Tashkent, Uzbekistan - "Increase in the number of legal religious communities reported in Uzbekistan," web site of INTERFAX news agency stated on January 17. The report refers to the data provided by some Uzbek state official only but does not include the opinion of the other side - say, representatives of non-traditional confession or independent experts.
Ferghana.Ru approached Igor Rotar, a specialist in freedom of conscience in Central Asia and activist of Forum-18 (a prominent Norwegian human rights organization), for comments. His opinion follows the unabridged text of the INTERFAX report.
Increase in the number of legally registered religious organizations in Uzbekistan indicates absence of restrictions and limitations.
"The number of religious organizations increases, indicating the absence of any restrictions or limitations whose existence is reported by some Western experts," Bekhzod Kadyrov, an expert with the Cabinet's Committee for Religious Affairs, told INTERFAX.
Kadyrov says that 2,186 religious organizations representing practically all confessions ("most of them Islamic and Christian") officially operate in Uzbekistan nowadays.
"Other confessions - Judaism, Buddhism, Krishnaism - are also represented in the republic," Kadyrov said.
According to the official, Islam is mostly represented by the Sunni school, while Christianity is represented by the Russian Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church, Christian Church of Absolute Unity (a kind of Protestantism), and others.
"We also have an organization of Witnesses of Jehovah in Uzbekistan. They are outlawed in many countries of the world, particularly in Moslem countries, but not in Uzbekistan which is a vivid example of the level of freedom of conscience," Kadyrov added.
"Functioning of a non-registered religious organization is branded as an unlawful deed and not "independence" or "freedom of confessions" as Western organization insist on calling it," the specialist said.
Kadyrov: The Constitution guarantees equality of all confessions; and all religious organizations and societies are equal in the eyes of the law. All of them are equally detached from the state.
According to Kadyrov, the acting legislation puts forth equal demands and requirements to all confessions so as to ensure their equality and absence of challenges to confessional tolerance. Article 3 of the law "On freedom of conscience and religious organizations" states that restrictions on freedom of conscience are possible when they made necessary by considerations of national security and public order, health, lives, morale, and rights and freedoms of other citizens.
Article 5 of the same law bans missionary activities and proselytism, Kadyrov said.
"Demands to religious organizations concerning procedures of registration and their activities, financial transparency, and so on put forth by Uzbek state structures are based on the acting legislation," Kadyrov said. "Meanwhile, the Justice Ministry and Committee for Religious Affairs logged gross violations on the part of missionary and other religious organizations and sects on more than one occasion."
"Whenever the law is broken, the offender must be brought to answer whether someone likes it or not. Whenever these problems are elevated to the political plane and are distorted into bargain, it leaves the impression that certain political or strategic interests must be involved," Kadyrov emphasized."
(end of report)
Comment by Igor Rotar
The Uzbek state official's statement is a typical example of unabashed propaganda meant for the audience that does not know the first thing about life in Uzbekistan. Religious organizations officially registered in Uzbekistan amount to only one third of what was registered in Kazakhstan nearby. Hundreds apply for official registration every year but only one or two get registered. All the rest are denied registration under all sorts of invented excuses and pretexts. Where mosques are concerned, the authorities set an unofficial quota for mosques that depends on the population of the mahallja (community) in question. Visit Uzbekistan and in absolutely every region you will encounter mosques closed when the law "On freedom of conscience and religious organizations" came into effect in 1998.
Activities of all non-registered religious communities in Uzbekistan are considered unlawful. Police officers regularly break into private apartments where believers meet "unofficially". Charges, administrative and criminal alike, are pressed against members of non-registered religious communities. The acting legislation states that a religious organization may only apply for registration when it has at least 100 members. That is why there are religious communities in small townships all over Uzbekistan that cannot even apply for official registration.
As for Witnesses of Jehovah, their organizations were registered only in Chirchik (Tashkent outskirts) and Ferghana. The Tashkent organization applied for registration six times already - with nothing to show for it. By the law, believers are only permitted to meet and worship in officially registered temples. Because of that, administrative and criminal charges are regularly pressed against Witnesses of Jehovah compelled to meet privately. At least two of them spent more than a month behind the bars.
Kadyrov refers to Article 5 of the law "On freedom of conscience and religious organizations" as banning missionary activities and proselytism. The authorities use the provision as a club. A person may be accused of being a missionary and find himself on trial for merely giving somebody else a religious magazine in the street. Administration of the teacher-training college in Khoresm accused local Krishnaits for being missionaries only because they carried beads. Tutors forced these students to eat meat and drink vodka which is not permitted by their faith.