Uzbek authorities raid Christian family summer camps
Tashkent
(AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Uzbek government is clamping down further on
Protestants. After
numerous cases of seizures and destruction of religious material, according to the
organization F18, the authorities recently
targeted the family summer camps organized by the Baptist community. The
first case concerns the Bostanlyk District in the region of Tashkent, where
police seized an area owned by the Baptist Union. This
past June, the authorities raided the camp seizing religious material and
hunting families with children. The
police presented a warrant of eviction, claiming that the land was not owned by
the community, but the state. The
Baptist Union objected to the measure and denounced the violence to the local
court, which will issue a decision in the next few days. The
heads of the Christian minority argue that all their documents are in order. The
community of Bostanlick had purchased the land of about an acre in 2000 from a
chain of restaurants, which in 1993 had taken over the property from the Department
of Privatization and Deregulation of Property (DPD).
The
DPD - which in 1993 had sold the land to the chain of restaurants - claims that
in 2004, some local residents filed complaints, denouncing the alleged
"violation of religious and legal norms by the Baptists who have exploited
a space used in past
as a cemetery. Based on these statements June 18 the DPD began a lawsuit at Tashkent
Economic Court, arguing that the Baptist Union must return the land to the
state. Jamshid Tursunov, head of DPD presented in person the
complaint before the court. His claim is based on a law dating back to 'April
2006, which allows the state to revoke the right to property in some cases.
Another
case of violation of private property and religious freedom is linked to a forced
eviction that took place on July 23 in the Samarkand region, but the news was
released only on August 6. Anonymous
sources report that the police raided a camp for children, in the village of
Mironkul organized by the local Protestant community. One
of the witnesses said that the authorities arrived at the camp with "four
bus carrying 80 people, including officials and police. At least 20 police were
in riot gear." The
anonymous source says that the raid began at 11 am, "agents raided the camp
wielding rubber truncheons, threatening not only adults, but also children. All
residents of the camp were subjected to six hours of
questioning. Prior to their release agents led nine adults and 22 children to
the Mironkul police station for further questioning. " According
to the witness officials have seized all the material in the field: laptops,
books, posters, four mobile phones, cameras, electric guitars and other
materials. The
police also confiscated the passports of two Ukrainian citizens without
informing their embassy.
88%
of the Uzbek population is Sunni Muslim faith while Christians make up 8%. In
the country, freedom of religion is subject to strong limitation by the
government. The
Uzbek law considers detention of religious literature "illegal, only if it
is connected to extremism and incites hatred." But
the courts often destroy confiscated private materials after the "opinion"
of some "experts", who generally define all the books that talk about
religion as "extremist".
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