Demolition of Hare Krishna Commune Seen as Discriminatory

A decision to demolish homes owned by the Hare Krishna movement in Kazakstan looks very much like a case of discrimination on faith grounds, local commentators say.



On November 21, the local government in the Karasay district of Almaty region tore down 13 houses belonging to members of the Society for Krishna Consciousness, acting on a 2005 court ruling that the Hare Krishna commune established there was illegal. The local authorities also stated that the commune’s property was being wrongfully used “for meetings, assemblies and the conduct of religious rites”.



Kazakstan granted the Society for Krishna Consciousness official registration in 2002.



A spokesman for the Krishna society, Maxim Varfolomeyev, said residents received an eviction notice only a day before the actual demolition. He said the authorities had acted without waiting for a final ruling from a commission set up in early September to seek a resolution of the land dispute between his group and the local government authorities.



In April, the Karasay authorities made their first attempt to demolish the Sri Vrindavan Dham farm, which has the largest concentration of Hare Krishna followers in Central Asia. They argued that the home owners had seized the land illegally and were using it for purposes other than those intended.



Varfolomeyev told NBCentralAsia that allegations of a land-grab were unfounded, since the members of the Krishna society founded their farm in 1999 by joining a cooperative of “dacha” or allotment owners paying for the use of the land. In the period from 1999 to 2006, Hare Krishna members acquired 66 plots of land.



He argues that local government officials are engaged in “a clear case of discrimination against a religious minority that they find uncongenial”. Although there are 200 allotment owners on the same site, only the Krishna society members have been targeted by legal action, he said.



“Legal cases have been brought only against members of our society, only against the Krishna followers – that’s a fact,” said Varfolomeyev. “Take two houses located side by side, covered by the same documentation and legal status. Only the one owned by a Krishna follower has received a lawsuit.”



Yevgeny Zhovtis, a human rights defender and an expert on social and political affairs, believes this is a clear case of discrimination against one of Kazakstan’s newer faith communities. He said the district court’s ruling is questionable, and the demolition itself suggests discriminatory practices. He warns that the case could reflect negatively on the image Kazakstan tries to project as a country where ethnic and faith groups live in harmony.



“This is clearly a religious case; it’s discrimination in the sense that they don’t want this commune in Karasay district,” said Zhovtis. “The land dispute has become a case of faith-based discrimination since only the homes of Krishna followers were demolished.”



At the same time, he said, this case can also be viewed as a manifestation of the kind of tensions seen in recent violent confrontations in the Shanyrak and Bakay districts of Almaty. Such incidents are “a reflection of deep problems around the private ownership of land”, he said.



Shanyrak and Bakay are among a number of recently-built residential areas around Almaty where local residents have been engaged in a long-running and occasionally violent dispute with the city authorities, who want to tear down homes they argue were built illegally.



But unlike these cases, the Krishna followers will find it hard to publicise their case, said political scientist Oleg Sidorov. He believes the demolition of the Krishna homes will have no wider implications, especially if it can be proved that the local authorities were acting within the law.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)