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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 conscience continue to be tortured and one went on hunger strike.

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 to hide the text its parliament is discussing. On 27 May, a Judge in Samarkand Region jailed Muslim...

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 don't have the right to distribute religious materials in any form whatsoever, whether text, video or audio," insists Kayrulla Kushkaliyev of Atyrau's Religious Affairs Department – which brought six prosecutions. The UN Human Rights Committee found an import ban on ten Jehovah's Witness publications viol...

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 Soviet Union times, when churches were persecuted,” Senior Pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko told Evangel...

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 Minsk's 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 member of a different Church who witnessed the eviction, told Forum 18. On 17 February, police and co...