As protesters demanding more freedom and fair elections prepared to demonstrate in freezing temperatures in Moscow Saturday, February 4, a major Russian mission group warned of more difficulties for evangelical Christians and other, religious, minorities in Russia and other former Soviet Union nations.
Authorities in eastern Uzbekistan have warned local churches not to allow youngsters and children to attend their worship services and not to carry out missionary activities or “proselytism”, the word for evangelism, local Christians and activists said.
Evangelical Christians in Belarus and Kazakhstan faced increased pressure Friday, October 21, to halt unauthorized worship services after pastors were fined and churches raided in the former Soviet republics.
Lawmakers in Kazakhstan have voted for controversial legislation that Christians and rights activists say will further limit religious freedom in the mainly Muslim Central Asian state.
Police who raided a Protestant family’s home in Fergana also assaulted the husband as they confiscated a Bible, an Uzbek New Testament, the Proverbs of Solomon and a Koran.
Although the Law on Parental Responsibility for the Education and Upbringing of Children has recently been enacted, Religious Affairs officials haven’t explained how the ban on children’s participation in worship will be enforced.
The Tajikistan Parliament recently adopted two new laws that could ban children from participating in religious activities.
Rights activists and religious groups in Armenia say new legislation will increase intolerance towards the country’s evangelical Christians and other minorities, some of whom already face prosecution for their church activities.
Pastor Yerzhan Ushanov of New Life Protestant Church in Taraz is looking at two years’ imprisonment if criminal charges for injuring an individual’s health ever come to court, Christian rights investigators said.
At least four incidents of Christian persecution were reported from the former Soviet country of Uzbekistan this week. According to an analysis and report researched and written by Fernando Perez for the World Evangelical Alliance – Religious Liberty Commission, a Christian woman was beaten into concussion, another woman was fined $1,465 by a court for giving the New Testament to a child, a Christian man was threatened with axe attack by a police official and another man was assaulted by police.
Being a Christian in Uzbekistan can be costly. Just ask Galina Shemetova who was ordered to pay a fine of 2,486,750 som, 50 times the minimum monthly pay for giving a colleague a children’s Bible. This amounts to $60,320US, four times the yearly pre-tax salary of a 40 hour-a-week minimum wage earner. Miss Shemetova not only had to pay the fine, but she was also beaten physically by police, a fact known by the Tashkent Court of Appeals.
Uzbekistan continues to persecute Christians exercising their religious rights. Recently a Christian in eastern Uzbekistan was beaten by police, another was threatened with death by an axe while a Baptist congregation was promised prison for failure to co-operate in a pre-trial investigation of their pastor.
Kazakh Christians gathering without government approval were expected to face more punishments after officials said Kazakhstan’s long-time President Nursultan Nazarbayev won Sunday’s presidential poll.
Although recently released from a four-year jail sentence, former prisoner of conscience Dmitry Shestakov is still under the restrictions of Uzbekistan’s “administrative supervision”.
A pastor in Belarus was fined for alleged unsanitary conditions at his church’s summer Bible school while another church in Minsk must exist without a legal bank account.
Five Baptists in Uzbekistan have failed to pay fines for participating in an unregistered worship service.
Uzbekistan police confiscated a Christian’s private property and then imposed a massive fine on him for owning a film about Jesus.
Protestant Pastor Ilmurad Nurliev’s trial is slated for Oct. 21, nearly two months after his arrest on charges of large-scale swindling.
The wife of an imprisoned Protestant pastor appealed to international observers — including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe — to attend any future trial if her husband’s investigation reaches that stage.
A Pentecostal pastor remained in police custody Tuesday, August 31, in Turkmenistan where he faces five years imprisonment and confiscation of properties for “large-scale swindling”, charges his wife and church members strongly deny, rights activists said.