Keston News Service Summary: Armenia, Central Asia, Georgia, Serbia & Tajikistan
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Subject: Keston News Service Summary: Armenia, Central Asia, Georgia, Serbia & Tajikistan
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Keston News Service Summary: Armenia, Central Asia, Georgia,
Serbia & Tajikistan
KESTON INSTITUTE, OXFORD, UK
______________________________________
KESTON NEWS SERVICE SUMMARY
8-12 October 2001
Summaries of recent reporting on violations of religious liberty and
on religion in communist and post-communist lands.
______________________________________
ARMENIA: PROSECUTORS PURSUE CASE AGAINST ACQUITTED JEHOVAH'S WITNESS
(11 Oct). Despite his acquittal last month, Jehovah's Witness Levon
Markaryan is faces a new hearing as prosecutors continue attempting to
send him to jail. His lawyer told Keston News Service from Yerevan on
11 October that prosecutors lodged an appeal against the acquittal on
3 October. Keston contacted the prosecutor's office, but received no
explanation of why they had decided to appeal. No date has yet been
fixed for the hearing.
CENTRAL ASIA SPECIAL REPORT: LIKELY RESPONSES TO AFGHANISTAN RAIDS (9
Oct). Offers by Central Asian governments of air bases to the U.S.
armed forces so that they can carry out attacks are likely to increase
sharply the number of those supporting Islamic fundamentalists.
Islamic radicals dissatisfied with the 'betrayal of Muslim interests
by the authorities' may go so far as to organise acts of terrorism and
large-scale riots, Keston News Service found on a recent visit to the
troubled Fergana valley region, divided between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
and Kyrgyzstan.
GEORGIA: PATRIARCHATE RESISTS CONSTRUCTION AND RESTITUTION OF CATHOLIC
CHURCHES (11 Oct). Not only does the Catholic Church in Georgia face
difficulties when it attempts to build churches � such as the
obstruction by the authorities in the towns of Kutaisi and Akhaltsikhe
detailed to Keston News Service by the secretary to the head of the
Apostolic Administration of the Caucasus. In Kutaisi and elsewhere it
is having trouble recovering historically Catholic buildings
confiscated by the Soviet authorities, then handed over to the
Orthodox Church in 1989-90.
GEORGIA: MAJOR CONFESSIONS GAVE ADVANCE CONSENT TO PATRIARCHATE-STATE
CONCORDAT (11 Oct). Although some of their representatives have
expressed concern about the prospect of a constitutional agreement, or
concordat, between the Georgian Orthodox Church and the Georgian
state, Keston News Service has learned that Catholics, Lutherans,
Baptists, Jews, Muslims and the Armenian Apostolic Church signed
formal documents with the Orthodox Patriarchate agreeing to just such
a concordat, even before the introduction of associated constitutional
amendments on 30 March. The main government official in Georgia in
charge of religious issues told Keston on 21 September that he was
surprised these six major confessions had given advance agreement to
the concordat.
SERBIA: LOW RELIGIOUS EDUCATION ENROLMENT SPARKS BIAS ACCUSATIONS (12
Oct). After enrolment began in Serbian schools for newly-instituted
religious education classes, the Orthodox Synod and the Catholic
Bishops' Conference fiercely attacked the education ministry for
'antidemocratic and illegal behaviour' by the minister and his close
associates 'against the basic democratic principle of equal treatment
of religious education and the alternative subject, "civic
education".' As preliminary results showed that few pupils had opted
for religious classes, the Synod complained that parents had not been
offered a fair choice. The Catholic bishops called for the enrolment
period to be extended. However, Serbia's education minister Gaso
Knezevic denied to Keston News Service any accusations of bias,
insisting that school principals had been instructed to be 'visibly
neutral'.
TAJIKISTAN: ISLAMIC PARTY 'DOES NOT OPPOSE' U.S. ACTION AGAINST
'GENUINE TERRORISTS' (10 Oct). 'We condemn the acts of terrorism in
the United States and sympathise with the Americans,' the deputy head
of Tajikistan's Islamic Revival Party, Muhhiddin Kabiri, told Keston
News Service on 9 October. But he said that 'action against the
terrorists' (�) 'should not become a campaign against Muslims'. The
IRP's view of the 11 September attacks in the United States is
important because the party unites the majority of those who support
the creation of an Islamic state in Tajikistan. A religious affairs
official pointed out to Keston, however, that although 'most Tajiks'
condemn the acts of terrorism in the United States, 'there is a
problem with Islamic radicals from the underground party
Hizb-ut-Tahrir'. In the northern part of Tajikistan Keston heard a
different opinion expressed: 'Of course there is sorrow for the
innocent people who died,' said a local journalist, 'but the majority
of Leninabad residents believe that America itself provoked the acts
of terrorism by its own anti-Islamic policy.' (see full article below)
Wed. 10 Oct. TAJIKISTAN: ISLAMIC PARTY 'DOES NOT OPPOSE' U.S. ACTION
AGAINST 'GENUINE TERRORISTS'.
by Igor Rotar, Keston News Service
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For the full text, see http://www.keston.org/knsframe.htm
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