#RUSSIA: Administrative prosecutions for opposing Ukraine war

Police in Yekaterinburg detained artist Ivan Lyubimov for quoting on his anti-war poster John Donne's text "No man is an island" and UN figures for civilian casualties in Ukraine. He awaits charges. Police in Kaluga charged Aleksandr Ivanov for an anti-war statement on his online Orthodox encyclopaedia on the war's first day. For fear of prosecution, the site has been forced to remove its news section, which had reported the destruction of churches in Ukraine and reposted foreign Orthodox leaders' anti-war pronouncements.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2758

#KAZAKHSTAN: Seven years' jail for online Muslim posts

Muslim Anatoli Zernichenko was jailed for seven years, for posting on social media Muslim texts which prosecutors without evidence claimed promoted terrorism. Zernichenko has appealed, but no hearing date is set. The case started with the secret police hunting through his social media accounts, and the jailing rests on textual "expert analyses". Yevgeny Zhovtis of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law says this is "exactly what the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur for Protecting Human Rights while Countering Terrorism raised concerns about".

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2759

#TAJIKISTAN: Prisoner of conscience still denied proper medical care

71-year-old prisoner of conscience Shamil Khakimov – whose health continues to decline - is now losing his eyesight. The regime refuses to provide needed medical care and release him. Prison Governor Jamoliddin Khushbakhtzoda insists that Khakimov's health is fine, and denies knowledge of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Mandela Rules): "What Rules are you talking about? I haven't heard of these Rules." At least 5 other prisoners of conscience are jailed for exercising freedom of religion or belief.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2760

#TAJIKISTAN: Banned from wearing mourning clothes, arrested, tortured

The regime targets women who dress as they choose, including wearing hijab. "I don't want to stop wearing the hijab, so I try to avoid the police," one told Forum 18. Many Islamic rites and ceremonies are banned, including mourning customs. On 27 June police stopped Elobat Oghalykova for wearing a black dress to mark one of her sons' death, took her to a police station and tortured her. After she and her son made formal complaints, police threatened both with 15 days' jail.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2761

#UZBEKISTAN: Judge jails Muslim as he "read literature .. spread his beliefs .. met others"

A Bukhara Region court jailed 47-year-old Bobirjon Tukhtamurodov for 5 years 1 month for participating in a group that met to study the works of Muslim theologian Said Nursi. Judge Akrom Rakhimov told Forum 18 that prisoner of conscience Tukhtamurodov was jailed as: "He not only read literature, but spread his beliefs and met others." He had returned from exile in Russia after Uzbekistan's regime told him he would not be jailed.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2762

#RUSSIA: Government pressure on religious leaders to support Ukraine war

The government has pressured religious leaders to support Russia's renewed invasion of Ukraine, and prosecuted and fined religious believers and leaders who publicly oppose the war. Lutheran Bishop Dietrich Brauer and Moscow Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt left Russia in March after resisting state pressure to support the war. The FSB security service warned local religious leaders, including at least three Protestant pastors individually in one region. "Such warnings don't take place now," a pastor told Forum 18 in July. "Those [March warnings] were enough for everyone."

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2763

#BELARUS: Fined for river baptisms, fined for private garden baptisms

Without facilities at Gomel's Living Faith Church, Pastor Dmitry Podlobko held river baptisms in late 2021 without state permission. He was fined two days' average wage and his Church was warned. So he held baptisms in July 2022 in his garden. Police summoned him and a court fined him two weeks' average wage. Asked whether Podlobko would have been punished had he and his friends been swimming, Police Chief Vasili Kravtsov responded: "They weren't swimming in the pool. This was a religious ritual. They are completely different."

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2764

#RUSSIA: "Retroactively depriving Russian citizens of the right to international protection"

Under June amendments, Russia will not enforce any European Court of Human Rights decision which came into force after 15 March, and will pay outstanding compensation in earlier cases only in Roubles and not to bank accounts in countries deemed "unfriendly". "Russia hasn't been the best in enforcing ECtHR judgments domestically, far from it," says a Jehovah's Witness lawyer, but added that positive judgments "generally slowed down the infringements". Moscow lawyer Sergey Okhotin described the amendments as "retroactively depriving Russian citizens of the right to international protection".

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2765

#RUSSIA: New registers of "extremist" people and literature

July legal amendments introduce a new register of people allegedly connected to "extremism", apparently to be used in parallel with the existing Rosfinmonitoring "List of Terrorists and Extremists". Individuals liable for inclusion are so broadly defined that it is unclear whether there may be wider implications, including for religious believers whose organisations have been banned as "extremist", such as Jehovah's Witnesses or Muslim Nursi readers. "Anyone could end up [on the new unified register]," says Aleksandr Verkhovsky of the SOVA Centre in Moscow.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2766

#KAZAKHSTAN: "This is not a state campaign against the Church"?

Protestants say secret police encouraged a former church member to lodge a suit against New Life Church – now in court in Pavlodar - claiming back pay and compensation for moral damages for volunteer work in a rehabilitation centre. "This is not a state campaign against the Church," a local religious affairs official claimed, though the individual met officials and a state-backed anti-"sect" centre. Jehovah's Witnesses are appealing a decision awarding large "compensation" to two former members. An assessment of their literature, claiming it caused psychiatric harm, listed a work by Andrei Snezhnevsky, leader of Soviet-era psychiatric abuse.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2767

#CRIMEA: Catholic priest latest fined for failing to use full name

Yalta's Catholic priest, Fr Tomasz Wytrwal, was fined one month's average wage on 5 August for his parish's failure to use its full official name on material it had produced. Under a Russian Supreme Court decision, only organisations, not individuals, can be subject to such punishments. His is one of nine cases against religious communities so far in 2022. The warning to Simferopol's Orthodox Jewish community followed an inspection by the FSB security service's Service for the Defence of the Constitutional Order and the Struggle Against Terrorism.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2768

#RUSSIA: Six who met to study their faith on trial in Moscow

On 1 September, Moscow's Kuzminsky District Court is due to begin the largest criminal trial for eight years of Muslims who met to study the works of the theologian Said Nursi, which have been banned as "extremist". Prosecutors accuse the six men – who face possible long jail terms - of forming a "home madrassah". The men have been in Butyrka prison since October 2021. Moscow City Prosecutor's Office did not respond as to who might have been harmed by the men's exercise of freedom of religion or belief.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2769

#BELARUS: Closing "one of the last remaining opportunities to seek justice"

If Parliament approves a draft Law, individuals will be stripped of the possibility to complain to the UN Human Rights Committee about violations of their rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Nazaruk alleged "arbitrary expansion" of the Committee's powers. Human rights groups warn this "will close one of the last remaining opportunities to seek justice for human rights violations". In 2021, the Committee found the regime violated Valentin Borovik's rights when it fined him for leading an unregistered Pentecostal community.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2770

#BELARUS: Officials threaten to liquidate Minsk's New Life Church

Minsk City Administration and local police have warned New Life Pentecostal Church that meetings for worship in the church car park are illegal and threatened to liquidate the Church in court. Liquidation would make any exercise of freedom of religion or belief illegal and punishable with up to a two-year jail term. The Church meets each Sunday in the car park after officials evicted it in February 2021 from the church building it bought in 2002. Officials refuse to explain why the Church cannot use its building.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2771

#KAZAKHSTAN: 75 Tabligh Jamaat adherents criminally convicted since 2015

Secret police raided the homes of Sarsen Netekov and Nurlan Atalykov, seizing 150 religious books and accusing them of membership of the banned Muslim missionary movement Tabligh Jamaat. In March, an Atyrau court handed them one-year restricted freedom terms, bringing to 75 the number of alleged Tabligh Jamaat members known to have been criminally convicted since 2015. It also ordered the books destroyed. Asked why officers raided the men's homes and seized religious literature, the secret police in Atyrau responded: "We don't give out such information."

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2772

#UZBEKISTAN: "Go on dreaming!" prison governor replies to tortured prisoner of conscience's medical need

Prisoner of conscience Fazilkhoja Arifkhojayev is being forced to do work he cannot medically do, damaging his spine even more. He has been repeatedly tortured, and when the family asked Prison Governor Oybek Tishayev personally whether they could arrange medical care at their own cost, or as required by the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (known as the Mandela Rules) the prison could arrange the necessary specialist medical care. Tishayev replied: "Go on dreaming!"

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2773

#CRIMEA: Religious freedom survey, September 2022

Freedom of religion and belief is, along with other human rights, severely restricted within the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Forum 18's survey analysis documents violations including: forced imposition of Russian laws and restrictions on exercising human rights, including freedom of religion or belief; jailing Muslim and Jehovah's Witness Crimean prisoners of conscience; forcible closure of places of worship; and fining people for leading meetings for worship without Russian state permission.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2774

#RUSSIA: 200 people on criminal trial for exercising freedom of religion or belief

Nearly 200 Jehovah's Witnesses and 9 Muslims who study Said Nursi's writings are on criminal trial for exercising freedom of religion and belief. Since June, courts jailed 17 Jehovah's Witnesses for "organising" or "participating in" banned communities. "I still do not understand what my crime is," Yelena Nikulina told a Saransk court. "There are no victims in our case, but there are still injured parties – and they are in front of you, in the dock!" The court jailed her and her husband for 4 years, 2 months.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2775

#AZERBAIJAN: Conscientious objector jailing "very unexpected decision"

On 22 September, a Goranboy court jailed 22-year-old Jehovah's Witness Seymur Mammadov for nine months for refusing compulsory military service on conscientious grounds. On 25 July – two days after his 18th birthday – officers seized conscientious objector Royal Karimov and forcibly took him to a military unit in Ganca, where he is still held. Baku's Sabail District Court extended to March 2023 the pre-trial detention of Shia Muslim Imam Sardar Babayev, held on treason charges since October 2021, Babayev's lawyer Javad Javadov told Forum 18.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2776

#BELARUS: Fines, car park worship ban for New Life Church

On 25 September, Police banned Minsk's New Life Church from meeting for Sunday worship in the car park of the building from which officials forcibly evicted it in February 2021. Police detained the Church's pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko and another pastor Antoni Bokun. A judge fined each two months' average wage for leading the 18 September service which police had observed. Minsk City Executive Committee refuses to return the seized church building or allow the Church to meet for worship in the car park.

https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2777