KAZAKHSTAN: WILL REST OF HARE KRISHNA COMMUNE NOW BE DESTROYED?

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Friday 24 November 2006

KAZAKHSTAN: WILL REST OF HARE KRISHNA COMMUNE NOW BE DESTROYED?

 

With almost a quarter of the Hare Krishna-owned homes in their Sri

Vrindavan Dham commune on the outskirts of Almaty already destroyed,

community members are afraid that the rest of the 66 homes - including

their temple - could be next. "The community is in shock, but they are

determined to defend their homes and place of worship," community member

Govinda Swami told Forum 18 News Service. He says destruction of the

temple would be "devastating". Neighbouring houses owned by non-Krishna

devotees have not been touched and sources have told Forum 18 that

President Nursultan Nazarbayev's brother has designs on the property.

Local administration chief Bagdad Akhmetayev refused to say why the homes

were being destroyed when the court merely ordered the devotees' eviction,

telling Forum 18 "I simply came to watch the demolition and I am not

prepared to make any comment. Please ask the court bailiffs directly." The

bailiffs refused to talk to Forum 18. Police prevented OSCE officials from

reaching the village during the 21 November destruction.

 

KAZAKHSTAN: WILL REST OF HARE KRISHNA COMMUNE NOW BE DESTROYED?

 

By Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>,'>http://www.forum18.org>, and

Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

 

Devotees in the embattled Hare Krishna commune in a village near

Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty have vowed to fight on, despite the

authorities' destruction on 21 November of 13 of 66 Hare Krishna-owned

homes. "The community is in shock, but they are determined to defend their

homes and place of worship," community member Govinda Swami told Forum 18

News Service from the Indian capital Delhi on 24 November. "They don't

want to give the signal that they've been defeated by the government." But

he says the remaining home owners fear that court rulings against others

could see them evicted too and that the community especially fears for the

temple, housed on one floor of one of the homes.

 

The authorities insist the Hare Krishna devotees have no right to their

homes. But two human rights activists who witnessed the destruction

despite police attempts to stop them, Ninel Fokina and Andrei Grishin,

pointed out that while 13 of the 66 Hare Krishna homes were destroyed on

court orders, "the adjacent houses of other people who do not belong to

the Society for Krishna Consciousness were left untouched even though

their title deeds have the same status".

 

The Sri Vrindavan Dham commune in the village of Seleksia in Zhetisu rural

area of Keskelen district, 40 kms (25 miles) from Almaty, was the only such

Hare Krishna commune in the region and officials have long sought to

suppress it.

 

Govinda Swami, a US member of the community until being forced to leave

Kazakhstan on 20 November as his visa was not renewed, said he believes

the homes were destroyed to demoralise the community and force it to leave

the village. "Then they will move in to destroy the temple, situated in one

of the homes," he told Forum 18. "If the authorities destroy the temple it

would be devastating as they would have effectively destroyed the

community."

 

Maksim Varfolomeyev, spokesperson for Kazakhstan's Society for Krishna

Consciousness, is outraged by the way Keskelen district court bailiffs

demolished the 13 Hare Krishna-owned homes. "Our co-believers' belongings

were just thrown in the mud," he told Forum 18 on 23 November. "Officials

simply refused to talk with us or explain what they were doing." Those

evicted from their homes have had to take shelter with other commune

members or move to Almaty.

 

The community has posted a video of the destruction and photographs of the

destroyed homes on its website <http://www.palaceofthesoul.com>

 

At the office of the Keskelen district court bailiffs, the duty officer

who refused to give his name said on 23 November that all the senior staff

were out of the office and there was nobody who could answer Forum 18's

questions.

 

Also unwilling to explain to Forum 18 why the Hare Krishna homes have been

destroyed is Bagdad Akhmetayev, the hakim (head) of the rural

administration of Zhetisu in Keskelen district where the Krishna farm is

located. According to Varfolomeyev, he was the only representative of the

district authorities present at the demolition. "I simply came to watch

the demolition and I am not prepared to make any comment. Please ask the

court bailiffs directly," Akhmetayev told Forum 18 on 23 November.

 

"Unfortunately Kazakh law does not prohibit evictions during the winter

period and also does not oblige the court bailiffs to give those being

evicted a few days notice," human rights activist Yevgeni Zhovtis told

Forum 18 from Almaty on 23 November. "All the same, there were crude

violations of the law. The court bailiffs had the right to evict the

residents of the houses but not to demolish the buildings themselves. It

was also a very crude violation to throw the belongings of the Krishna

devotees into the mud. The court bailiffs were obliged to put the

devotees' belongings into store."

 

Human rights activists Fokina and Grishin rushed to the village on 21

November as soon as they heard the news of the destruction. They found it

blockaded by police and had to gain access by foot.

 

In their joint account of events, they report attempts to prevent evidence

of the destruction reaching the outside world. They reported that hakim

Akhmetayev noticed Grishin photographing the destruction of the houses

using a digital camera and ordered the police to detain him. To avoid

confiscation of the camera Grishin tried to escape, but was caught by the

police, who confiscated his camera and journalist accreditation.

 

Grishin was then freed, but the police (who would not give their names)

refused to return the camera, saying they would give it to the hakim.

Fokina and Grishin report that the camera was indeed found in the hakim's

car, but the flash card and the batteries were confiscated. When Grishin

approached Akhmetayev to find out why his camera and his journalist

accreditation had been confiscated, the hakim told him in front of

witnesses, "If I see you here again, I will personally smash your eyes,

even though I am the hakim."

 

Fokina and Grishin report that police stopped the car carrying two

officials of the Almaty office of the Organisation for Security and

Cooperation in Europe, Eugenia Benigni and Lisa Zhumakhmetova, who were

therefore unable to reach the village.

 

The demolition was carried out with some brutality, at least one home

being destroyed with a mother and infant child still inside. By 4.50 pm on

the day the demolition began (21 November), after OPON riot police had

sealed off the area and cameras were confiscated from witnesses, three

houses were destroyed. The windows of the other houses had been smashed to

render the houses uninhabitable in the freezing Kazakh weather conditions.

Temperatures that night were expected to drop to minus 3 degrees

Centigrade (26 degrees Fahrenheit) (see F18News 21 November 2006

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=873>).

 

OPON riot police who took part in the destruction threw personal

belongings of the Hare Krishna devotees into the snow, and many devotees

were left without clothes. Power for lighting and heating systems had been

cut off before the demolition began. Furniture and larger household

belongings were loaded onto trucks. Officials said these possessions would

be destroyed. Two men who tried to prevent the bailiffs from entering a

house to destroy it were seized by 15 police officers who twisted their

hands and took them away to the police car.

 

The homes were demolished even though the Hare Krishna community was

promised that no action would be taken before the report of a state

Commission - supposedly set up to resolve the dispute - was made public.

The chair of that Commission, Amanbek Mukhashev of the state 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>).

Mukhashev claimed to Forum 18 on the day the demolition began that "I know

nothing about the demolition of the Hare Krishna homes - I'm on holiday,"

adding that "as soon as I return to work at the beginning of December we

will officially announce the results of the Commission's investigation"

(see F18News 21 November 2006

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=873>).

 

Apart from the ongoing official process, the demolition violated Kazakh

laws by giving only 24 hours notice of the demolition, the demolition

orders not being personally served on and signed for by their intended

victims, and because officials of the public prosecutor's office were not

present to oversee the enforcement of the court rulings.

 

Fokina and Grishin complain about the court orders delivered the day

before the demolition. "The date of execution and the period for

evacuating the buildings were not stated," they point out. "It should be

noted that Kazakh law does not stipulate such a kind of eviction as the

demolition of houses, and the eviction should be accompanied by the

inventory of property removed from the evacuated building, while the

storage of this property should be provided as necessary."

 

It is also unclear - given the illegalities surrounding the demolition -

how the authorities plan to legally carry out their threat to charge the

Hare Krishna devotees for the demolition of the homes and commune.

 

The authorities have long wanted to take over the Hare Krishna community

and their commune (see F18News 19 April 2006

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

this year to bulldoze the commune was frustrated by the presence of local

journalists, but the authorities vowed to try again when the "fuss" had

died down (see F18News 26 April 2006

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

with some local television stations encouraged intolerance against

religious minorities, such as Baptists and Hare Krishna devotees. This

hostile coverage has, the devotees are convinced, led to intolerant

attacks on them by 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>).

 

Kazakhstan is currently bidding to become Chairman-in-Office of the

Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), despite the

country's poor human rights record (see eg. F18News 29 June 2006

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

Nazarbayev's government often boasts of its claimed religious tolerance,

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>).

 

Legal restrictions on religious freedom have been increased by the

authorities, through "extremism" and "national security" legal amendments

(see the F18News Kazakhstan religious freedom survey at

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

Protestant Christians have so far been the main victims of the legal

changes, being fined for unregistered religious activity (see eg. F18News

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

 

Foreign missionaries belonging to both the Presbyterian church (see

F18News 15 November 2006

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=871>) and Tabligh Jama'at

international Islamic missionary organisation have been fined and deported

(see F18News 14 November 2006

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

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