On 10 July, police confiscated around 15 leaflets expounding
Hare Krishna beliefs from local Hare Krishna believer Nurali Kurbanov., Forum
18 News Service has learnt. An unknown man in civilian clothes came up to him
while he was selling Hare Krishna literature at the town market and asked to
buy several leaflets from him on the spot. The man told Kurbanov that he would
have to come to his house to get the money, and Kurbanov agreed. But the
"customer" led him to an official of the Internal Affairs
Administration for Navoi region, Shukhrat Khabiyev Khabiyev confiscated the
literature and said it would be sent off for expert analysis.
On 24 July, Khabiyev confirmed these events to Forum 18. "We sent off the
literature confiscated from Kurbanov for expert analysis at Uzbekistan's
Committee for Religious Affairs, and the response from there was that Hare
Krishnas are only allowed to distribute literature in the Russian language, not
in Uzbek. Kurbanov will shortly be punished under the administrative code, and
will be given a fine for his unlawful activities."
Nowhere in Uzbek law is there a ban on religious minorities preaching in the
Uzbek language. However, according to Article 5 of Uzbekistan's law on
religion, "actions that aim to convert believers from one confession to
another (proselytism), and also any other missionary activity, are
forbidden". This article contradicts the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR) ratified by Uzbekistan in 1999.
However, the authorities are conducting a particularly harsh campaign against
religious minorities that they regard as trying to convert Muslims to their own
faith. There is an unspoken directive: "If you are an Uzbek, then you must
be Muslims, if you are Russian, you must be Orthodox." The most striking
example is the case of a Jehovah's Witness, Marat Mudarisov. A Tatar by birth
and a Tashkent resident, he actively preached Jehovah's Witness doctrines. In
July 2002 he was arrested by the National Security Service (formerly the KGB),
and shortly afterwards a criminal case was brought against him under Article
156 of the criminal code (incitement of national, racial or religious hatred).
Mudarisov's case is disturbing primarily because he was sentenced under the
criminal code. However, there have been dozens of cases where pressure has been
applied to members of religious minorities simply because they are Muslims by
birth. In January 2003 the police burst into a private home in the town of
Muinak in Karakalpakstan where two ethnic Kazakhs were reading the Bible. These
Protestants were taken to the police station where they were tortured using gas
masks, which were put on their heads and their air supply cut off. Officers
demanded that they write a confession that they had been preaching the Gospel
to each other.
In private conversations with Forum 18, Uzbek officials justify the harsh
campaign against proselytism by claiming that, given the difficult economic
situation, the conversion of Muslims to Christianity or other faiths could
provoke riots.