believers?

SOURCE: KESTON INSTITUTE

believers?

KESTON INSTITUTE, OXFORD, UK ______________________________________

KESTON NEWS SERVICE, 20.00, 24 September 2002. Reporting on violations of religious liberty and on religion in communist and post-communist lands. ______________________________________

I. UZBEKISTAN: BAPTIST MEETING RAIDED. Local Baptists in the Uzbek town of Chirchik have filed a formal complaint after four police officers raided a religious meeting in a private apartment on 8 September, Protestant sources have told Keston News Service. The Baptists were warned that as an unregistered religious community they would face administrative and possibly criminal punishment if they continued to hold meetings. An official from the town’s internal affairs department told Keston that the Baptists’ complaint was being handled by the local procuracy, but the procuracy refused to comment. Under current Uzbek law, no religious organisation with fewer than 100 members is allowed to register.

II. UZBEKISTAN: NEW WAY OF CRIMINALISING BELIEVERS? As the Uzbek government steps up pressure on unregistered communities of minority faiths, some minority religious leaders believe that officials are criminalising believers by alleging that their publications promote “religious hatred”. The raid on the Baptist meeting in Chirchik was the latest in a series of incidents in which religious literature has been the focus of accusations. Charges of this kind appear to be being brought mainly in areas with an exclusively Uzbek population, Keston News Service has learnt. However, the spokesman for the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists of Uzbekistan said he had not encountered such occurrences before.

I. UZBEKISTAN: BAPTIST MEETING RAIDED

by Igor Rotar, Keston News Service

Local Baptists in the town of Chirchik, 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the Uzbek capital Tashkent, have filed a formal complaint after four officers of the town’s department of internal affairs raided a religious meeting in a private apartment on 8 September, Protestant sources have told Keston News Service.

During the raid the police officers drew up a report including the passport details and addresses of those attending the service and told each person to explain in writing the purpose of the meeting. The Baptists refused to write any statements, at which point the police officers started to record the proceedings on video, questioned the Baptists over why they were meeting at the apartment, and taking down names and addresses. They then compiled an inventory of all the religious literature and confiscated it, apparently for expert analysis. They brought in two neighbours and the house management committee to act as witnesses.

During their questioning of the Baptists, police officers accused them of disseminating literature which allegedly held that Christian teaching was superior to that of other religions and was therefore inciting religious hostility (see separate KNS article). The internal affairs officers told the Baptists they could not meet, and warned them that if did hold meetings they would be liable to administrative and, if they persisted, criminal punishment. They seized the identity documents of all those present and left.

“We know about this complaint by the Baptists, but at present we are not looking into the case,” the official who answered the telephone at the department of internal affairs for the town of Chirchik told Keston on 19 September. “The believers’ complaint is being considered at the town procuracy.” The town procuracy refused to speak to Keston by telephone on 19 September. “How do we know who you are? Come to Chirchik, and we will check your documents and then we might answer your questions,” declared a procuracy official, who refused to identify himself.

The raid on the Chirchik Baptist meeting is typical of pressure from the authorities on unregistered religious associations. Typically, there is a raid on a private apartment where a meeting of an unregistered religious community is underway, after which the believers are summoned to court and fined under article 240 (breaking the law on religious organisations) of Uzbekistan’s administrative code.

Uzbekistan’s religion law permits religious organisations to function only once they have been registered. Article 8 of the law declares that “religious organisations acquire the status of a juridical person and may function after they have registered with the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan or with its local agencies”. Under article 10 of the religion law, the registration of a religious communities requires “an application signed by no fewer than 100 people”. This means that in principle small religious associations of fewer than 100 people cannot gain registration (see KNS 20 September 2002).

Begzot Kadyrov, the official at the government’s Committee for Religious Affairs responsible for non-Muslim faiths, told Keston in Tashkent on 19 September that if there were less than 100 believers of a certain confession in any populated area who could not therefore register their community, they should go to services in a town where there was a registered religious community of the same confession. The chairman of the Committee for Religious Affairs, Shoazim Minovarov, took a more cautious position when he spoke to Keston by telephone on 19 September. Minovarov admitted that the ban on unregistered communities holding services was against international norms. “The laws of Uzbekistan do not forbid members of an unregistered community from meeting and praying together,” he admitted. “But if the community is unregistered, then it should not have a leader, and has no right to carry out religious instruction.” Asked by Keston why the police regularly broke up meetings of believers of unregistered religious communities, Minovarov responded that “in that case, believers must appeal to the law enforcement agencies and the committee for religious affairs”.

Per Normark, an expert on human rights at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mission in Tashkent, expressed concern about action against unregistered religious communities. “The OSCE stands for freedom of expression, including religion, and regards this as a fundamental right of any individual,” he told Keston in Tashkent. “Included in the OSCE commitments is also the right to freely read and disseminate religious material and writings. I would, however, like to add that this does not include extremist views aiming at an unconstitutional change of government.” He described officials’ demands over registration as “a contradiction per se”. “How can it be possible to register if no activities can take place before registration?” (END)

II. UZBEKISTAN: NEW WAY OF CRIMINALISING BELIEVERS?

by Igor Rotar, Keston News Service

As the Uzbek government steps up pressure on unregistered communities of minority faiths, some minority religious leaders fear the renewed official interest in the content of religious publications is an excuse to crack down on minority faiths by alleging that these publications promote “religious hatred”. “It is not unlikely that Tashkent has found a new way of criminalising believers,” Anatoly Melnik, a leading member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in neighbouring Kazakhstan, told Keston News Service. Melnik, who retains close links to fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses in Uzbekistan, maintains that leaflets allegedly disparaging Islam have been planted on detained Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The early September raid on a Baptist meeting in the town of Chirchik – during which police officers accused the Baptists of distributing literature that allegedly declared the superiority of Christian teaching above other religions and so incited religious hostility (see separate KNS article) – is merely the latest where religious literature has been the focus of accusations.

Shortly before the raid on the Chirchik Baptist church, Jehovah’s Witness Marat Mudarisov was arrested and charged under article 156 (inciting national, racial or religious hatred) of Uzbekistan’s criminal code (see KNS 9 September 2002). Speaking to Keston by telephone on 19 September, Mudarisov’s lawyer Rustam Satdanov said that the investigation into Mudarisov’s case was concluded on 14 September and that the trial would take place shortly. According to Satdanov, one of the main charges against Mudarisov was the fact that when his apartment was searched, a leaflet was allegedly discovered in which Islam was criticised in disparaging terms. Satdanov is convinced that this leaflet was planted on his client. Keston was first told that a leaflet critical of Islam had been planted on Mudarisov by Anatoly Melnik, a member of the ruling council of Jehovah’s Witnesses of Kazakhstan, in a conversation 10 days earlier. “Another brother of ours from Uzbekistan had a leaflet with similar contents planted on him,” Melnik added.

However, the spokesman for the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists of Uzbekistan said he had not heard of such occurrences affecting minority communities before. “This is the first time that I have heard of such literature being found on believers,” Dmitri Pitirimov told Keston on 19 September in Tashkent. “Happily, we have not had this problem. In the early 1990s, a huge amount of religious literature with the most varied of contents was brought to Uzbekistan, including some that criticised Islam. However, we are extremely careful to make sure that no such literature reaches our brothers.”

It is notable that charges of disseminating a doctrine that disparages Islam are being brought by law enforcement agencies mainly in the provinces where the population is exclusively Uzbek. Bakhtierjon Tuichiev, the pastor of the Christian Full Gospel Church in the town of Andijan in the Fergana valley of Uzbekistan, near the border with Kyrgyzstan, has recently been in constant fear of arrest (see KNS 15 July 2002). “The atmosphere around me is thickening,” he told Keston by telephone on 19 September. “The political police, the NSS [formerly the KGB] are taking advantage of the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population in our town is Muslim, and has spread the rumour that I insult Islam in my sermons. The people have been turned against me.”

Shoazim Minovarov, the chairman of the government’s Committee for Religious Affairs, appears to take the law enforcement agencies’ accusations that some minority faiths’ publications insult Islam at face value. “It is true that this is the first time we have come across a leaflet in Uzbekistan containing insults against Islam,” he told Keston by telephone in Tashkent on 19 September. “Maybe organisations which are especially active in the proselytism that is banned in our country (I have in mind primarily the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Full Gospel Pentecostals) have grown sufficiently strong to venture to do this.” (END)

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