Keston News Service Summary: Armenia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Moldova &

Reply-To: [email protected]
Sender: [email protected]
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 15:58:51 +0300 (EEST)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: Keston News Service Summary: Armenia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Moldova & 

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Keston Institute <[email protected]>

Keston News Service Summary: Armenia, Estonia, Kazakhstan,
Moldova & Uzbekistan


KESTON INSTITUTE, OXFORD, UK
______________________________________
 
KESTON NEWS SERVICE – SUMMARY        15-19 April 2002

Summaries of recent reporting on violations of religious liberty and
on religion in communist and post-communist lands.
______________________________________

ARMENIA: PROSECUTORS’ LAST DITCH ATTEMPT TO IMPRISON JEHOVAH'S WITNESS
(17 Apr). Jehovah’s Witness Levon Markaryan will learn on Friday
morning (19 April) if the prosecutors’ last ditch attempt to have him
imprisoned for his religious activity is successful, his lawyer told
Keston News Service on 17 April. The Cassation Court in the Armenian
capital Yerevan will rule on the prosecutors’ appeal against two
earlier court rulings acquitting Markaryan of breaking the law.
Meanwhile, following an application for registration submitted by the
Yerevan Jehovah’s Witness community, the Justice Ministry has
responded that an “expert conclusion” on the Jehovah’s Witnesses is
required before the application can proceed.

ARMENIA: PROSECUTORS FAIL IN LAST DITCH ATTEMPT TO IMPRISON JEHOVAH'S
WITNESS (19 Apr). Armenia’s Jehovah’s Witness community has welcomed
the ruling today (19 April) vindicating Jehovah’s Witness Levon
Markaryan. A six-member panel of judges at the Cassation Court in the
Armenian capital Yerevan unanimously rejected prosecutors’ appeals to
have Markaryan’s acquittals by two lower courts overturned. The
Cassation Court is the highest court in the land and there can be no
further appeal. 

ARMENIA: “SPIRIT OF KHRUSHCHEV” TO PERSIST IN NEW CRIMINAL CODE? (19
Apr) In the wake of the Cassation Court ruling today (19 April)
vindicating Jehovah’s Witness Levon Markaryan, a senior official of
the Justice Ministry has told Keston News Service that once the new
criminal code has been adopted – which he believes will take place
this year – further such prosecutions will be impossible. However, a
close analysis of proposed new Article 174 in the government’s draft
of the new criminal code shows striking echoes of the old Article 244
under which the attempted prosecution of Markaryan took place.

ESTONIA: MOSCOW ORTHODOX CHURCH FINALLY REGISTERED (18 Apr). Estonia’s
Interior Ministry has finally registered the Estonian branch of the
Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), ending a legal wrangle
that has blighted relations between the Tallinn and Moscow governments
since 1993. The head of the department for religious affairs at the
Interior Ministry told Keston News Service today (18 April) that his
ministry had registered the statute of the Estonian Orthodox Church of
the Moscow Patriarchate the previous day, together with those of three
of its parishes, and that Church representatives had collected the
registration certificates today. Although the question of property
remains unresolved, the Church will now be able to carry out functions
previously denied to it. 

KAZAKHSTAN: RELIEF AND CONCERN IN WAKE OF RELIGION LAW RULING (15
Apr). Tatyana Bulimenko, of the presidential administration’s legal
department, told Keston News Service on 11 April that President
Nursultan Nazarbayev is not going to appeal against the Constitutional
Court’s decision that proposed amendments to the law on religion are
at variance with the constitution (see KNS 8 April 2002). A number of
human rights and religious figures have welcomed the decision,
although some have told Keston that they fear the process of trying to
amend the country’s religion law could begin all over again. (see full
article below)

MOLDOVA: NO EASY REGISTRATION FOR BESSARABIAN CHURCH (15 Apr). Despite
the Moldovan government’s acceptance of the March decision by the
European Court of Human Rights that its refusal to register the
Orthodox Church of the Bessarabian jurisdiction violated its
commitments under the European Convention on Human Rights (see KNS 10
April 2002), the Bessarabian Church seems unlikely to gain
registration soon. Government officials have told Keston News Service
that “certain procedures” – including changing the law and addressing
the question of property claimed by the Church - have to be undergone
before the Church can gain registration as a denomination and its
individual communities as religious organisations. 

UZBEKISTAN: WIDOW OF MURDERED MUSLIM PREACHER ARRESTED (19 Apr).
Musharaf Usmanova, a mother of six and the widow of well-known Muslim
activist Farhod Usmanov who was murdered in an investigation isolation
cell in Tashkent in 1999, was herself arrested on14 April. Her
16-year-old daughter told Keston News Service that about 50 men took
part in the arrest. It is not clear what has since happened to
Musharaf Usmanova, whose family is held in great respect by devout
Muslims in Tashkent. One human rights researcher told Keston that the
arrest appeared to represent part of a new campaign against religious
women.

Monday 15 April 2002
KAZAKHSTAN: RELIEF AND CONCERN IN WAKE OF RELIGION LAW RULING

by Igor Rotar, Keston News Service

Tatyana Bulimenko, the responsible official at the legal department of
the presidential administration, told Keston News Service from the
Kazakh capital Astana on 11 April that President Nursultan Nazarbayev
is not going to appeal against the Constitutional Council’s decision
that proposed amendments to the law on religion are at variance with
the constitution (see KNS 8 April 2002). A number of human rights and
religious figures have welcomed the decision, although some have told
Keston that they fear the process of trying to amend the country’s
religion law could begin all over again.

According to Kazakh law, the president could have appealed against the
decision of the Constitutional Council. In that case, the
Constitutional Council’s verdict could only have come into force if
two thirds of the Constitutional Council had voted in its favour for a
second time. Thus, at least for the time being, the previous law on
religion remains in force.

If adopted, the amendments to the law would have allowed unregistered
religious groups to be banned, required all missionaries to be
registered and denied legal registration to all Muslim organisations
outside the framework of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of
Kazakhstan. In its survey of opinion among religious communities in
January, Keston found that only the Spiritual Administration offered
unequivocal support for the new law, while a range of faiths strongly
criticised many of its provisions. Many provisions were also
criticised by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE).

Although the Constitutional Council made no comment on a number of
provisions that would have violated Kazakhstan’s international human
rights commitments had the amendments been signed into law by the
president, it did focus on three issues: the possibility to restrict
through legislative acts the right to spread religious beliefs freely;
the stipulation that Muslim organisations could only get state
registration on the recommendation of the Spiritual Administration of
Muslims of Kazakhstan; and the requirement that construction and
opening of Muslim places of worship needed the permission of the
Spiritual Administration. On the basis of these three points the
Council ruled that the proposed amendments to the religion law
violated the constitution.

The decision of the Constitutional Council was published in the Kazakh
official newspaper Yuridicheskaya Gazeta on 11 April. The Kazakh
newspaper Express-K had published a short digest of the Council’s
verdict on 5 April.

“The decision by Kazakhstan’s president not to appeal against the
Constitutional Council verdict is undoubtedly a welcome development,”
the president of the Protestant community Emmanuel, Roman Dudnik, told
Keston by telephone from Almaty on 11 April. “A precedent has been set
when, thanks to the intervention of public organisations, a draft law
that had already been approved by both houses of parliament has been
recognised as being in contravention of the constitution.”

However, some commentators were sceptical as to whether this marked
the end of attempts to amend the religion law. “For about a year
believers can live in peace,” the chair of the Almaty Helsinki group,
Ninel Fokina, told Keston by telephone on 11 April. “I am sure that in
time the authorities will launch a new campaign against believers. But
for now we have a breathing space.” 

She reported that before the Constitutional Council issued its
decision, local authorities interpreted the draft law on religion as
already being in force, and had taken measures against “unwelcome”
believers. Fokina cited the criminal punishment, in the form of a
fine, handed down in January to Baptist pastor Pavel Leonov, who had
refused to register his community. “That was the first time in
Kazakhstan that a criminal sentence had been given for refusing
registration,” she noted. “Now we have been given the opportunity to
defend the rights of believers.”

“We welcome Nazarbayev’s decision,” Birgit Kainz, specialist on human
rights at the OSCE’s mission in Almaty, told Keston on 12 April. “And
we hope that if a new draft law on religion is considered,
international organisations will be more involved in the discussions.
We also believe that the Constitutional Council has not exposed all
the infringements of international legal standards contained in the
amendments to the law on religion.” She pointed out that, among other
concerns, the Constitutional Council had ignored the increase in
members required for a religious association to gain registration from
10 to 50. “And so, if a new law on religion is drawn up, it should not
just take the present comments of the Constitutional Council into
account.”

Speaking off-the-record, members of several international
organisations in Almaty remarked to Keston that this decision by the
Constitutional Council and the president should not be interpreted too
optimistically. According to Keston’s sources, the Constitutional
Council has taken several recent decisions that are doubtful in terms
of international legal standards, and the decision on the religion law
amendments might simply be an attempt to salvage its image. According
to these observers, this concession to believers is simply a political
manoeuvre, and the campaign against believers will soon be resumed.
(END)

Copyright (c) 2002 Keston Institute. All rights reserved.
 
Subscribe to the free weekly KNS Summary, or to the almost daily
Keston News Service, through our website http://www.keston.org/ where
donations may also be made. KNS articles are posted on the website, as
well as details of our other publications: the bimonthly magazine
Frontier and the quarterly academic journal Religion, State & Society.
______________________________________
 
REPRINTING/QUOTING
KNS may be reprinted or quoted providing acknowledgment is given, 
such as “Source: Keston Institute http://www.keston.org”. We would 
appreciate receiving a copy of any publication which quotes KNS.

SUBSCRIBING and DONATING
Cost per annum for full almost daily KNS: 30 Pounds Sterling, or 50 US 
Dollars, or 45 Euros.
The weekly KNS Summary is free of charge, but donations are welcome. 
Your donations are our only source of income and directly promote 
religious freedom by enabling us to provide information.

Via website: <http://www.keston.org>;
via email:  <[email protected]>;
via post: Keston Institute, 38 St Aldates, Oxford, OX1 1BN, UK.
North American supporters may also use our US address: 
Keston USA, P.O. Box 426, Waldorf, Maryland 20604.
Keston USA is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-
exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the US tax code, thus 
donations by US taxpayers are tax deductible.

Credit cards accepted (Visa, Mastercard, Eurocard, Gift Aid, CAF) 
payable to Keston Institute, 38 St Aldates, Oxford OX1 1BN, UK. Please 
include card number, expiry date, and mailing address.
 
DEUTSCHES SPENDENKONTO
Empfänger:              Kirchenkreis Koblenz
Stichwort:              "Keston Institute"
Bank:                   Sparkasse Koblenz
Kontonummer:    14043
BLZ:                    570 501 20
 
AUTOMATIC BANK TRANSFER (from anywhere in the world):
Keston Institute, Account No. 0106411835
National Westminster Bank Plc (Branch code 50-31-88)
11 High Street, Chislehurst, KENT BR7 5AL, UK.
 
Queries should be addressed to Lorna Howard, 
[email protected]
Tel: + 44 (0)1865/79 29 29; Fax: + 44 (0)1865/24 00 42;
Keston Institute, 38 St Aldates, Oxford OX1 1BN, UK. 
________________________


-- 
==============================================================
MINELRES - a forum for discussion on minorities in Central&Eastern
Europe

Submissions: [email protected]  
Subscription/inquiries: [email protected] 
List archive: http://www.riga.lv/minelres/archive.htm
==============================================================