the administration ordered a halt to the church’s activity. He said that on 28 July officials from the Chirchik internal affairs department confiscated the seal, the stamp and the registration document issued in 1998. (Uzbekistan specifically criminalises unregistered religious activity.)

Kim claims the authorities launched a campaign against the church at the end of 2001. On 16 November 2001, the church’s leadership received a letter from the justice administration for Tashkent region, stating that the church’s 1998 registration had been a “temporary measure” and that the church must cease its activity until it was re-registered. “This letter was a big surprise to believers at our church, because the law on religion and other laws and regulations say nothing about temporary registration,” Kim told Keston.

On 24 March, officials from the regional justice administration, Kamuluddin Kambarov and Khairullo Khaidarov, carried out an inspection of the church’s activity. According to Kim, the church leadership addressed all the shortcomings in the church’s activities indicated in the administration’s report. However, on 13 May the church received a second report about the inspection, also dated 24 March. However, this report pointed out completely different alleged shortcomings.

“How could it happen that on one and the same day, two inspections could have been carried out by the justice administration and two reports drawn up, indicating different shortcomings?” Kim told Keston. “I only saw the second report on the inspection on 13 May, and my signature is not on it. The justice administration was simply looking for an excuse to close down our church, and when we addressed the shortcomings indicated in the inspection, they drew up another report on the inspection at a later date, in order to accuse us of failing to set the church’s activity to rights and to find a reason to withdraw our registration.”

However, Khaidarov, leading adviser at the regional justice administration, rejected such suggestions. “We are keeping strictly to the letter of the law,” he insisted to Keston on 10 December. “The United Church of Evangelical Christian Baptists in the town of Chirchik has constantly flouted the laws of Uzbekistan and has not responded to our requests to bring the church’s documents and its activity into line with the laws of Uzbekistan.” He denied that the second report had been backdated. “Of course there were no backdated reports.” He claimed that because Kim had not responded to the 24 March report, the justice administration had sent him a letter “in which we once again pointed out the shortcomings in the church’s activity, listing them in greater detail.” (END)

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