Two Jehovah's Witnesses are facing prosecution under the
code of administrative offences after police raided the home of one of them and
confiscated religious literature. Shukhrat Ashurov and Alisher Argeliyev from
the village of Yubileiny in Gazalkent district, 90 kilometres (55 miles)
north-east of the capital Tashkent, appeared at an initial hearing on 28 May at
Gazalkent town court. But judge Rovshan Khaidarov decided that additional
witnesses should be summoned to court and adjourned the case until 3 June.
"According to my sources, at the next legal hearing Ashurov and Argeliyev
will be charged with preaching to children," the two men's lawyer Rustam
Satdanov told Forum 18 News Service in Tashkent on 28 May.
Three officers of the Gazalkent police, together with two witnesses, came with
a search warrant to Ashurov's home in Yubileiny on 18 May, Ashurov told Forum
18 in the village on 25 May. The officers told him that villagers had
collectively complained that he and fellow resident Argeliyev were
"spreading propaganda about Christianity and Wahhabism" (a term
widely but largely inaccurately used in Central Asia to denote Islamic fundamentalism).
The police searched Ashurov's home and confiscated around 40 Jehovah's Witness
leaflets, as well as two Korans, two New Testaments and one Bible. The officers
warned that a case against the two would soon be brought to court.
Ashurov insists he and his colleague have done nothing wrong. "The
leaflets were brought to Uzbekistan legally and I took delivery of them at the
Jehovah's Witness centre in Chirchik, which is registered with the
authorities," Ashurov told Forum 18. "As far as I know, there is no
ban on the Bible, New Testament and Koran in Uzbekistan."
On 20 May the villagers held a meeting at Yubileiny's school at which those
present demanded that Ashurov and Argeliyev stop preaching the Jehovah's
Witness faith and "return to the faith of their forefathers", a
reference to Islam. Several villagers also threatened the two, saying that if
they failed to do as they had been asked they would be thrown out of the
village (under Uzbek law, villagers may turn individuals out of the village if
their behaviour appears unacceptable to local residents).
"I only found out recently that Ashurov and Argeliyev had become followers
of Yoga," the head of the village administration, Riskali Nadyrov, told
Forum 18 on 25 May in Yubileiny, apparently confusing the Jehovah's Witnesses
with adherents of Yoga. "No one intends to turn them out of the village
but of course they, like all of us, ought to be Muslims."
An official of the department for combating terrorism at the Internal Affairs
administration for Gazalkent district, Khusan Imanaliyev, reported that his
office had received information that Wahhabis were operating in Yubileiny.
"The area around the Charvak reservoir, which includes the village of
Yubileiny, is a distinctive area: fighters for the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan operated here in 1999," he told Forum 18 in Gazalkent on 26
May. "Naturally, we had to provide an efficient response to that
information."
In Imanaliyev's view, "of course Ashurov and Argeliyev are not terrorists,
but they have broken Uzbek law by engaging in proselytism". He therefore
believed the administrative case against them was justified. He said the books
were confiscated from Ashirov as "material evidence", but insisted
that those not banned in Uzbekistan will be returned to their owner.
"The authorities simply weren't expecting this case to receive
publicity," Satdanov maintained, adding that Forum 18's visit to the area
as well as his own visit had put extra pressure on them. "This means they
must prepare more carefully for the legal case."