The authorities in Kyrgyzstan's southern Jalal-abad region have banned the reading of the call to prayer via loudspeakers, the local Muslim leader, Dilmurat Haji Orozov, told Keston News Service on 28 November.
A phone call to the government's commission for religious affairs established that the ban was unlawful, but the authorities are still enforcing it, Orozov complained. The local religious affairs official told Keston that the ban was imposed to protect the rights of non-Muslims, pointing out that people of all faiths had been woken up early in the morning by the amplified calls to prayer. An expert on religious issues at a Jalal-abad human rights organisation believes that the ban is symptomatic of a new policy adopted by the authorities: "Repression of Muslims who refuse to follow the instructions of the secular authorities has increased."