Uzbekistan: Fasting, Prayer Declared for Adventists in Nukus
August 5, 2003 Nukus, Uzbekistan .... [ANN Staff]
The Euro-Asian region of the Seventh-day Adventist Church has specified Aug. 6, 2003 as a day of fasting and prayer for the situation of believers in this western city near the border of Turkmenistan.
On the Sabbath, or Saturday, Feb. 8, 2003, police in Nukus raided a home Adventist church meeting, confiscating literature and Bibles in the local language. In April, each of the 13 people at the meeting was later fined an amount equal to US$23. The fine was issued near the end of the month, after the normal 60-day time limit for charging people in similar situations, according to a report from Valery Ivanov, communication director for the church region.
"Today our case is in the National Center on Human Rights," Ivanov says. "What will be the result we do not know; three of the 13 [members] have already paid the fine, while 10 members have not paid yet."
Ivanov's comments add to a report of the Forum 18 news service, an independent group monitoring human rights abuses based in Oslo, Norway, which reported offered additional insight on the Adventists' situation.
According to reporter Igor Rotar, "On 15 March the Adventists were called in for questioning at the [Nukus] procuracy. At the same time, the procuracy sent the confiscated literature for 'expert analysis' by Nurula Jamalov, religious specialist at Karakalpakstan's cabinet of ministers. According to Forum 18's sources, Jamalov replied to the procuracy that the literature confiscated from the Adventists should not be distributed in Uzbekistan, and that the Bible was also banned.
"At the end of April, Nukus city court retrospectively fined each of the Adventists 22,660 sums (20 Euros or 23 US dollars)--four times the minimum monthly wage--under Article 240 of the code of administrative offences, which punishes violation of the law on religious organizations. Although the fines were handed down at the end of April, the court minutes were dated April 9.
"Forum 18's sources believe it is no coincidence that the sentence was drawn up retrospectively because, under Article 271 of the administrative code, any administrative case not considered within two months is automatically closed.
"Jamalov, the expert on religious affairs for the Karakalpakstan government, categorically denied that the Bible had been included in the list of banned literature in the report he had compiled. 'I did indeed write that the Kazakh-language brochures confiscated from the Adventists, which were published in Turkey, should not be distributed in Uzbekistan,' he told Forum 18 from Nukus on July 9, 'but I did not write that the Adventists may not use the Bible. I can show you the expert report.' He said he had returned to the police all the literature that had been sent for expert analysis. 'I do not know what happened to it then.'" However, Forum 18 has established that the Bibles have still not been returned to the Adventists.
"That Jamalov wrote in the conclusion to his report that Christian literature in the Kazakh language should not be distributed in Uzbekistan is hardly a coincidence. Kazakhs make up around 30 percent of the population of Karakalpakstan, making them as numerous as the Uzbeks and Karakalpaks. In Uzbekistan there is an unwritten directive: 'If you are Uzbek, you must be Muslim; if you are Russian, you must be Orthodox.' The authorities are conducting a particularly harsh campaign against religious minorities which they regard as trying to convert Muslims to their faith.
"In the Adventist community raided by the law enforcement agencies in Nukus, the overwhelming majority of the congregation are of indigenous ethnicities, who are of Muslim background," the report concluded.
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