Page 12 - Article 9 News Today

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.

Despite another European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decision that Azerbaijan violated the human rights of two more conscientious objectors, Saadat Novruzova of the Presidential Administrations Human Rights Protection Unit told Forum 18 that changing the law to introduce a civilian alternative to compulsory military service "is not under discussion". Azerbaijan committed to the Council of Europe to introduce an alternative service by January 2003. The 7 October ECtHR decision reminde...

Japan's exclusion from the grouping is particularly startling considering that it is a key U.S. treaty ally and aligns with all three members on several points, including threat perceptions on China.

Jehovahs Witnesses continue to be tortured, and Russia is not following its UN Convention against Torture obligations to punish the perpetrators. After one victim complained, they were amazed "that it was the very same investigator [assigned to the complaint] as is conducting the criminal case [against the other Jehovahs Witnesses]." Officials have repeatedly responded to Forum 18s enquiries by either not answering its questions, or asserting that no torture took place or that a case h...

Four Muslim men jailed for up to six years in a labour camp after meeting together to learn how to pray, to discuss Islamic topics such as prayer, fasting, peaceful jihad, good deeds and other matters, and to attend a mosque. This is the latest known case where Muslim men who met to pray and discuss their faith have been jailed with the use of a police agent provocateur.

From pandemic management to relations with its neighbors, Japan faces persistent challenges from the mistakes and unfinished business of the postwar Allied occupation.

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.

Prisoner of conscience Shamil Khakimov was stopped from attending his only sons funeral in September, and has not been hospitalised for the specialised medical treatment he needs. This is despite multiple reminders – the most recent on 13 September – from the UN Human Rights Committee that the regimes human rights obligations require this. Freedom of religion and belief and other human rights of prisoners of all faiths continues to be violated.

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...

The proposal to add a national emergency clause to the Japanese constitution has nothing to do with protecting the public from the current or future pandemics.