Source:  www.assistnews.net

Date:  September 23, 2007

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

UZBEKISTAN (ANS) -- In a new crackdown on Protestant churches across Uzbekistan, a woman was given a suspended prison sentence of six months.

Uzbekistan is located in Central Asia, north of Afghanistan.

The sentence in the central Uzbekistan city of Bukhara was handed down to Sharofat Allamova after police confiscated Christian literature from her, Protestant sources told Forum 18 News Service.

The day after she was sentenced, a Protestant pastor and a colleague were fined for "illegal" religious activity in Karakalpakstan, a region in north-western Uzbekistan where all non-Muslim and non-Russian Orthodox activity is banned. The pastor received a fine of about one year's average salary.

Forum 18 reported that several different state agencies in the Uzbekistan capital of Tashkent are engaged in simultaneous moves to close down a Presbyterian congregation and confiscate its church building. Meanwhile a group of Protestants in the south of the country were detained in mid-September and had religious literature confiscated. Twelve people face charges under the Administrative Code.

The crackdown comes as the authorities are reported to have stepped up restrictions over Muslim prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which officially began in Uzbekistan on Sept. 13.

No official from the government's Religious Affairs Committee in Tashkent was available to tell Forum 18 why believers cannot practice their faith freely, and why new crackdowns and restrictions on Muslim and Protestant communities have been initiated. "I'm just a trainee and all the Committee's officials are at a meeting," Forum 18 reported a man who answered the phone told the news service.

Ikrom Saipov, an official at the government's National Human Rights Center involved in religious issues, declined to comment on these recent cases. Forum 18 reported he said he had no information about them. "But if believers feel their rights are not respected, let them write to us and I'll deal with it personally," he said. "If they come in we can discuss this face to face."

Forum 18 reported Saipov declined to discuss in general why Uzbekistan does not respect its commitments to religious freedom under its Constitution and under international human rights instruments to which it has agreed. "I don't have the right to respond on these questions," he said.

Forum 18 reported that Allamova, a member of a Protestant church in Urgench, was detained at 11 pm on June 10 after the bus on which she was returning to her home town was stopped for an inspection at a control post near the small town of Gijduvan near Bukhara. Christian books - including copies of the New Testament - and discs were confiscated. She was held by Gijduvan police for four days with no arrest warrant or other documentation. More books, magazines and CD's were seized when Nusrat Jahonov of the Anti-Terrorist Department of the Criminal Investigation Directorate in Bukhara led a raid on her Urgench home on June 14.

Protestants speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of state reprisals, told Forum 18 that Allamova was given the six-month suspended jail sentence on Aug. 27 by Bukhara Criminal Court. She was prosecuted under Article 244-3 of the Criminal Code, which punishes "illegal production, storage, import or distribution of religious materials" with punishment for those already convicted under the parallel article of the Administrative Code of a fine of 100 to 200 times the minimum monthly wage, or "corrective labor" of up to three years.

This article was one of a number of changes to the Criminal and the Administrative Codes introduced in June 2006 which increased penalties for "illegal" religious publishing. The government insists that it must approve all religious literature published in or imported into Uzbekistan.

Forum 18 reported that officers of the Anti-Terrorist Department of the Criminal Investigation Directorate in the Bukhara Region were unable to explain to the news service why the department was involved in investigating a member of a peaceful religious community. They were also unable to say why Allamova was prosecuted. One official named Umid, who would not give his last name, told Forum 18 that his colleague Jahonov was in hospital.

However, Umid admitted that Allamova had been sentenced for possessing religious literature. He then referred Forum 18 to the head of the Bukhara regional Anti-Terrorist Department, Bakhtiyor Ismailov. Reached the same day, Ismailov insisted to Forum 18 that the court decided Allamova's case and denied that he heads the Anti-Terrorist Department. He then hung the phone up.

Forum 18 reported that in north-west Uzbekistan, two members of the Peace Protestant Church in Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan were fined at Nukus Criminal Court to punish them for their activity with the unregistered congregation. The two - Pastor Khyn-Mun Kim and Me Vol Kim - were prosecuted under two articles of the Code of Administrative Offences, which punish "violation of the laws on religious organizations," and "violation of the procedure for teaching religion."

Protestant sources told Forum 18 that Pastor Kim was fined 465,750 Sums (or 366 US Dollars), about a year's wages for an average worker. Me Vol Kim was fined one tenth of that amount.

Forum 18 reported that the fines followed a raid on the church by fifteen police officers and National Security Service (NSS) secret police. The officers videotaped the raid. Forum 18 commented that the NSS secret police puts great effort into spying on religious activity, as well as trying to recruit agents among religious communities.

Stripped of registration in 2000 after officials complained it was conducting "illegal" religious work with children, Forum 18 reported the Peace Church has unsuccessfully tried several times since then to regain its registration. The last registered Protestant church in Karakalpakstan, Emmanuel Pentecostal Church, lost its legal status in June 2005. Over 20 Protestant congregations in the region, as well as Jehovah's Witness congregations, have been denied legal status.

Forum 18 reported that the government insists - in defiance of Uzbekistan's international human rights commitments - that religious communities must have registration before they can conduct any religious activity. Unapproved religious activity is subject to heavy penalties. In Karalpakstan, all non-Russian Orthodox and non state-controlled Muslim religious activity is banned.

Klara Alasheva, Karakalpakstan's First Deputy Justice Minister, denied that any religious communities face difficulties.

"No-one has any problem registering," she told Forum 18. The news service reported she made similar comments to Forum 18 in 2005 after the Emmanuel Church lost its legal status. Told that Peace Church has been trying to regain its lost legal status since 2000 and that Protestant and Jehovah's Witness communities have repeatedly been denied legal status she responded, "You have been wrongly informed. If registration was take away it was a decision of a court. If they were denied registration it was for a valid reason. We have the Constitution, but we also have the law."

Forum 18 reported that asked why (given that the Constitution guarantees religious freedom regardless of whether communities have registration or not) religious believers face raids and punishment for meeting for worship, Alasheva claimed, "Believers can meet in their own home without registration." Told that in the latest attack on religious believers the Peace Church was raided she again responded, "You have been wrongly informed." She then hung the phone up.

The raid on the Peace Church came about the same time as a raid on the Nukus home of Makset Djabbarbergenov, a Pentecostal who is also facing criminal charges to punish him for his religious activity. Forum 18 said that police have been stepping up their hunt for Djabbarbergenov.

On Sept.13 police raided a birthday party for local Protestant Vitaly Suvorov in Jarkurgan, a suburb of the southern town of Termez. The police took all those present to the police station, Protestant sources told Forum 18. Police reportedly told the Protestants they had to arrest someone as they have a "work plan."

One of those detained was reportedly beaten by police, Forum 18 said. They were not freed until 5 a.m. the next morning. Twelve of those present are facing prosecution under the Code of Administrative Offences, accused of meeting illegally for worship and illegal distribution of religious literature. Books confiscated from them have been sent for "expert analysis."

Forum 18 reported that Suvorov was among local Protestants attacked by police and secret police in Aug. 2006 when they raided a church summer camp. He suffered injuries requiring hospital treatment.

Meanwhile, the tax police have joined the concerted attempts to crush the Grace Presbyterian Church in Tashkent, Forum 18 said. The church is also facing the revocation of its legal status and the confiscation of its building

For more background, see Forum 18's Uzbekistan religious freedom survey at www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=777.