Azerbaijan; Belarus; Turkmenistan; Uzbekistan;

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

16 November 2005 AZERBAIJAN: DISTURBING NUMBERS OF POLICE RAIDS ON RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=689 Police raids on religious communities have continued to take place at a disturbing rate, Forum 18 News Service has found, especially on summer camps and open air preaching outside the confines of state-registered religious buildings. Baptists, independent Muslims outside the state-controlled Caucasian Muslim Board, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hare Krishna communities, and Baha'is are amongst those who have been attacked by the authorities. Nakhichevan, an exclave wedged between Turkey, Armenia and Iran, is the "worst region in the country" for religious freedom, a Hare Krishna devotee told Forum 18. This is an observation that people of several faiths have frequently made to Forum 18. One of the most serious attacks was a raid on a Baptist children's summer camp, in which ordinary police and NSM secret police officers arrived "in many cars, shouting and swearing, even at the women," a church member who was handcuffed and beaten up in front of children told Forum 18.

15 November 2005 BELARUS: "RELIGIOUS EVENTS SHOULD BE IN A HOUSE OF WORSHIP, NOT ON THE STREET" http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=688 State authorities have insisted to Forum 18 News Service that religious literature was lawfully confiscated from a street library in eastern Belarus. Bobruisk City Executive Committee vice-chairman Mikhail Kovalevich told Forum 18 that the Baptists had both "ignored" and "violated" the legal procedure for holding religious events by acting without state approval. "Religious events should be in a house of worship, not on the street," he stated about the street evangelism. The Baptists have been told by the head of the local state Ideology Department that the confiscated literature - including copies of the New Testament - would be sent for expert analysis and might not be returned at all, and that a court will soon resolve the issue. In another recent case, a Baptist in Brest has been fined for leading an unregistered religious organisation. Local Baptists have protested against this, pointing out that, under Article 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."

18 November 2005 BELARUS: STATE LOSING ITS BATTLE WITH RELIGIOUS BELIEVERS? http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=691 A state report seen by Forum 18 News Service gives a rare insight into state attempts to contain religious activity, and official gloom at the state's failure. Vasili Marchenko, top religious affairs official in Brest region, is very upset that officials are not active enough in breaking up worship services and harassing, fining and controlling religious activity, writing of "an even more depressing situation." The report aims at "repairing defects" in controlling religious activity by 1 December 2005. Marchenko gloomily writes of the state's failure to return an alternative Orthodox community to the Moscow Patriarchate, failure to stop Baptists conducting two or three services a week, "freely and systematically distributing . religious literature," and conducting "an illegal water baptism" lasting over four hours with over 300 participants. Local authorities are also castigated by Marchenko for failing to stop Eastern-rite Catholic, Jehovah's Witness, Adventist and Pentecostal activity. Forum 18 has found an apparent link between Marchenko's report and subsequent increased action against religious communities.

17 November 2005 TURKMENISTAN: HARE KRISHNA DEVOTEE JAILED FOR SEVEN YEARS http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=690 Turkmenistan has today [17 November] jailed a Hare Krishna devotee, Cheper Annaniyazova, for seven years on charges of illegally leaving the country, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Before being sentenced, she was compulsorily detained in a psychiatric hospital. "Cheper tried to get an exit visa to go to Kazakhstan to stay in the temple in Almaty, but was refused," a source close to the Hare Krishna community told Forum 18. "She went anyway, crossing the border to Uzbekistan." Despite a claimed abolition of exit visas, Turkmenistan is to Forum 18's knowledge preventing three religious believers - two Protestants and a Hare Krishna devotee - from leaving the country. Forum 18's source insists that the heavy sentence was imposed at the behest of the MSS secret police to intimidate the Hare Krishna community. Turkmenistan also has the religious prisoner of conscience with the longest jail sentence in the former Soviet Union, former chief mufti Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah who is on a 22 year jail sentence. * See full article below. *

14 November 2005 UZBEKISTAN: WHEN IS POSTAL CENSORSHIP NOT POSTAL CENSORSHIP? http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=687 Uzbekistan's Post Office routinely opens parcels of religious books and magazines sent from abroad, sends examples to the state Religious Affairs Committee, then collects them with a Committee decision as to whether or not to ban the title, writes to the sender and the failed recipient to explain why titles have been rejected, and (sometimes) returns them at Uzbek Post Office expense, Forum 18 News Service has found. Kural Tulebaev, Director of the main Post Office which receives foreign parcels, as well as customs officials have both denied that this is censorship. "We're just following the law," Tulebaev told Forum 18. His Customs Service colleagues were just as adamant: "The law requires that all of it is checked by the Religion Committee," a senior inspector told Forum 18, "the law is the law." The Religious Affairs Committee has refused to explain how it makes censorship decisions, or why it censors religious literature in defiance of international human rights commitments.

17 November 2005 TURKMENISTAN: HARE KRISHNA DEVOTEE JAILED FOR SEVEN YEARS

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=690 By Felix Corley, Editor, Forum 18 News Service

One of the first converts to the Hare Krishna faith in Turkmenistan, Cheper Annaniyazova, was sentenced today (17 November) in the capital Ashgabad [Ashgabat] to seven years' imprisonment for illegally crossing the border three years ago. "Cheper tried to get an exit visa to go to Kazakhstan to stay in the temple in Almaty, but was refused," a source close to the Hare Krishna community told Forum 18 News Service. "She went anyway, crossing the border to Uzbekistan." But the source insists the heavy sentence was imposed at the behest of the Ministry of State Security (MSS) secret police to intimidate the Hare Krishna community.

Annaniyazova stayed in Almaty until earlier this year, returning to Turkmenistan when her father fell ill. She arrived home in Ashgabad in May, just too late to see her father before his death. However, when the MSS secret police later discovered she had crossed the border illegally three years earlier she was summoned for interrogation. While admitting she had left without obtaining the necessary exit visa (these are claimed to have been abolished), Annaniyazova protested that many others who had done likewise were not being tried. She insisted she was being persecuted for being prominent in the Hare Krishna community. The Hare Krishna community, along with other religious believers, has experienced continuing persecution (see the F18News religious freedom survey at <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=672>). Born in 1968, Annaniyazova became a devotee in the late 1980s when Soviet controls on religion were loosened.

Despite the claim to have abolished exit visas, Turkmenistan still denies religious believers permission to leave the country and is currently barring two Protestants and a Hare Krishna devotee (see F18News 9 November 2005 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=685>.

In early August Annaniyazova was compulsorily detained in a psychiatric hospital in Ashgabad, where she was held until early September. "She was not injected with anything there - they just did tests and observed her," Forum 18 was told. Prosecutors then lodged a criminal case against her, though she was not arrested in the run-up to her trial, which began on 16 November.

Sources expressed concern that the sentence, handed down by Ashgabad city court, exceeded the five year maximum penalty under Article 214 section 2 of the Criminal Code, which punishes illegal border crossing "committed with preliminary planning and in a group, or using violence or threats". The sources say that Annaniyazova had originally planned to cross with another Hare Krishna devotee, but she changed her mind before they reached the border with Uzbekistan. They say Annaniyazova's lawyer tried to call witnesses who could testify to this, but the court refused to allow this. Had she been tried under Article 214 section 1, which punishes people who cross the border illegally on their own, she would have faced a maximum two year term.

Annaniyazova's friends are now concerned about how she will fare in prison, as she is a vegetarian and no provision is made in prison for vegetarians. They say those punished under Article 214 are also not eligible for amnesty (each year President Saparmurat Niyazov declares a large-scale amnesty during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan). However, her friends say that even were she eligible for amnesty she would not be prepared to swear the oath of loyalty to the president on a copy of the Koran required before prisoners are amnestied.

The oath of loyalty is considered by many religious believers to be blasphemous and reads: "Turkmenistan, you are always with me in my thoughts and in my heart. For the slightest evil against you let my hand be cut off. For the slightest slander about you let my tongue be cut off. At the moment of my betrayal of my motherland, of her sacred banner, of Saparmurat Turkmenbashy [Father of the Turkmens] the Great [i.e. President Saparmurat Niyazov], let my breath stop."

The religious prisoner of conscience with the longest jail sentence in the former Soviet Union is in Turkmenistan. The former chief mufti, Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, was sentenced to 22 years' imprisonment at a closed trial in Ashgabad in March 2004. The Turkmen government has refused repeated international requests to make the verdict public (see F18News 8 March 2004 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=271>).

For more background, see Forum 18's Turkmenistan religious freedom survey at <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=672>

A printer-friendly map of Turkmenistan is available at <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=turkme> (END)

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