Page 2 - Administrative Code Article News Today

Police in Minsk refused to say why they and OMON riot police were present in and around the citys main Orthodox cathedral on 3 March when about 100 soldiers mothers attended regular evening prayers to pray for peace in neighbouring Ukraine. Officers checked the identity and photographed some of them before the service. Afterwards they detained four and questioned them at Central District Police Station for four hours. Police came the following day to the home of a fifth, but she was not at home....

A Baku court has extended pre-trial imprisonment for Shia imam Sardar Babayev until April. The secret police arrested the former prisoner of conscience in October 2021 and is investigating him on criminal charges of treason. Six other arrested Shia preachers were freed and criminal cases dropped. "Its a question of relations between Azerbaijan and Iran," a commentator noted, but insists charges of treason are unfounded. "If someone has sympathy for Iran, does it make them an Irani...

Russia has used increasingly strict legislation on "foreign agents" (a term which has connotations of spying) and "undesirable organisations" to curtail, complicate, or prohibit the activities of organisations which promote human rights and monitor their violation, including that of freedom of religion and belief. This "indirectly affects the people human rights defenders stand up for", says Aleksandr Verkhovsky of the SOVA Centre for Information and Analysis (brand...

Freedom of religion and belief, with interlinked freedoms of expression, association, and assembly, remains severely restricted in Uzbekistan. Forum 18s survey analysis documents violations including: jailing and torturing prisoners of conscience whose only crime is to exercise their freedom of religion and belief; banning education and worship meetings without state permission; complete state control of all expressions of Islam; and religious literature censorship and destruction.

Religion Law changes to widen state religious censorship and make holding religious meetings more difficult are now in parliaments upper house. Any religious community which does not own its own building, or wants to hold a pilgrimage or other event away from their own place of worship, would have to have advance state permission for the meeting or event – including regular meetings for worship - if the amendments are adopted.

A Tashkent court handed 47-year-old Odilbek Khojabekov a five year labour camp sentence to punish him for returning from haj pilgrimage with Islamic literature. A first trial gave him a suspended sentence which was later removed for good probation behaviour. The SSS secret police then pressured ordinary police, prosecutors, and others into giving what the family insists is false testimony at a second trial which jailed him. He is in hiding fearing for his safety. Separately, two prisoners of con...

28 May 2021 Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 On 27 May, Asliddin Khudaiberdiyev was jailed for teaching five boys and six adult men how to read the Koran and pray. The jailing followed a police and secret police raid on a Samarkand Region mosque as Muslims were preparing to worship. The raid came as the regime publicly announced and implemented increased restrictions across the country on under-18s attending mosques. Also, Religion Law changes are still going through parliament but the regime continues...

9 April 2021 Felix Corley, Forum 18 Courts fined at least 17 people in 2021 for distributing religious literature, texts, videos, audio and items in places and ways the regime declares illegal under its compulsory religious censorship. Most fines were of three weeks average wages. "People dont have the right to distribute religious materials in any form whatsoever, whether text, video or audio," insists Kayrulla Kushkaliyev of Atyraus Religious Affairs Department – which brought six prosecuti...

Authorities break a lock on the door of New Life Church in Minsk, Belarus on Feb. 17, 2017. | YouTube/New Life Church Minsk About a week after police evicted his congregation from its church building, the pastor of New Life Church in the capital of Belarus says his church is praying for “a great revival” in the eastern European country where violations of religious freedom have increased since last year’s presidential election. “We would have expected this kind of situations in the Sov...

19 February 2021 Olga Glace, Forum 18 Bailiffs accompanied by police used an angle grinder and a crowbar on 17 February to gain access to Minsks New Life Pentecostal Church to evict it. Officials told the Church they were enforcing a 2009 court order. Aleksey Petrukovich, who signed the enforcement order, refused to explain why the eviction happened, and why force was used. "I am indignant. This is a hostile takeover of church property with the excuse of official papers," Sergiy Melyanets, a me...