UZBEKISTAN -- Following a raid in late August in southern Uzbekistan, two visiting Baptists were heavily fined for taking part in unregistered religious worship. Four local church members were slapped with smaller fines.
Forum 18 News Service reported that it was told by sources the court also ordered Bibles and hymn books confiscated during the Aug. 27 raid in the town of Karshi to be burned, a regular practice with literature confiscated during raids – despite official denials.
The two visitors were fined 540,000 sums, or $438 U.S., a huge amount by local standards.
Uzbekistan is located in Central Asia, north of Afghanistan.
Forum 18 reported that Judge Alisher Jalilov of the town's criminal court fined the Baptists under Article 240 of Uzbekistan's Code of Administrative Offences, which punishes "breaking the law on religious organizations." Those fined are members of the Council of Churches Baptists, whose members reject registration in all the former Soviet republics where they operate, as they contend it leads to unwarranted state interference in their communities' internal religious life.
The top fines of 540,000 sums fines represent huge sums in Uzbekistan, where the minimum monthly wage is less than 12,000 sums, and the average monthly wage in Karshi is less than 60,000 sums. Usually, courts only rarely sentence believers to fines of more than 120,000 sums for operating without registration. However, Forum 18 reported that even two years ago believers in Karshi are on record as having been fined more than 240,000 sums.
On Nov. 17 Forum 18 reached Judge Jalilov in Karshi to find out why he had imposed such large penalties on religious believers exercising their constitutional rights. However, Forum 18 reported the judge refused to discuss the case with the news service by telephone.
No one from the government's Religious Affairs Committee would speak to Forum 18. Aziz Obidov, the former press officer for the committee, has now joined the Foreign Ministry and other officials at the committee refused to speak to Forum 18.
However, in earlier conversations with Forum 18, the news service reported Religious Affairs Committee officials stressed several times that the Bible is permissible literature in Uzbekistan and that no books may be burned under Uzbek law.
"The Bible is legally permitted literature and may be distributed freely throughout Uzbekistan," Begzot Kadyrov, senior specialist at the Committee, told Forum 18 a number of months ago. "As far as other imported literature is concerned, the relevant church must receive our committee's permission to import it. However, even unlawfully imported literature that arrives in Uzbekistan is not burned, but is sent back to the country from which it came."
