But despite these claims, Forum 18 reported, it is common practice for the Uzbek authorities to burn literature, including Bibles, that has been confiscated from members of unregistered religious communities (see F18News).

This year government censorship of religious literature has been intensified (see F18News), while massively increased fines for unregistered religious activity were introduced at the end of 2005 (see F18News www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=720).

The prosecution of the six Baptists followed a raid on the church by local police on Sun. Aug. 27 while the congregation was hosting a visit by fellow-Baptists from Tashkent and Fergana, Baptist sources told Forum 18. The news service reported the six were taken to the police station to be interrogated. There they were pressured to apply for registration for the congregation (although two of the six were visitors, not congregation members) and pressured to write statements. All six refused to write statements for the police. The police filmed the interrogation against the wishes of the Baptists. The six were not freed until late in the evening.

Forum 18 reported the Baptists called for the revocation of the punishments against the six, as well as calling for Uzbekistan's strict religion law to be brought into line with the religious freedom guarantees in the country’s Constitution and international human rights standards.

The persecution of religious minorities also continues in other areas of Uzbekistan, Forum 18 reported. On Nov.18 the criminal court for Chilanzar district of the capital Tashkent found Pentecostal Christian Risto Dyachkov guilty under Article 240 of the Code of Administrative Offences. He was fined 60,000 sums.

The prosecution followed a Nov. 13 raid on his Pentecostal church by 30 local police officers, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksandr Shishkov. One Protestant complained to Forum 18, the news service reported, that police "illegally" confiscated 133 videotapes, 379 audiotapes, a DVD and CD’s, as well as 30 Christian books, including copies of the Bible and New Testament. Several young people were forced "under threat of violence" to go to the police station to write statements.

The church's pastor, Serik Kadyrov, was also threatened with prosecution. When church members complained to Shishkov that he was smoking inside the church, Forum 18 reported he replied, "It may be a church to you, but to me it's nothing. I'll smoke where I like."

Meanwhile, Protestant sources have told Forum 18 that on Nov.3, the Justice Department for the Tashkent region issued an official warning to Full Gospel Church pastor Vyacheslav Bely, who leads a Full Gospel Pentecostal congregation in Yangiyul near Tashkent. Officials claim that the church needs to re-register its statute within a month, otherwise registration will be stripped from the congregation.

Sources told Forum 18 that such speedy re-registration is next to impossible, and termed the demand "illegal." Under Uzbekistan's religion law, if the congregation is stripped of registration, any activity it then carries out is illegal.

Despite these and other recent government attacks on religious communities - including Muslims, Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses and others - Forum 18 reported the Uzbek authorities have recently been trying to defend their record, claiming to uphold religious freedom.

For more background, see Forum 18's Uzbekistan religious freedom survey.

© 2006 ASSIST News Service, used with permission