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  • F18News: Eastern Europe - OSCE CONFERENCE ON DISCRIMINATION - AREGIO

    FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
    http://www.forum18.org/

    The right to believe, to worship and witness
    The right to change one's belief or religion
    The right to join together and express one's belief

    =================================================

    Thursday 9 September 2004
    EASTERN EUROPE: OSCE CONFERENCE ON DISCRIMINATION - A REGIONAL SURVEY

    Ahead of the OSCE Conference on Tolerance and the Fight against Racism,
    Xenophobia and Discrimination on 13-14 September 2004 in Brussels, Forum 18
    News Service http://www.forum18.org surveys some of the more serious
    discriminatory actions against religious believers that persist in some
    countries of the 55-member OSCE. Despite their binding OSCE commitments to
    religious freedom, in some OSCE member states believers are still fined,
    imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their faith, religious services are
    broken up, places of worship confiscated and even destroyed, religious
    literature censored and religious communities denied registration. Forum 18
    believes most of the serious problems affecting religious believers in the
    eastern half of the OSCE region come from government discrimination.

    EASTERN EUROPE: OSCE CONFERENCE ON DISCRIMINATION - A REGIONAL SURVEY

    By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service

    The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which has
    as members all the states of Europe, Central Asia and North America, works
    not by coercion but by consensus and persuasion. Membership is not
    compulsory: states have the free choice whether to accept the binding OSCE
    commitments by joining or not. The commitment of all OSCE states to respect
    freedom of religion is clear. The 1990 OSCE human dimension conference
    declared "everyone will have the right to freedom of thought,
    conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change one's
    religion or belief and freedom to manifest one's religion or belief, either
    alone or in community with others, in public or in private, through
    worship, teaching, practice and observance. The exercise of these rights
    may be subject only to such restrictions as are prescribed by law and are
    consistent with international standards." Yet government
    discrimination against religious believers remains disturbingly
    pervasive.

    As delegates assemble in Brussels for the OSCE Conference on Tolerance and
    the Fight against Racism, Xenophobia and Discrimination on 13-14 September
    2004, many ask how violators of these fundamental OSCE commitments -
    especially Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Armenia - can
    be allowed to continue as members of an organisation whose fundamental
    principles they blatantly flout. OSCE officials argue off the record that
    it is better to keep violators in, with the hope that they can be persuaded
    to mend their ways, rather than expel them, abandoning local people to the
    clutches of their governments. The result is that persecuted believers
    Forum 18 News Service www.forum18.org has spoken to in a number of states
    now have little faith in what the OSCE can and will do for them to protect
    their right to religious freedom.

    The OSCE has reaffirmed that discrimination against religious believers is
    as unacceptable as discrimination against ethnic or other social groups or
    individuals. Meeting in the Dutch city of Maastricht in 2003, the OSCE
    Ministerial Council stressed in its Decision No. 4 on Tolerance and
    Non-Discrimination that it "[a]ffirms the importance of freedom of
    thought, conscience, religion or belief, and condemns all discrimination
    and violence, including against any religious group or individual
    believer" and "[c]ommits to ensure and facilitate the freedom of
    the individual to profess and practice a religion or belief, alone or in
    community with others, where necessary through transparent and
    non-discriminatory laws, regulations, practices and policies". The
    ministerial council also emphasised what it believed is the importance of a
    "continued and strengthened interfaith and intercultural dialogue to
    promote greater tolerance, respect and mutual understanding".

    While many governments would prefer this conference to concentrate on
    tackling social discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities, in
    much of the region it is important to stress that the most serious
    discrimination against religious believers, at least, comes from
    governments. In many states discrimination is enshrined in law and in
    official practice (from national to local level). Believers will only be
    free of such discrimination if such discriminatory laws are abolished or
    amended, and if other laws and international commitments guaranteeing
    religious freedom are put into practice.

    Social discrimination against religious minorities does exist -
    especially among Orthodox in Georgia, among Muslims in Central Asia, and
    among ethnic Albanians (whether Muslim or Catholic) in Kosovo - but
    only in exceptional circumstances has this led to persistent denial of
    believers' rights. Governments have a duty to promote tolerance and harmony
    in society, but many could start with improving their own behaviour.

    It is also important to remember that criticising the beliefs of another
    faith does not constitute a crime: only violence or incitement to violence
    is. A key element of religious freedom is the right peacefully to expound
    and promote the beliefs of one's faith and to set out how they might differ
    from those of other faiths.

    In the run-up to the July 2003 OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting
    on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Forum 18 News Service www.forum18.org
    surveyed some, but not all, of the continuing abuses of religious freedom
    in the eastern half of the OSCE region (see F18News 9 July 2003
    http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=101 ). Discrimination against
    believers also occurs in other OSCE countries (such as the About-Picard law
    in France, restrictions on newer religious communities in Belgium and
    discrimination against minority faiths in Turkey). It is disturbing that
    one year on, almost all the abuses Forum 18 noted in 2003 have continued
    unchecked.

    RELIGIOUS WORSHIP: An alarming number of states raid religious meetings to
    close down services and punish those who take part. Turkmenistan is the
    worst offender: all unregistered religious activity is illegal and no
    non-Muslim and non-Russian Orthodox religious communities - even the
    few registered minority communities - are able to hold public worship
    freely. Uzbekistan and Belarus specifically ban unregistered religious
    services. In Belarus, numerous Protestant congregations - some numbering
    more than a thousand members - cannot meet because they cannot get a
    registered place to worship. Officials in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and
    Azerbaijan also raid places where worship is being conducted. In Macedonia,
    members of the Serbian Orthodox Church have difficulty holding public
    worship and leaders have been prosecuted. In Russia and some other states,
    minority faiths are often denied permission to rent publicly-owned
    buildings available to other groups.

    PLACES OF WORSHIP: Opening a place of worship is impossible in some states.
    In Turkmenistan non-Muslim and non-Russian Orthodox communities cannot in
    practice open a place of worship, while those that existed before the
    mid-1990s were confiscated or bulldozed. Uzbekistan has closed down
    thousands of mosques since 1996 and often denies Christian groups' requests
    to open churches. Azerbaijan also obstructs the opening of Christian
    churches and tries to close down some of those already open, while in 2004
    it seized a mosque in Baku from its community and tried to prevent the
    community meeting elsewhere. Belarus makes it almost impossible for
    religious communities without their own building already - or substantial
    funds to rent one - to find a legal place to worship. An Autocephalous
    Orthodox church (which attracted the anger of the government and the
    Russian Orthodox Church) was bulldozed in 2002. In Slovenia, which
    represents the incoming OSCE Chair-in-Office, the Ljubljana authorities
    have long obstructed the building of a mosque. In Bulgaria, the current
    Chair-in-Office, in July 2004 the police stormed more than 200 churches
    used by the Alternative Synod since a split in the Orthodox Church a decade
    ago, ousting the occupants and handing the churches over to the rival
    Orthodox Patriarchate without any court rulings.

    REGISTRATION: Where registration is compulsory before any religious
    activity can start (Turkmenistan, Belarus and Uzbekistan) or where
    officials claim that it is (Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan), life is made
    difficult for communities that either choose not to register (such as one
    network of Baptist communities in the former Soviet republics) or are
    denied registration (the majority of religious communities in Azerbaijan
    and Turkmenistan). Registration in Turkmenistan is all but impossible,
    despite the reduction in 2004 from 500 to 5 in the number of adult citizens
    required to found a community. In countries such as Azerbaijan or
    Uzbekistan, registration for disfavoured communities is often made
    impossible - officials in the sanitary/epidemiological service are among
    those with the power of veto in Uzbekistan. Belarus, Slovenia, Slovakia,
    Macedonia, Russia and Latvia are also among states which to widely varying
    degrees make registration of some groups impossible or very difficult.
    Moscow has refused to register the Jehovah's Witnesses in the city, despite
    their national registration. Some countries - including the Czech
    Republic, Slovakia and Austria, with plans for similar moves in Serbia
    - grant full status as religious communities to favoured religious
    communities only. Faiths with smaller membership or which the government
    does not like have to make do with lesser status and fewer rights.

    RELIGIOUS LITERATURE: Belarus and Azerbaijan require compulsory prior
    censorship of all religious literature produced or imported into the
    country. Azerbaijani customs routinely confiscate religious literature,
    releasing it only when the State Committee for Work with Religious
    Organisations grants explicit written approval for each title and the
    number of copies authorised. Forbidden books are sent back or destroyed
    (thousands of Hare Krishna books held by customs for seven years have been
    destroyed). Even countries without formal religious censorship - eg.
    Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - routinely confiscate imported religious
    literature or literature found during raids on homes. Uzbekistan routinely
    bars access to websites it dislikes, such as foreign Muslim sites.

    INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: Believers from minority religious communities in
    institutions such as prisons, hospitals or the army may face difficulties
    obtaining and keeping religious literature, praying in private and
    receiving visits from spiritual leaders and fellow-believers. In
    Uzbekistan, even Muslim prisoners have been punished for praying and
    fasting during Ramadan. Death-row prisoners wanting visits from Muslim
    imams and Russian Orthodox priests have had requests denied, even for final
    confession before execution.

    DISCRIMINATION: Turkmenistan has dismissed from state jobs hundreds of
    active Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses and members of other religious
    minorities. Turkmen and Azeri officials try to persuade people to abandon
    their faith and "return" to their ancestral faith (Islam).
    Although the order has now reportedly been rescinded, Armenia ordered local
    police chiefs to persuade police officers who were members of faiths other
    than the Armenian Apostolic Church to abandon their faith. If persuasion
    failed, such employees were to be sacked. Belarus has subjected leaders of
    independent Orthodox Churches and Hindus to pressure - including fines,
    threats and inducements - to abandon their faith or emigrate. Officials in
    Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus repeatedly attack disfavoured religious
    minorities in the media, insulting their beliefs, accusing them falsely of
    illegal or "destructive" activities, as well as inciting popular
    hostility to them.

    RELIGIOUS SCHOOL CLASSES: Some states have allowed the dominant faith to
    determine the content of compulsory religious education classes and
    textbooks in state-run schools. In Belarus, minority faiths complain their
    beliefs are inaccurately and insultingly presented. In Georgia, classes
    often became denominational Orthodox instruction, with teachers taking
    children to pray in the local Orthodox church.

    GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE: Many governments meddle in the internal affairs of
    religious communities. Central Asian governments insist on choosing
    national and local Muslim leaders. Turkmenistan ousted successive chief
    muftis in January 2003 and August 2004. Tajikistan has conducted
    "attestation tests" of imams, ousting those who failed. Islamic
    schools are tightly controlled (in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, schools
    have either been closed or access to them restricted). Turkmenistan
    obstructs those seeking religious education abroad. Some countries with
    large Orthodox communities (but not Russia or Ukraine), try to bolster the
    largest Orthodox Church and obstruct rival jurisdictions (Belarus,
    Bulgaria, Macedonia, Georgia, Moldova). Russia has prevented communities
    from choosing their leadership, expelling a Catholic bishop and several
    priests, and dozens of Protestant and other leaders, while the secret
    police tried to influence the choice of a new Old Believer leader in
    February 2004.

    PROTECTION FROM VIOLENCE: Law enforcement agencies fail to give religious
    minorities the same protection as major groups. Between 1999 and 2003,
    Georgia suffered a wave of violence by self-appointed Orthodox vigilantes,
    with over 100 attacks on True Orthodox, Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals
    and Jehovah's Witnesses in which believers were physically attacked, places
    of worship blockaded and religious events disrupted. The authorities - who
    know the attackers' identity - have punished only a handful of people with
    suspended sentences. In some cases, police cooperated with attacks or
    failed to investigate them. In Kosovo the Nato-led peacekeeping force and
    United Nations police have repeatedly failed to protect Serbian Orthodox
    churches in use and graveyards, especially during the upsurge in anti-Serb
    violence in March 2004, when some 30 Orthodox sites were destroyed or
    heavily damaged. Few attackers have been arrested or prosecuted.

    DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MIGRANTS: Many religion laws restrict the rights of
    legal residents who are not citizens, requiring founders and leaders of
    religious organisations to be citizens. Azerbaijan provides for deportation
    of foreigners and those without citizenship who have conducted
    "religious propaganda". In the past decade, Turkmenistan has
    deported hundreds of legally-resident foreigners known to have taken part
    in religious activity, especially Muslims and Protestants. Some states
    (including Russia and Belarus) have denied visas to foreign religious
    leaders chosen by local religious communities.

    LACK OF TRANSPARENCY: Major laws and decrees affecting religious life are
    drawn up without public knowledge or discussion. Examples are the
    restrictive laws on religion of Belarus and Bulgaria in 2002, and planned
    new laws in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova. International organisations,
    such as the OSCE or the Council of Europe may be consulted but governments
    often refuse to allow their comments to be published or ignore them. Many
    countries retain openly partisan and secretive government religious affairs
    offices. Between 1999 and 2003, Slovenia's religious affairs office refused
    to register any new religious communities. Azerbaijan's has stated which
    communities it will refuse to register and what changes other communities
    will have to make to their statutes and activities to gain registration.

    RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORTING: Those reporting on religious freedom such as
    Forum 18 News Service www.forum18.org and groups campaigning on the issue
    face lack of cooperation, obstruction and harassment. Those suspected of
    passing on news of violations have been threatened in Turkmenistan,
    Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, with the aim of forcing silence. In a region
    without much government transparency or a genuinely free media, officials
    involved in harassing religious communities often refuse to explain to
    journalists what they have done and why. Local religious freedom
    campaigning groups are denied registration or kept waiting. Demonstrators
    protesting in Belarus against the restrictive 2002 religion law were fined.
    In September 2004, the Belarus bureau of the Union of Councils for Jews in
    the Former Soviet Union, which included monitoring religious persecution in
    its work, was denied registration. Government reports on religious freedom
    issues to bodies such as the OSCE or Council of Europe are often
    confidential and closed to public scrutiny.

    CONCLUSION: Many of these discriminatory restrictions predate the 11
    September 2001 terrorist attacks - and 1999 Islamic-inspired
    incursions into Central Asia - so governments cannot validly argue
    that such restrictions are necessary to ensure public security. The
    comprehensive nature of many of these measures shows the hostility of some
    OSCE member states to the right to exercise the faith of one's choice
    freely, something described by the European Court of Human Rights in 1993
    as "one of the foundations of a democratic society".
    (END)

    © Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved.

    You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to
    F18News http://www.forum18.org/

    Past and current Forum 18 information can be found at
    http://www.forum18.org/
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