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A sharp escalation in police raids, arrests and fines in the past two months have traumatized Baptists in southern Kazakhstan, raising concerns about the future of religious liberty in the country.

A sharp escalation in police raids, arrests and fines in the past two months have traumatized Baptists in southern Kazakhstan, raising concerns about the future of religious liberty in the country.

March 24, 2024 By Brian Hews Juan Garza quoted in Whittier Daily News article, "Garza stressed that Rojas would be able to return to duty if the [Capstone audit] findings determine that [everything] was above board. We are confident his return would be successful once the results are finalized and [the auditor's] findings demonstrate our…

Amendments to Belarus’s religion law are likely to curtail practice and expression of belief by Christians and people of other faiths, according to rights advocates.

For the first known time since February 2020, courts in 2022 fined five individuals several weeks average wages for trying to import religious literature. Border guards seized the books at Shymkent Airport and at a border crossing from Uzbekistan. A Shymkent Airport border guard insisted that his service had not imposed the two literature seizures at the airport and subsequent fines. "We didnt confiscate any books, we just took them away and handed them on to the police to be examined,&quot...

Visiting the closed Catholic Church of Saints Simon and Helena (Red Church) in central Minsk on 12 October, the day the parish was ordered to remove its property, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, retired Archbishop of Minsk-Mogilev, "was crying from the hopelessness of the situation". The worship ban and enforced closure followed a "strange and ambiguous" early-morning fire on 26 September in a small annexe. "Despite the small area of damage, the entire church is sealed and not ac...

On 25 September, Police banned Minsks New Life Church from meeting for Sunday worship in the car park of the building from which officials forcibly evicted it in February 2021. Police detained the Churchs pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko and another pastor Antoni Bokun. A judge fined each two months average wage for leading the 18 September service which police had observed. Minsk City Executive Committee refuses to return the seized church building or allow the Church to meet for worship in the ca...

In the first known use of new powers for appointing, re-appointing every five years, and firing all Islamic clergy, in early May, the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations fired Imam Mirseymur Aliyev in Neftchala. He had held end of Ramadan prayers on 3 May, not the regime-enforced date of 2 May. Lawyer Asabali Mustafayev noted that the regime taking direct control of Islamic clergy means that "the state is now playing the role of a religious organisation."

Despite the official support for Russias invasion shown by many religious leaders, most notably those in the Moscow Patriarchate, small numbers of clergy and laypeople in Russia continue to protest for explicitly religious reasons against the renewed war in Ukraine. They often face detention, prosecution, and the loss of their jobs in consequence. One, Fr Ioann Burdin, told Forum 18 he is appealing against being fined "so that life is not a bed of roses for the authorities and judges".

Since early 2022, Police in Tashkent have targeted Muslims with raids, house searches, detentions, arrests, administrative punishments (for allowing prayers to take place on business premises and for teaching religion without state permission), and criminal investigations. Police detained an 18-year-old woman they had earlier pressured for wearing the hijab and studying Arabic. After ten hours questioning without food or water, the young woman – who has anaemia - fainted. Police refused to...