sentenced one Jehovah’s Witness to three years "corrective labor" for "failing to observe the prescribed manner of communicating religious doctrine" while confiscating 20% of his wages, a religious rights group said Tuesday March 16.
The Forum 18 News Service (F18News) of the Oslo based Forum 18 organization said that Vladimir Kushchevoy also had his Bible as well as a New Testament and other religious literature destroyed after a court order.
It marks a new era in the country where since 2002, the authorities had not been using the criminal law against religious minorities, using other means of attacking them instead, F18News said.
The latest developments come just weeks after officials closed down the Urgench Evangelical-Christian Baptist Church in Khorezm region for allegedly working with children without the consent of their parents.
FINES
This decision followed a hearing on November 27 last year of what is known as
the administrative commission", when the Baptist church’s pastor, Oleg Bader, was fined about $23 in local currency, more than half of a monthly wage in the impoverished former Soviet republic.
However F18News said it had learned that the feared NSS secret police had put "pressure" on parents to deny they allowed their children to attend Sunday school. "Those parents have now asked the church’s forgiveness" F18News said, citing church officials.
Article 3 of Uzbekistan’s controversial law on religion forbids "the enticement of underage children into religious organizations, as well as the religious instruction of children against their or their parents’ will". Unregistered religious communities are illegal and banned from operating, which provision F18New said "is against international law."
PEACE CHURCH
"The Urgench church will probably have the same unhappy experiences as the Protestant Peace church in Nukus – the capital of Karakalpakstan autonomous region 250 km (150 miles) north of Urgench," F18News said.
After the Peace Church lost its registration, police have raided it four times and each time the church leaders were fined. Since 2000, the Peace church has tried to register three times, but authorities have reportedly refused them each time on various pretexts. In addition human rights groups say that the authorities are engaging in systematic torture, and the police regularly harass journalists, nongovernmental workers and other activists, including dissidents, who criticize the current regime.
Critics claim that while a few people close to President Islam Karimov enjoy a near economic monopoly, 80 percent of the country lives in poverty. The average salary is equivalent to $40 dollars a month, one of the lowest in the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia.
Human rights groups have expressed concern that the United States is reluctant to be tough on human rights in Uzbekistan, as it is a key ally in Washington’s self declared war on terrorism as there were several American military bases in the region.
