Abstract
ABOVE: Uzbek woman studies the Quran at the Ismail Samani Mausoleum, Bukhara, Uzbekistan, 2001
Credit: Keren Su/China Span/Alamy
“Uzbekistan – that’s the country where they burn Bibles?” a friend of mine remarked to me recently. Indeed it is. And not just Bibles. Forum 18, an NGO that campaigns for religious freedom around the world, has a stack of court verdicts, cases where judges across Uzbekistan have ordered confiscated religious literature, Muslim, Christian, anything, to be destroyed. Despite repeated attempts, we have been unable to discover just what methods the authorities use to destroy such material. Do they shove them in a stove? Chuck them on a bonfire? Maybe they quietly bin them.
Raids on places of worship and the private homes of religious believers almost always end up with religious literature being seized, as well as computers, mobile phones and discs. Then the inevitable cycle begins.
The literature is sent for “expert analysis” to the government’s religious affairs committee in the capital, Tashkent. Often, confiscated religious literature must be handed over to “experts” within 24 hours, an incredibly short time for material to travel across potentially long distances. It is then studied carefully, “expert analysis” is typed up and a judgment is made. From that point on, the literature is classified as illegal, banned, extremist, not suitable for distribution, or whatever other phrase the bureaucrat in charge chooses.
At a trial in November 2012, a Protestant who was fined for possession of “illegal literature” complained to the court about the authenticity of the “expert analysis” used to reach verdicts. The religious affairs committee, he said, was able to read 1,300 books, 2,100 brochures, 450 leaflets, 50 magazines, watch 200 video cassette tapes, listen to 350 audio tapes and produce two “expert analyses” of them in the course of one day. “This beats the Guinness Book of Records,” a local Protestant observed.
Police and other authorities in towns hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from Tashkent are not even remotely surprised when they are notified of the religious affairs committee’s decision. They already know it is open season on religious literature and those who possess it. In 10 years of monitoring religious freedom, I have never come across a case where the committee has ruled that the submitted religious literature was acceptable and approved for distribution. Armed with the “expert analysis”, all prosecutors need to do is decide on the charge: if the person in possession of the material is Muslim, chances are they will be charged with a serious criminal offence. If he or she is a Christian, Jehovah’s Witness, Baha’i or non-religious individual, prosecutors will choose from a range of lesser charges, which may nevertheless carry a fine or up to two weeks’ imprisonment.
Muslims, who make up the largest of Uzbekistan’s religious communities, are being sentenced to long prison terms on a wide range of religion-related criminal charges, including anti-constitutional activity, running an extremist organisation and leading an illegal religious or political group. Determining which of the thousands of Muslim prisoners have been punished for bona fide religious activity is difficult. In all likelihood, even the authorities probably cannot tell who is guilty and who is innocent.
Penalties for unapproved religious literature are also frequent. The Code of Administrative Offences, Article 184, Part 2, bans the “illegal storage, production, import, or distribution of religious materials” into Uzbekistan if it is distributed to “physical persons”. The offence is punishable by a fine of between 50 and 150 times the minimum monthly salary in Uzbekistan, and includes “confiscation of the religious materials and the relevant means of their production and distribution”.
In some cases, police and prosecutors have used confiscated literature as evidence that an individual has been involved in promoting a particular faith, which is also a crime in Uzbekistan. Violation of the Code of Administrative Offences Article 240, Part 2, which prohibits “proselytism” and “other missionary activity”, is also punishable by fines of between 50 and 100 times the minimum monthly salary, or administrative arrest for up to 15 days. Those police officials and prosecutors who are very zealous might choose to charge an individual with both crimes if they so wish.
In September 2013, Forum 18 asked Begzod Kadyrov, chief specialist of the government’s religious affairs committee in Tashkent and the frequent author of condemnatory “expert analyses”, why penalties are handed down for the possession of religious material. Even possession of legal material can be risky: under the country’s Religion Law, people are forbidden from keeping religious texts like the Quran or the Bible in their homes. Kadyrov defended the widespread fines, stating that “religious books are only allowed to be read within registered religious communities’ buildings”.
In the last few years, this has led individuals, Muslims, Christians and others, to dispose of any religious literature they have had in their homes because such literature is just too dangerous to own. Some have taken their Qurans and Bibles to their place of worship, hoping that this will save their scriptures from being seized and destroyed. Others have even, however reluctantly and tearfully, chosen to destroy them themselves as a precautionary measure.
This has led to individuals, Muslims, Christians, and others, to dispose of any religious literature they have in their homes
Making registered religious buildings a comparatively “safe zone” for religious literature raises another problem. What if you are one of the many religious communities denied the compulsory state registration and thus unable to exist legally? These communities are denied a place of worship and, therefore, forbidden from possessing religious literature. Jehovah’s Witnesses are denied legal status everywhere except in Chirchik, a town in Tashkent region. As they are repeatedly reminded, Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned from conducting any religious activity elsewhere.
Yet it is not just religious literature in print that suffers in Uzbekistan. Very few people or organisations are allowed to operate websites covering religious issues. In August, the government claimed the Russian Orthodox diocese website had not registered as a media outlet as required by law, and forced the website to be taken down. A couple of weeks later, after substantial coverage by the foreign media, the website was restored. Religious-themed websites based outside of the country are often blocked, just as independent news, human rights and opposition sites are. For many years, a Russian-based religious news website, portal-credo.ru, was blocked, as was the religious supplement of Russia’s newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Two websites belonging to Tajikistan’s Islamic Renaissance Party, the only religiously inspired political party tolerated anywhere in Central Asia), continues to be blocked.
Those who discuss their faith openly risk imprisonment
Speaking about religious belief is also affected, as part of the ban on “proselytism” and “missionary activity” under Article 5 of the Religion Law. Those who discuss their faith openly risk imprisonment. Breaching Article 216-2 of the criminal code carries a maximum three-year prison term. This article of the criminal code was one of several used against devout Muslim Khayrullo Tursunov, who was extradited back to his native Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan in March 2013 against the express wishes of the UN Committee Against Torture. In June 2013 he was given a 15-year jail sentence for “extremist” exercise of freedom of religion or belief.
Pioneer censor
Uzbekistan was the second former Soviet republic to impose compulsory state registration on all religious communities in the 1990s, following the example of its neighbour Turkmenistan. As state pressure on all religious activity ratcheted up, Uzbekistan was the pioneer in formalising the prior compulsory state censorship of all literature on religious themes published in, printed in or imported into the country in whatever language. Censors check all prayer books and theological tomes coming into the country, including material published in Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, Polish, Armenian, Sanskrit and German.
The bureaucrats never stop. In July, President Islam Karimov ordered the religious affairs committee, the Justice Ministry, the Culture and Sport Ministry, and Publication and Information Agency to prepare a new Rule on the Procedure for Conducting Expert Analysis of Religious Literature Published Abroad. The new rule will not improve the current situation as books on religion are routinely confiscated from individuals returning to Uzbekistan across land borders or at airports. Fines often follow.
The International Post Office in Tashkent routinely opens parcels of religious books and magazines sent from abroad, sending examples to the religious affairs committee, which decides whether to destroy the literature or return it to the sender.
In a discussion with Forum 18 in October 2011, Customs Inspector Dilshod Sadykov estimated that, over the previous year, eight or nine out of every 10 confiscated religious books a-were Muslim. At the time of the interview, he had co-signed a letter to local Baptists explaining why 23 religious books sent by friends in Kazakhstan could not be delivered. (The would-be recipient was, however, allowed to receive the empty box).
Yet as recent cases show, authorities are coming down hard not only on newly-produced or imported religious literature. They are also gunning for literature people have owned for some time. Retrospective censorship, if you like.
In April 2011, police seized the private library of a Tashkent woman’s deceased father, including three rare historic editions of the Bible. The religious affairs committee said they contained nothing harmful to the state, but were not to be used to teach religion to children. A judge, who also handed down fines, ordered the books to be destroyed. “This means that he is destroying Bibles that represent the sacred primary source of one of the world’s major religions,” the woman’s father-in-law, Vladimir Shinkin, complained in outrage to some of Uzbekistan’s senior government politicians. He got no response.
Under Uzbekistan’s constitution, “everyone shall be guaranteed freedom of thought, speech and convictions”. It further states that “everyone shall have the right to seek, obtain and disseminate any information, except that which is directed against the existing constitutional system and in some other instances specified by law.” But when historic scriptures are no longer safe from destruction, and individuals are punished for the books on religion that they have in their own homes, it is hard to believe this.
Religious censorship in Central Asia
There is nowhere in Central Asia where religious literature can be freely published, imported and distributed. Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan all have controls and punishments in place.
Kazakhstan not only introduced full prior compulsory censorship of religious literature, but also bookshop licensing in the October 2011 Religion Law amendments. This is effectively a ban on selling religious literature anywhere else. Asked by Forum 18 in February why people must ask for permission from the authorities before they can sell religious literature, Yerlan Kalmakov of the Kostanai Regional Internal Policy Department, replied, “Imagine what could happen if we allow just anybody to distribute religious materials.”
Violating the procedure for importing, publishing or distributing religious literature and materials is subject to administrative punishment. Dozens of such fines were handed down in 2013. Two court orders to destroy confiscated religious books including Bibles and the like were overturned, the second after a public outcry. Independent journalist Sergei Duvanov expressed outrage, pointing out that it put Kazakhstan “on a par with the inquisition of the Middle Ages”.
Even more disturbingly, atheist Aleksandr Kharlamov is being prosecuted for expressing his views on religion in his private writings. “This obscurantism on the part of the state is a cause of fear,” fellow atheist Duvanov told Forum 18.
In other former Soviet countries outside Central Asia, state censorship of literature on religion is also the norm. Azerbaijan imposes full compulsory prior censorship. Not only do people need permission for a title to be printed or imported, they also need approval for the quantity. Officials routinely limit the print run, if they allow the request at all. Indeed, in a ratcheting up of state censorship, religion law revisions in 2009 required state permission for any shop wanting to sell religious literature or other religious items.
©Felix Corley
