KAZAKHSTAN: STATE BULLDOZES HARE KRISHNA COMMUNE, BIDS TO CHAIR OSCE

11-22-2006, 08:53 AM

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Text PAMHO:12601593 (269 lines) [W1]
From: Merudevi (dd) (Oxford - UK)
Date: 21-Nov-06 12:16
To: Lal Krishna (Dasa) SDG (IC Resource Centre - UK) [69529]
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Subject: KAZAKHSTAN: STATE BULLDOZES HARE KRISHNA COMMUNE, BIDS TO CHAIR
OSCE
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FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
http://www.forum18.org/

The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
The right to join together and express one's belief

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Tuesday 21 November 2006
KAZAKHSTAN: STATE BULLDOZES HARE KRISHNA COMMUNE, BIDS TO CHAIR OSCE

As Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is in London seeking support for
his bid to chair the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE), state authorities began today (21 November) bulldozing the only
Hare Krishna commune in the region, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The
costs of the demolition are being imposed by the authorities on the Hare
Krishna devotees and OPON riot police have sealed off the commune. "At
present a bulldozer is knocking down one house," Hare Krishna devotee
Anastatsia told Forum 18 from the site as she watched the destruction,
"while a further four are being knocked down by hand." Officials carrying
out the destruction have refused to speak to Forum 18. The demolition
contradicts earlier Kazakh official assurances that all actions in the
authorities long-running attempt to take over the commune would be frozen.
Religious freedom and other human rights in Kazakhstan have been for some
years under increasing threat from President Nazarbayev's government.

KAZAKHSTAN: STATE BULLDOZES HARE KRISHNA COMMUNE, BIDS TO CHAIR OSCE

By Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service

Today (21 November) the demolition began of 13 Hare Krishna-owned homes at
the Hare Krishna commune, spokesperson Maksim Varfolomeyev told Forum 18
News Service from the commercial capital Almaty. He said the authorities
had brought two buses of OPON riot police and closed off all access to the
commune. "At present a bulldozer is knocking down one house," Anastasia, a
Hare Krishna devotee, told Forum 18 from the site as she watched the
destruction, "while a further four are being knocked down by hand." Forum
18 asked Anastasia to pass her mobile phone to the officials organising
the demolition so that they could explain to Forum 18 why they were doing
so, but they refused to speak to Forum 18. Officials at the scene have
been confiscating cameras from witnesses.

At the time of publication of this article (4.50 pm Almaty time), three
homes have been destroyed, and all the windows in the homes of the Hare
Krishna devotees have been destroyed.

"I have no words to describe what I have seen," Ninel Fokina, head of the
Almaty Helsinki Committee, told Forum 18 from the demolition site. "They
have no right to move people out of their homes in winter."

It is currently snowing in Almaty, with the temperature being 6 degrees
Centigrade (42 degrees Fahrenheit), and expected to drop to minus 3
degrees Centigrade (26 degrees Fahrenheit) tonight.

"It is indicative that the demolition of the homes began before we had
been given the results of the state special Commission's investigation
into the conflict over the commune," Varfolomeyev told Forum 18. "It's
also significant that the Commission chairman - Amanbek Mukhashev of the
Justice Ministry's Religious Affairs Committee - promised us that
implementation of any court decisions would be frozen until the results of
the Commission's investigation were officially published." He said the
Commission had appealed to the General Prosecutor's Office to that effect.

The state Commission was set up with the proclaimed aim of resolving the
state's long-running dispute with the Hare Krishna community. Devotees are
increasing sceptical that the Commission was anything more than a device to
deflect any criticism of state religious intolerance. The Deputy chair of
the state Religious Affairs Committee, Ludmila Danilenko, told Forum 18
last week that the Commission's decision "will be made public shortly."
Amanbek Mukhashev of the Religious Affairs Committee told Forum 18 that if
the commune continues, "the situation could turn out badly for the Krishna
followers." (see F18News 17 November 2006
).

The order to demolish the homes was issued by the Karasai District Court,
where the commune is based, and is being carried out by the Court
Executors. "The bulldozers belong to the Karasai district administration,"
the Hare Krishna devotees report. The execution orders were given to a
night watchman. "Not one person has personally received the order or has
signed that it has been received," - as the law requires - they added.

Yesterday (20 November), at 6 AM in the morning, an unidentified person
delivered a stack of orders from the Court Executors of the Karasai
District Court. The orders stated that the owners of cottages must destroy
their own homes, or they will be destroyed by the government at the expense
of the owners. 24 hours later, several busses of OPON riot police, 2
ambulances, 2 empty lorries, and Court Executors arrived to destroy the
Krishna devotees' homes and personal temples.

"I know nothing about the demolition of the Hare Krishna homes - I'm on
holiday," Mukhashev told Forum 18 on 21 November from the capital Astana.
"As soon as I return to work at the beginning of December we will
officially announce the results of the Commission's investigation." He
acknowledged that the Commission had decided to freeze the implementation
of all court decisions about the Hare Krishna commune until the
Commission's results had been officially published. But he told Forum 18
it is difficult to say whether he believed the demolition of the homes is
lawful.

"It is snowing in Kazakhstan and these folks are losing their homes,"
Govinda Swami, a leading member of the community who is a US citizen, told
Forum 18 from Delhi on 21 November. "They entered one home where there was
woman with infant and started destroying her home. We have been regularly
told that the work of the commission is not finished and still they have
attacked in this way." He said that it is "not a coincidence" that on 20
November his Kazakh visa expired "and on 21st they attacked". He expressed
disappointment at what he regarded as the Commission and the President's
bad faith.

He said that when his colleague Rati Manjari managed to get through to
Mukhashev he put down the phone. He said community members had contacted
other officials in the Religious Affairs Committee "who had no idea what
was going on".

Govinda Swami added that Fokina of the Almaty Helsinki Committee had
spoken to Kazakhstan's human rights ombudsperson, Bolat Baikadamov, who
said that he would go to the Religious Affairs Committee to enquire what
is happening.

The moves against the Hare Krishna came during President Nazarbayev's
visit to the United Kingdom (UK) and on the same day that he was meeting
British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "The President will be seeking Mr
Blair's support for Kazakhstan's bid to be the first Central Asian
chairman-in-office of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) in 2009," the Kazakhstan Embassy in London declared in its
announcement of the visit. A survey of the religious freedom decline in
the OSCE area, including in Kazakhstan, is at
.

The Almaty Centre of the OSCE told Forum 18 on 21 November that its human
rights officer is monitoring the destruction of the commune.

An official of the Kazakh Embassy in the UK, who did not wish to be
identified as he was not authorised to speak to the media, acknowledged to
Forum 18 on 21 November that President Nazarbayev had promised to Hare
Krishna leaders on 11 September that he would look into the problems of
the commune and resolve them (see F18News 2 October 2006
). "But if he promised
to consider the issue it doesn't mean that he would allow people to
violate the law, if they illegally built their homes." The official
declined to comment on how the Kazakh government's attack on religious
freedom reflected on its claims of religious tolerance, or on whether this
would harm the country's attempts to gain the chairmanship of the OSCE.

President Nazarbayev's government often boasts of its claimed religious
tolerance, for example at a recent "Congress of Leaders of World and
Traditional Religions." But religious minorities who experience the
state's policies are sceptical of these boasts (see F18News 8 September
2006 ).

The religious freedom of the Hare Krishna community and other Kazakhs has
been under increasing threat from the government of President Nazarbayev
for some years. The Hare Krishna devotees' 47.7 hectare (118 acre) farm is
the only Hare Krishna commune in the former Soviet Union, and officials
have long tried to close it down (see F18News 19 April 2006
). Earlier this year,
the authorities attempted to bulldoze the commune, but backed off because
of the local media attention this drew. However, they vowed to return to
bulldoze the commune when the "fuss" had died down (see F18News 26 April
2006 ). Some local
television stations work with the authorities to encourage intolerance
against religious minorities, such as Baptists and Hare Krishna devotees.
The devotees are convinced that this leads to intolerant attacks on them
from other Kazakh citizens (see F18News 2 June 2006
).

Sources, who preferred to be unnamed, have told Forum 18 of "persistent
rumours" that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev's brother, Bulat
Nazarbayev, wants to take over the Hare Krishna devotees' farm (see
F18News 17 November 2006
).

Legal restrictions on religious freedom have been increasing. In February
2005, Kazakhstan's President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, signed "extremism"
legal amendments, which restricted religious freedom as did July 2005
"national security" legal amendments. Under the "national security"
amendments, unregistered religious organisations are banned (see the
F18News Kazakhstan religious freedom survey at
).

Baptists and other Protestant Christians are so far bearing the main brunt
of fines for unregistered religious activity (see eg. F18News 2 October
2006 ).

Last week, South Korean Pastor Kim U Sob, who had been resident in the
country and leading a Presbyterian church for 8 years, was expelled on 14
November for "missionary activity without registration." Ironically, the
expulsion took place shortly after Pastor Kim was an invited official
speaker at a state "Day of Spiritual Unity and Conciliation" ceremony,
marking the official claim that "religious people and communities" have
"full rights" (see F18News 15 November 2006
).

Similarly, members of the Tabligh Jama'at international Islamic missionary
organisation face fines for giving lectures in mosques without state
registration (see F18News 14 November 2006
).

Missionary activity without official permission is punished with
administrative fines, and expulsion for foreigners. The authorities have
also engaged in extra-legal harassment of religious communities, such as a
Hare Krishna commune near the country's commercial centre, Almaty (see
F18News 8 September 2006
).

Some fear that changes being planned by the KNB secret police to the
Religion Law will ban sharing beliefs and all missionary activity (see
F18News 24 October 2006
). (END)

For a personal commentary on how attacking religious freedom damages
national security in Kazakhstan, see eg. F18News

For more background, see Forum 18's Kazakhstan religious freedom survey at

A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at
and a survey of
religious intolerance in Central Asia is at
.

A printer-friendly map of Kazakhstan is available at
<http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xp...?Parent=asia&R
oot
map=kazakh>
(END)

© Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved. ISSN 1504-2855
You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to
F18News http://www.forum18.org/

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