KAZAKHSTAN: MORE HARE KRISHNA HOME DEMOLITIONS PLANNED?

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Friday 22 December 2006

KAZAKHSTAN: MORE HARE KRISHNA HOME DEMOLITIONS PLANNED?

 

After the fining and forcing out from Kazakhstan of a Baptist for taking

part in an "illegal" bible study, the Hare Krishna community is preparing

to face another court hearing - due on 25 December - Forum 18 News Service

has learnt. Asked whether he expects the next five Hare Krishna homes to be

bulldozed after 25 December, a senior state religious affairs official told

Forum 18 that "we don't know what the court will decide, but I don't expect

so." Previous state assurances given to the Hare Krishna community have

been broken. Maksim Varfolomeyev of the Hare Krishna community told Forum

18 that the court hearing is "unlikely to be over all in one day, but it's

just a matter of time. Our previous experience shows that the decision will

not be in our favour," he commented. A state-appointed Commission today (22

December) presented what Krishna devotees describe as a "totally false"

version of events, for use as a press release. Human rights activists, who

observed the Commission's work, were devastating in their criticism of the

way it operated.

 

KAZAKHSTAN: MORE HARE KRISHNA HOME DEMOLITIONS PLANNED?

 

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

 

The embattled Hare Krishna commune near Almaty, in southern Kazakhstan, is

preparing for its next court case, due to be held on 25 December, Forum 18

News Service has learnt. After this court case, five more Hare

Krishna-owned homes could be seized and bulldozed. Meanwhile, the

conclusion of a government-appointed Commission has shunted responsibility

for resolving the dispute back to the local authorities, who remain

determined to close down the commune and seize the property.

 

Asked whether he expects bulldozers to destroy the next five Hare Krishna

homes in the wake of the 25 December court case, Serik Niyazbekov, a

senior religious affairs official of the Almaty regional Justice

Department, responded: "We don't know what the court will decide, but I

don't expect so, that's my view," he told Forum 18 from Taldy-Kurgan on 22

December. Previous official assurances of no action, given to the Hare

Krishna community, have been broken (see F18News 21 November 2006 <

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

 

The 25 December hearing will probably be a preliminary hearing, Maksim

Varfolomeyev of the Hare Krishna community told Forum 18 from Almaty on 22

December. "It's unlikely to be over all in one day, but it's just a matter

of time," he said. "Our previous experience shows that the decision will

not be in our favour."

 

Kazakhstan's religious minorities continue to have their religious freedom

violated by the government. In another recent example known to Forum 18, a

foreign Baptist was fined the equivalent of three months average salary

and forced to leave the country, after taking part in an "illegal" bible

discussion - despite, as Kazakh law professor Roman Podoprigora noted, no

law having been broken by the Baptist or his church (see F18News 12

December 2006 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=886>).

 

The Sri Vrindavan Dham commune (named after the "beautiful forest of

Vrindavan" in India where Krishna spent his youth) in Karasai District is

the only Hare Krishna commune in the region. Thirteen homes out of 66 were

bulldozed in November, which provoked protests around the world. Lawyers

working to defend the commune were intimidated into dropping the case (see

F18News 1 December 2006

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=881>).

 

Niyazbekov of the regional Justice Department said that, under the terms

of the earlier court ruling that saw the thirteen Hare Krishna-owned homes

bulldozed and confiscated, the property is to be handed back to the

Ptitsevod collective from which the devotees bought them. "Something was

not right with the way the people bought these houses," Niyazbekov

insisted. "But I don't know all the details." He was unable to explain why

only Hare Krishna-owned homes have been affected.

 

A further threat to the partially-demolished commune is state attempts to

try to de-register the Hare Krishna community (see F18News 8 December 2006

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=885>).

 

Gauhar Halil at the Kazakh Foreign Ministry in Astana told Forum 18 on 13

December that the offer to help resolve the situation from the Advisory

Council on Freedom of Religion or Belief of the Organisation for Security

and Cooperation (OSCE) is with the Religion Committee at the Justice

Ministry and that "unfortunately" it has not yet responded (see F18News 8

December 2006 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=885>).

 

Halil added that the representatives of the OSCE office in Almaty were due

to meet the Hakim (administration head) of Karasai district, Bolat-bi

Kutpanov, on 15 December. However, Hare Krishna sources told Forum 18 on

22 December that this meeting has still not taken place as Kutpanov will

not schedule the meeting.

 

Hare Krishna devotees have suspected for some time that a state-appointed

Commission on the issue was designed to divert criticism, not to resolve

the problem of the state's attacks on the commune's religious freedom (see

F18News 17 November 2006

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

 

Today (22 December) the Commission held a meeting for what Mukhashov

described as "discussion of the results of the Commission's work".

However, Mukhashov did not invite Govinda Swami - one of the Hare Krishna

representatives on the Commission - to this latest meeting. In addition to

state representatives, those present were Hare Krishna representatives, a

member of the OSCE office in Almaty, and Yevgeny Zhovtis of the Kazakhstan

International Bureau of Human Rights and Law Observance and Ninel Fokina of

the Almaty Helsinki Committee.

 

Hare Krishna sources told Forum 18 that the meeting was presented with the

Commission's previously circulated Conclusions. In addition, the meeting

was also given what the Hare Krishna community describes as a "totally

false" version of events, which the authorities announced that they would

use as a press release.

 

The Hare Krishna community told Forum 18 that the Foreign Ministry

presented the Commission's conclusions to diplomats from the Netherlands,

the United Kingdom and the United States. "One interesting point," the

Hare Krishna community noted, "is that when the document was presented to

representatives of different government it was an undated and unsigned

document. And the Kazakh government alleges that the document was prepared

prior to the demolition. This contradicts the statements of the Commission

who told us immediately prior to the demolition that the work was still in

progress."

 

None of the Commission's Conclusions addressed the key question of why the

local authorities have moved only against Hare Krishna-owned homes, while

other neighbouring homes which were apparently privatised in exactly the

same way have not been touched. "From one angle it looks as if an

earthquake has hit the village. From another, it is obvious that whatever

the disaster, it picked its victims carefully," Natalia Anteleva of the

BBC, who visited the site on 11 December, reported. "In pristine snow by a

shimmering lake, the ruins of 13 houses lie scattered amid the untouched

cottages of their neighbours."

 

Two human rights activists who were formal observers in the Commission's

work were devastating in their criticism of the way it operated. Yevgeny

Zhovtis of the Kazakhstan International Bureau of Human Rights and Law

Observance and Ninel Fokina of the Almaty Helsinki Committee complained on

14 December that "the authorities have shown no real desire to look into

the essence of the conflict and find a mutually beneficial, intelligent

and just solution" for the Krishna community. "Furthermore," they

continued, "the authorities constantly tried to avoid discussing the legal

aspects of the issue, although the justice of the court decisions against

the Krishna devotees is very doubtful" (see eg. F18News 24 November 2006

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=876>).

 

Zhovtis and Fokina noted that their impression was that the authorities

are trying "to defend all their decisions, and that the main goal of the

Commission was not to find the truth." The main goal of the Commission,

from the observations of meetings by these two respected human rights

activists, was "to prove by any means, even by "organising" public

opinion, that the Society for Krishna Consciousness is not right and that

there is no direct or indirect religious discrimination."

 

Forum 18 has seen a copy of the Commission's Conclusions - undated but

signed by Amanbek Mukhashov, the head of the Religious Affairs Committee

at the Justice Ministry in the capital Astana. The Conclusions call on the

head of the local administration to observe the law, not to allow mistakes

in privatising land and to verify the way previous sites were privatised.

They call on the Hare Krishna community to ask the local authorities for

land to build a temple, to conduct religious ceremonies in accordance with

the law.

 

They also call for the Hare Krishna to maintain what the document calls an

"objective presentation of the existing problems" when talking to local

authorities, the media and international organisations - without stating

what lies behind the accusation it implies. No call is made for the Kazakh

authorities to stop claiming that the demolition and attack on the Hare

Krishna community's religious freedom is not a religious freedom violation

(see eg. F18News 1 December 2006

<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=881>).

 

The community - but not the authorities - are also told by the Commission

to resolve the dispute with the cooperative that had owned the land "in

accordance with the law". It urges the Justice Department and the

Religious Affairs Committee of Almaty Region to exercise "constant

control" over the way local authorities, religious communities and

individuals observe the Religion Law.

 

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>). (END)

 

For a personal commentary on how attacking religious freedom damages

national security in Kazakhstan, see 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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