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

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FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway

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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 <http://www.forum18.org>

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=872>).

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806>.'>http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806>.

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=848>). "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 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=839>).

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=764>). 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 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=769>). 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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=793>).

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=872>).

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=701>).

 

Baptists and other Protestant Christians are so far bearing the main brunt

of fines for unregistered religious activity (see eg. F18News 2 October

2006 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=848>).

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=871>).

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=868>).

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=839>).

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=859>). (END)

 

For a personal commentary on how attacking religious freedom damages

national security in Kazakhstan, see eg. F18News

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=564>

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=701>

 

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

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806> and a survey of

religious intolerance in Central Asia is at

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=815>.

 

A printer-friendly map of Kazakhstan is available at

<http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?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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