Tajikistan: Repressive Religious Law in the Pipeline
Proposed legislation would make it harder for smaller faith groups to operate.
Tajikistan: Repressive Religious Law in the Pipeline
Proposed legislation would make it harder for smaller faith groups to operate.
Civil rights activists in Tajikistan fear the government is pushing for more restrictive legislation on religious practice, in the same way it did with a law on non-government groups earlier this year.
Activists and faith group representatives say their views have been ignored in the discussion of the new legislation, which has been going on for the past two years. The draft law, which would make it tougher for smaller religious communities to register with the authorities, is still being discussed by officials and has yet to be sent to parliament.
The new legislation has been designed by the culture ministry’s religious department and to replace the relatively liberal law on religion dating from 1994. It sets out tough new conditions which religious groups must meet before gaining official registration, including an increase in the minimum number of members, and it would prohibit missionary activities.
Islam is the religion of Tajiks and the large Uzbek minority, while ethnic Russians are traditionally of Orthodox Christian background. These two major religious communities have avoided poaching each other’s congregations, but have looked on with concern as newer groups, often Protestant Christian, have moved in and begun proselytising since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The new law is clearly aimed at curbing the activities of these smaller groups, and they are now trying to make their concerns heard. In July, some 20 Protestant groups and the Baha’i Society wrote to President Imomali Rahmon voicing alarm over the draft religious legislation.
“The law creates completely impractical conditions for registering religious minority organisations, whether they already exist or are newly created. Thus, they make it illegal for believers to practice their religion, and this suggests that in future, the state will persecute them for their beliefs,” their statement read.
There have also been expressions of concern from the Roman Catholic Church.
Human rights activists say the Law on Public Associations, which was passed at the end of April and governs the activity of non-government organisations, NGOs, set a bad precedent because there, too, the views of civil society activists were ignored, and the result was a restrictive piece of legislation.
“We must not allow what has happened to the law on public associations to happen to this religious legislation. If we don’t defend our rights actively, every law that is passed will ignore our interests,” said the chairman of the ethnic Korean society, Viktor Kim.
Most Koreans in Tajikistan – who are there because Stalin deported large numbers from the Far East in the late Thirties – are Christians, and many have joined some of the newer faith groups.
The NGO legislation, introduced to replace out-of-date laws from the Nineties, requires organisations to register annually with the authorities. Local and international NGOs argue that this gives the authorities leverage to exert pressure on them.
That law was drafted without involving civil society activists or independent legal consultants, they say.
While some amendments have since been adopted following complaints from local and foreign groups – including the scrapping of a requirement for foreign ministry accreditation in addition to registration with the justice ministry – these only apply to international NGOs.
Kim said that before the law was introduced, civil society groups found it easier to participate in debates, and their views were taken more into account.
“Now we do not have close ties with parliament. While they may talk about their willingness to cooperate, their doors are closed,” he said.
Political scientist Parviz Mullojanov said important legislation should not be passed without consulting the public.
“Conducting [reviews] of public expertise is impossible without the active involvement of NGOs, and requires close cooperation between the civil sector and legislative bodies,” he said.
A member of the team which drafted the NGO legislation on NGOs told IWPR, on condition of anonymity, that the new regulations had been passed because NGOs were suspected to have played a role in popular revolts in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, in which political leaderships were overthrown.
“Many international NGOs in different countries threaten the security of country, and we should take that into account,” he said. “NGOs such as Freedom House and the National Democratic Institute are the causes of many revolutions and disorders in the post-Soviet countries.”
Mullojanov said that following the March 2005 Kyrgyz “revolution”, in which the then president Askar Akaev was ousted after thousands took the streets in protest over the disputed result of an election, Tajik politicians concluded that NGOs played a part in mobilising the population.
One clause in the NGO law requires all relevant groups to re-register by the end of the year. According to head of the registration department at the Tajik justice ministry, Davlat Sulaymonov, about 70 local and international NGOs have been re-registered already and about 20 more applications are being considered.
Mullojanov predicts that the outcome will be a significant drop in the existing number of registered NGOs, put at over 3,000.
Analysts predict that the proposals on religious law may have a similar effect, cutting the number of faith groups that enjoy legal recognition. Without registration, churches can be closed down and worshippers prevented from practising their religion in public.
Under current laws, only ten signatures are needed to register a faith organisation. The new proposals would require a minimum of 20 members and 200 aspiring members.
“Not every group of worshippers in the country will be able to collect the number of signatures set out in the bill,” said Aleksandr Vervay, who chairs the Union of Evangelical Baptist Christian Churches in Tajikistan.
“We have given our recommendations on this bill, and if this new law is to be adopted, we want it to take into account the concerns of religious organisations and to be widely discussed.”
Said Ahmedov, a former chairman of the government’s committee on religious affairs, added that while the old law had some defects, at least it did not restrict the activities of religious groups.
Nafisa Pisaredjeva is an IWPR contributor in Dushanbe.
Activists and faith group representatives say their views have been ignored in the discussion of the new legislation, which has been going on for the past two years. The draft law, which would make it tougher for smaller religious communities to register with the authorities, is still being discussed by officials and has yet to be sent to parliament.
The new legislation has been designed by the culture ministry’s religious department and to replace the relatively liberal law on religion dating from 1994. It sets out tough new conditions which religious groups must meet before gaining official registration, including an increase in the minimum number of members, and it would prohibit missionary activities.
Islam is the religion of Tajiks and the large Uzbek minority, while ethnic Russians are traditionally of Orthodox Christian background. These two major religious communities have avoided poaching each other’s congregations, but have looked on with concern as newer groups, often Protestant Christian, have moved in and begun proselytising since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The new law is clearly aimed at curbing the activities of these smaller groups, and they are now trying to make their concerns heard. In July, some 20 Protestant groups and the Baha’i Society wrote to President Imomali Rahmon voicing alarm over the draft religious legislation.
“The law creates completely impractical conditions for registering religious minority organisations, whether they already exist or are newly created. Thus, they make it illegal for believers to practice their religion, and this suggests that in future, the state will persecute them for their beliefs,” their statement read.
There have also been expressions of concern from the Roman Catholic Church.
Human rights activists say the Law on Public Associations, which was passed at the end of April and governs the activity of non-government organisations, NGOs, set a bad precedent because there, too, the views of civil society activists were ignored, and the result was a restrictive piece of legislation.
“We must not allow what has happened to the law on public associations to happen to this religious legislation. If we don’t defend our rights actively, every law that is passed will ignore our interests,” said the chairman of the ethnic Korean society, Viktor Kim.
Most Koreans in Tajikistan – who are there because Stalin deported large numbers from the Far East in the late Thirties – are Christians, and many have joined some of the newer faith groups.
The NGO legislation, introduced to replace out-of-date laws from the Nineties, requires organisations to register annually with the authorities. Local and international NGOs argue that this gives the authorities leverage to exert pressure on them.
That law was drafted without involving civil society activists or independent legal consultants, they say.
While some amendments have since been adopted following complaints from local and foreign groups – including the scrapping of a requirement for foreign ministry accreditation in addition to registration with the justice ministry – these only apply to international NGOs.
Kim said that before the law was introduced, civil society groups found it easier to participate in debates, and their views were taken more into account.
“Now we do not have close ties with parliament. While they may talk about their willingness to cooperate, their doors are closed,” he said.
Political scientist Parviz Mullojanov said important legislation should not be passed without consulting the public.
“Conducting [reviews] of public expertise is impossible without the active involvement of NGOs, and requires close cooperation between the civil sector and legislative bodies,” he said.
A member of the team which drafted the NGO legislation on NGOs told IWPR, on condition of anonymity, that the new regulations had been passed because NGOs were suspected to have played a role in popular revolts in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, in which political leaderships were overthrown.
“Many international NGOs in different countries threaten the security of country, and we should take that into account,” he said. “NGOs such as Freedom House and the National Democratic Institute are the causes of many revolutions and disorders in the post-Soviet countries.”
Mullojanov said that following the March 2005 Kyrgyz “revolution”, in which the then president Askar Akaev was ousted after thousands took the streets in protest over the disputed result of an election, Tajik politicians concluded that NGOs played a part in mobilising the population.
One clause in the NGO law requires all relevant groups to re-register by the end of the year. According to head of the registration department at the Tajik justice ministry, Davlat Sulaymonov, about 70 local and international NGOs have been re-registered already and about 20 more applications are being considered.
Mullojanov predicts that the outcome will be a significant drop in the existing number of registered NGOs, put at over 3,000.
Analysts predict that the proposals on religious law may have a similar effect, cutting the number of faith groups that enjoy legal recognition. Without registration, churches can be closed down and worshippers prevented from practising their religion in public.
Under current laws, only ten signatures are needed to register a faith organisation. The new proposals would require a minimum of 20 members and 200 aspiring members.
“Not every group of worshippers in the country will be able to collect the number of signatures set out in the bill,” said Aleksandr Vervay, who chairs the Union of Evangelical Baptist Christian Churches in Tajikistan.
“We have given our recommendations on this bill, and if this new law is to be adopted, we want it to take into account the concerns of religious organisations and to be widely discussed.”
Said Ahmedov, a former chairman of the government’s committee on religious affairs, added that while the old law had some defects, at least it did not restrict the activities of religious groups.
Nafisa Pisaredjeva is an IWPR contributor in Dushanbe.
