KYRGYZSTAN: Religion Law changes being done "democratically"
ICC Note:
While the government of Kyrgyzstan claims that they are enforcing the Religion Law ?democratically? there are many religious minorities who would beg to differ. The new changes, if full adopted, could result in students needing the permission of the government to attend religious colleges in other countries as well as requiring a church or other religious community to have 200 local members before it can be legal.
12/19/2012 Kyrgyzstan (Forum18)- Draft amendments to the Religion Law prepared by the State Commission for Religious Affairs (SCRA) have begun passage in Kyrgyzstan's single-chamber parliament, the Zhogorku Kenesh, Forum 18 News Service notes. If eventually adopted, the government-backed Religion Law amendments would ban sending students to foreign religious colleges without government permission, require each religious community to have 200 local citizen adult founders in one locality, and ban all exercise of freedom of religion or belief by foreign citizens without a state license.
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Galina Kolodzinskaia, coordinator of the Inter-religious Council in the Kyrgyz Republic, fears that the Religion Law amendments could be adopted "quickly and quietly", especially if public debate is minimal. "I know that several parliamentary deputies are opposed to them, but if most of them are committed to adopting them this could be done as early as in a month's time," she told Forum 18 from Bishkek on 18 December.
Mira Karybaeva, Head of the Presidential Administration's Ethnic, Religious Policy, and Cooperation with Civil Society Department, claimed to Forum 18 on 3 December that "these new amendments will not be hurried - we're doing all this democratically". The initial text of the draft amendments was made public on the government website on 18 June. Work on the text was completed in late October, after changes described by human rights defender Dmitry Kabak, of the Bishkek-based Open Viewpoint Foundation, on 29 October as "minor".
Karybaeva of the Presidential Administration insisted to Forum 18 that: "Government and society have reached a consensus on this". She declined to discuss the censorship amendments then awaiting presidential signature, or proposed changes to the Code of Administrative Offences. Her claim of "consensus" ignored heavy criticism of the amendments by human rights defenders and civil society activists, as well as some religious communities ? including criticism made at an Open Viewpoint roundtable she personally attended (see below).
The Justice Ministry has prepared draft amendments to the Administrative Code, extensively widening the freedom of religion or belief manifestations subject to administrative punishment. The Ministry is currently seeking government approval to present them to the Zhogorku Kenesh (see forthcoming F18News article).
Censorship amendments to the Religion Law were signed by President Almazbek Atambayev on 7 December. State officials have refused to explain how the amendments ? which increase state control over religious literature and other materials - will be implemented (see F18News 13 December 2012 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1781).
Religion Law "is not working"?
On 30 October the latest draft amendments to the Religion Law, prepared by the State Commission for Religious Affairs (SCRA), reached the Zhogorku Kenesh according to its website. The draft was assigned to the parliamentary Education, Science, Culture and Sport Committee, which was behind the tightening of censorship changes (see F18News 29 June 2012 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1716). The Committee is chaired by Kanybek Osmanaliev, former Chair of the State Agency for Religious Affairs (the SCRA's predecessor) under the discredited regime of ex-President Kurmanbek Bakiev.
SCRA Director Abdilatif Zhumabayev presented the draft to the Committee at an 11 December meeting. Committee Chair Osmanaliev complained that the current Religion Law "is not working". Despite repeated calls, Forum 18 was unable to reach Osmonaliev or Zhumabayev on 18 or 19 December to ask why they think the current Law is not working and why they think it needs to be changed. Osmonaliev's aide told Forum 18 he was in meetings.
Osmonaliev also used the meeting to launch an attack on "foreign missionaries". "Kyrgyzstan has turned into a polygon for various religious sects," local news agencies quoted him as claiming. He also complained that "it has reached the point where Baptists are divided on ethnic lines: into Kyrgyz and Russians".
The current Religion Law came into force in January 2009, a year before then-President Bakiev was ousted from power. After Bakiev's departure, Protestant, Catholic, Baha'i, Hare Krishna, Jehovah's Witness, and civil society human rights groups told Forum 18 they wanted it to be abolished or radically changed (see F18News 16 April 2010 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1432). But parliamentary deputies and government agencies have since then repeatedly tried to harshen the Law's restrictive provisions, as with the censorship amendments.
Amendments "do not contradict international norms"?
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In his justification of the new amendments, apparently completed by 10 October and published on the parliamentary website, SCRA Director Zhumabayev noted that some of the provisions had emerged from other state agencies during government consultations on the draft text. He insisted that "the norms of this draft Law do not contradict international norms".
As the amendments reinforce the current Law's breaches of the international human rights treaties Kyrgyzstan has solemnly promised to implement (see Forum 18's Kyrgyzstan religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1388), it is unclear how Zhumabayev could have come to this conclusion.
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