New Restrictions on Religious Freedom in Kazakhstan Spark Fears

A new religious law draft will be considered at the House of Parliament in Kazahkstan next week on 16th April. The draft law has come out suddenly just two weeks before it will be put forward for legal process and was in fact proposed and signed by the Kazakhstan's prime minister Danial Akhmetov on 24th February. Human rights campaigners and faith groups are overwhelming concerned by the current government-sponsored movement that is damaging the religious freedom of the country.

According to Forum 18 New Service, the draft law was published on the parliament’s website recently. The draft will require all religious communities to register before they can function. Moreover, some additional articles were added to ban foreign missionary activity and even local citizens’ mission efforts that are undertaken without a license.

It was reported that a new sixth section of Article 4 of the draft religion law forbids the activity of unregistered religious organisations. While such a law is in breach of the international human rights commitments, it is now effective in some other Central Asian republics - Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Protestant churches in Almaty sent a letter to the Parliament in March to complain regarding the violation of the country's constitution and international commitments in the proposed law, and this was backed by Protestant churches in the Karaganda region as well.

Protestants expressed their concerns over the requirement to register religious communities and missionaries and to submit religious literature and recordings for approval.

"Religious literature and recordings are also set to require approval. Such sweeping controls violate Kazakhstan's constitution and its international human rights commitments, including as a member of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)," Forum 18 News Service commented.

Additionally, the local authorities will in future be able to control the activities of a religious organisation after the registration. According to the legal amendment, "After registration the additional use of documents with a religious content must be agreed with the local authorities."

Concerning the restriction on missionaries, the amended draft law would require all missionaries, both foreign and local ones, to register with the Kazakhstan government. The most significant change to the draft law is that it specifies that not just foreigners but also Kazakh citizens who are carrying out missionary work are to be considered missionaries.

Missionary activity is defined in the draft as "preaching and promotion of any faith-based doctrine by means of religious proselytising activity"

Once missionaries are registered, it may also mean that they can only promote their views with the agreement of the authorities. However, if they carry out mission without registration, they will face heavy penalties, according to the Forum 18 News Service.

"Missionary work carried out by citizens, foreign citizens and persons who have no citizenship, without the appropriate registration, will attract a fine of up to 15 times the monthly wage of a citizen, while foreigners and persons without citizenship will be fined up to 15 times the monthly wage and will be expelled beyond the borders of the Republic of Kazakhstan," the draft law stated.

The Forum 18 News Service said, "These controversial laws had been considered in parliament for six months. During the drafting process, successive texts were criticised by a range of human rights organisations - the OSCE, the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights, the Almaty Helsinki Committee and the International Centre for Non-commercial Law - which regarded the draft law as potentially limiting the rights of Kazakh citizens."

Ninel Fokina, head of the Almaty Helsinki Committee, told Forum 18 that the laws are drawn up in the National Security Committee and has merely been signed by the prime minister of Kazakhstan.

Aleksander Klyushev, head of the Association of Religious Organisations of Kazakhstan, has called for more openness in discussing the proposed changes with legal experts and representatives of religious communities, according to Forum 18 News Service.