FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway http://www.forum18.org/

The right to believe, to worship and witness The right to change one’s belief or religion The right to join together and express one’s belief

27 August 2003 RUSSIA: DO SUNDAY SCHOOL CHILDREN NEED WRITTEN PARENTAL PERMISSION? http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=127 Fr Sergi Golovanov, who teaches religion to five children in his Eastern-rite Catholic parish in the Siberian city of Omsk with permission from their parents, could be fined up to 66 US dollars for failing to supply such parental permission in writing. The local justice department demanded he present such written permission by 15 August, but Fr Sergi refused, arguing that the country’s religion law nowhere declares that parental permission must be in writing. However, local religious affairs official Vasili Tkach insisted to Forum 18 News Service that the authorities were acting in accordance with the law.

27 August 2003 SLOVENIA: REGISTRATION BREAKTHROUGH FOR MINORITY FAITHS http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=128 Fifteen months after applying for registration, the Calvary Chapel Protestant church in Celje became on 7 August the first new religious community to be granted registration in Slovenia since 1999. The registration of the Tibetan Buddhist Dharmaling association followed on 22 August. The head of the government’s Office for Religious Communities, Drago Cepar, who until this month had refused to register any new communities, met Hindu leader Natasa Sivic on 25 August. “He promised to register us this week,” she told Forum 18 News Service. “It has been a big problem not having registration.” The Hindus have been waiting for registration for seventeen months.

28 August 2003 TAJIKISTAN: WILL JEWS GET COMPENSATION WHEN SYNAGOGUE IS DEMOLISHED? http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=129 When Tajikistan’s only synagogue is demolished next year in the capital Dushanbe as part of city reconstruction plans, the Jewish community – which built it a century ago – does not know if it will get compensation. “A general reconstruction of the city centre is being planned, and unfortunately our building turned out to be in that sector,” Rabbi Mikhail Abdurakhmanov told Forum 18 News Service. “However, the authorities could have held a meeting with the Jews and avoided demolishing the only synagogue in the whole of Tajikistan.” Rabi Aliyev of the government’s committee for religious affairs told Forum 18 he did not know either if compensation is planned.

25 August 2003 UZBEKISTAN: BAPTISTS FORCED TO PAY FOR OWN IMPRISONMENT http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=126 Judge Bahtierjon Batyrov, who sentenced five Baptist men to ten days’ imprisonment on 16 August for attending a service in a private home in a village near Namangan, has defended his decision. “It is true that the courts generally hand down more lenient sentences to such offenders,” he told Forum 18 News Service. “But in our Pap district the number of such cases has increased lately and for this reason I decided to sentence the offenders to a harsher punishment.” He also fined three Baptist women. He ordered the men to pay for their own imprisonment. * See full article below. *

25 August 2003 UZBEKISTAN: BAPTISTS FORCED TO PAY FOR OWN IMPRISONMENT

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=126 By Igor Rotar, Central Asia Correspondent, Forum 18 News Service

Five Baptist men sentenced to ten days’ imprisonment on 16 August for attending a service in a private home have been ordered to pay for their own detention. The five – E. Kim, S. Stanislavsky, A. Tyan, N. Zuldikarov, and O. Solijonov – were sentenced under Article 240 of the Criminal Code, which punishes “breaking the law on religious organisations”, according to a 17 August report from local Baptists reaching Forum 18 News Service. The judge strongly defended his decision to imprison the five, telling Forum 18 he had to make an example of the Baptists as “illegal” religious activity in the district was rising.

The five men, together with three Baptist women, were arrested on 15 August during a service in a home in the village of Khalkabad in the Pap district of Namangan region, in Uzbekistan’s section of the Fergana valley. The 16 August hearing, chaired by the head of the Pap district criminal court Bahtierjon Batyrov, was held in Uzbek, even though of those accused only Solijonov understands the language. All five men were sentenced to 10 days’ imprisonment, with each being ordered to pay 816 sums for each day of detention in temporary cells in Namangan (63 Norwegian kroner, 8 Euros or 8 US dollars for 10 days). The women Baptists, I. Boiko, N. Stanislavskaya and the owner of the apartment A. Osnovina, were each handed down a fine under Article 240 of 6,440 sums (51 Norwegian kroner, 6 Euros or 7 US dollars).

The Khalkabad congregation belongs to the Council of Churches (or unregistered Baptists), which split from the All-Union Council of Baptists in 1961, when further state-sponsored controls were introduced by the then Baptist leadership. It has refused state registration ever since, believing that such registration leads to unwarranted state interference. According to one of its pastors in Moscow, it has 3,705 congregations throughout the former Soviet Union.

Judge Batyrov insisted his decision to fine and imprison the Baptists was correct. “I have acted strictly in accordance with the law,” he told Forum 18 from Pap on 21 August. “The law on religion in Uzbekistan forbids the activity of unregistered religious organisations. The punishment for this law-breaking is set out both in the administrative code and the criminal code.”

When Forum 18 commented that Uzbek courts customarily only hand down fines in such cases without resorting to detention, Batyrov responded: “It is true that the courts generally hand down more lenient sentences to such offenders. But in our Pap district the number of such cases has increased lately and for this reason I decided to sentence the offenders to a harsher punishment.” (END)

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