Religious freedom in Tajikistan might be banned

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Natalia Ekles
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Natalia Ekles
Tajikistan Dushanbe
September, 2007

Religious freedom in Tajikistan might be banned…

In March 2006 Tajik Commette on Religious Affairs introduced draft Law on Right of Conscience and Religious Associations to public and tried to push it forward to the Parliament of Tajikistan.

Fortunately their last year attempt to adopt draft Law was postponed due to strong opposition from church leaders and international communities. However the latest 2007 revised version of the draft Law was made even more restrictive.

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If it is adopted unchanged it would be the most repressive religious law in the Central Asia as reported by Igor Rotar (Forum 18).
Therefore in July 2007 Christian leaders addressed the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon http://woltj.my1.ru/news/2007-07-09-4 the Chair of the Parliament and the Deputy Minister of Culture with an appeal signed by 22 religious minorities  to amend the draft Law at a meeting in the capital Dushanbe on 28 June.

Presently international communities continue to address the Chair of the Committee on Religious Affaires M. Davlatov (author of the draft Law) to amend it as it violates the rights of believers and especially Christians who is minority in Tajikistan and compose 3% with Protestant Christians about 0.02 per cent of the population while 97% belong to Muslim confessions www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35488.htm.


According to Felix Corley “The first ten articles of the draft Law affirms the equality of all faiths before the law, non-interference of the state in religious communities' activity, the rights of religious communities to manage their own affairs and select their own leadership, and the rights of individuals and religious communities to conduct worship, teach religion and use religious literature.

Article 30 specifically allows individuals and religious communities to hold worship services in private homes and to establish dedicated places of worship. However, many articles of the draft go on to undermine and contradict all these rights.”  


For example Article 7 of the new Law (on the non-interference of the state and its agencies in the activity of religious associations), saying that …”actions aiming to convert people from one faith to another are forbidden, as are any other charitable or missionary works that appear to put intellectual, psychological or any other kind of pressure on citizens for the purpose of proselytism”… wasn’t abolished despite pressing requests of the Christian leaders expressed to the Committee of Religious Affaires in 2006.

 

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Certainly it will empower government to restrict the activity of Missionaries, Christian humanitarian organizations, even small groups of believers who come together in private houses though it does not ban the religious activity directly but it is easy to interpret and apply as banning.

Moreover Article 43 forces the re-registration of all existing religious communities, by stipulating that they must gain re-registration under the new Law by 1 July 2008. Existing legal religious communities that fail to meet the new requirements, or fail to gain re-registration will have their legal status annulled. And article 15 requires churches to collect 1200 signatures of its members 800 signatures for provincial cities and 400 in districts to re/register.

However even in Dushanbe or other cities they might have only 100 to 300 members. The total of Protestants in the whole country is about 3,000 to 4,000. Even Orthodox Church the most numerous could hardly collect the signature of 1200 members and it is impossible for protestant churches to re/register and thus function legally.

Slavic Gospel Association's Joel Griffith says Christians are concerned about the proposed religion law draft. "It could be interpreted by officials as banning all unregistered religious activity." The law will be submitted in the Parliament for consideration in mid August, 2007 and if passed it would come into effect in January, 2008.

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