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Read the Full Article at Forum 18 News Service

Kazakh-born Viktor Leven, who holds a German passport, is once again due for deportation to punish him for leading worship of a Council of Churches Baptist congregation in Akmola Region. On 26 November, the collegium of the Regional Court reinstated the initial court decision that he had successfully overturned on appeal. “I could now be deported at any time,” Leven told Forum 18 News Service. Deportation would separate him from his wife and their six children, the youngest just three weeks old. The case came as local papers reproduced a hostile article by state-funded “anti-cult” activist Gulnara Orazbaeva, accusing Baptists of spreading the H1N1 virus, accusing Leven’s brother David of causing the death of one of his children because of his faith and accusing Baptists of not reading newspapers or watching television. One newspaper wrote that material for the article was provided by the KNB secret police, but the KNB and Orazbaeva denied it to Forum 18, as did the newspaper’s editor. Told that the Baptists complained that the article stirred up inter-religious hatred of them, the editor laughed.

(author unknown) Baptist, Court, Cult, Kazakhstan, Worship

Read the Full Article at Christian News

In its survey analysis of freedom of religion or belief in Kazakhstan, Forum 18 News Service finds continuing violations of human rights commitments. The country will be 2010 Chairperson-in-Office of the OSCE, and faces the UN Universal Periodic Review process in February 2010.

Serious violations Forum 18 has documented include: attacks on religious freedom by officials ranging from President Nursultan Nazarbaev down to local officials; literature censorship; state-sponsored encouragement of… >>

(author unknown) Kazakhstan, Survey

Read the Full Article at Christian News

Within hours of arriving in the town of Uspen to visit a local Christian and set up a local congregation, police broke into the house where members of the Pavlodar Grace Church were staying, church members told Forum 18 News Service.

One visitor was questioned and a local woman the visitors had prayed with was beaten by police until she signed a statement saying she had been forced to submit to a religious ritual.

Two of the visitors face administrative trial on 31 August. Asked why the Po… >>

(author unknown) Kazakhstan

Read the Full Article at International Christian Concern

A Protestant congregation in the Caspian Sea port town of Aktau [Aqtau] in western Kazakhstan is facing sustained targeting by the Department for the Fight against Extremism, Separatism and Terrorism of the Mangistau Regional Police, with the backing of local prosecutors, the courts and an imam from the town’s mosque.

(author unknown) Court, Kazakhstan

Read the Full Article at Forum 18 News Service

Two officers of the Anti-Terrorism Police appear to have been leading actions against the New Life Full Gospel Pentecostal church in the town of Aktau. The officers filmed a service and questioned children, church members told Forum 18 News Service. One church member was sacked from her job in a school, interrogated and threatened and the officers tried to recruit her as a spy. She was fined for “illegal missionary activity” on 2 July. Also fined in late June and ordered deported was another church member, an Uzbek citizen, who gave a Christian magazine to a 12-year-old girl. The Justice Department and an imam were involved in court hearings. The church has already been banned for six months. Meanwhile, the director of a psychiatric home defended to Forum 18 his decision to prevent a resident conducting confession with a Catholic priest. An official of the Regional Administration told Forum 18 the man does not have rights, which have now been handed to the director as official guardian. “This includes his right to freedom of conscience.”

(author unknown) Catholic, Confession, Court, Gospel, Kazakhstan, Pentecostal, Priest, School, Science

Read the Full Article at Latest News from Ekklesia

Ecumenical News International Kazakhstan, Lutheran

Read the Full Article at Forum 18 News Service

State actions against freedom of religion or belief in Kazakhstan continue, Forum 18 News Service has found. Latest actions include the closure of a Christian-run rehabilitation centre for alcoholics and drug-addicts, and continuing prosecutions, fines and property confiscations against Baptists for holding unregistered worship services. Officials’ “narrow interpretation” of the law in relation to the rehabilitation centre was condemned by Ninel Fokina of the Almaty Helsinki Committee. “Non-commercial organisations must be social organisations, religious organisations or political parties and officials insist that all three be kept separate,” she told Forum 18. “But this is absurd, as everything that is not forbidden should be allowed.” Meanwhile, Elizaveta Drenicheva, a missionary for the Unification Church (commonly known as the Moonies) has been freed after two months imprisonment. She had been sentenced to two years in jail for sharing her beliefs, and her criminal record has not been cancelled. Officials are also continuing to try to pressure the Hare Krishna commune near Almaty to leave its site.

(author unknown) Alcohol, Baptist, Kazakhstan, Worship

Read the Full Article at Forum 18 News Service

Kazakhstan has resumed jailing Baptists, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Yuri Rudenko from Almaty Region was the third unregistered Baptist pastor to be jailed for three days for refusing to pay fines for unregistered worship. Baptists point out that this breaks Kazakhstan’s Constitution, but officials have refused to discuss this with Forum 18. The jailing took place as Elizaveta Drenicheva, a Russian working as a missionary for the Unification Church (commonly known as the Moonies), was jailed for two years for sharing her beliefs. Other religious believers who strongly disagree with her beliefs, as well as human rights defenders, are alarmed by the jail sentence. “This is a highly dangerous precedent,” one Protestant who preferred not to be identified told Forum 18. “It seems to me that any believer who preaches about sin and how to be saved from it could be convicted in the same way.” Baptist churches in Akmola region have also been raided and their members questioned, and another Baptist pastor is facing the threat of jail tomorrow (4 February).

(author unknown) Baptist, Kazakhstan, Pastor, Russia, Worship

Read the Full Article at Breaking Religious News latest RSS headlines - Big News Network.com

(christiansunite.com) – Aleksandr Kerker, a Baptist pastor in the town of Tayinsha, North Kazakhstan Region, is facing opposition from authorities for refusing to pay a fine for leading worship withou…

aBetterWay Baptist, Kazakhstan, Pastor, Persecution, Worship

Read the Full Article at Mission Network News

Kazakhstan (MNN) — The rights of Christians are being curtailed in some areas of the former Soviet Union. We told you about Kyrgyzstan yesterday. Today, we have some good news about a similar bill in Kazakhstan. Joel Griffith with Slavic Gospel Association says the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev, didn’t sign the bill. “Instead of signing it or vetoing it, he basically referred it to the country’s Constitutional Council for review.” Griffith says this may be a political move. “Kazakhstan is supposed to assume the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2010. And, of course, any member of the organization is supposed to adhere to basic human rights standards. Some think perhaps that might be why he referred this to the constitutional court.” The bill would put severe restrictions on witnessing. It also would make it illegal to teach children in vacation Bible school or summer camp without both parents’ written permission. Griffith says, “We’re still hoping that law would not be signed but would rather be overturned.” Pray that God would grant that request.

(author unknown) Bible, Court, Europe, God, Gospel, Kazakhstan, School

Read the Full Article at News2

Kazakhstan’s lower house of Parliament approved controversial legislation Wednesday to increase government control over religious groups, drawing criticism from a major international group Kazakhstan is to lead in 2010. –

AP reports Rights groups say the amendments to the country’s law on religion
will hinder religious minorities in the sprawling Central Asian country
and could force some of them out of existence.

Kazakhstan, where Muslims and Christians each make up about 45
percent of the population, has sought in recent years to cast itself as
an active promoter of religious tolerance. But some Christian
communities — including Baptists and Lutherans, largely from the
ethnic German population — have come under government scrutiny.

aBetterWay Baptist, Kazakhstan, Lutheran, Muslim, Persecution, Santa

Read the Full Article at News2

Two Jesuit priests were murdered brutally in Moscow after being attacked with blunt objects.
–

Catholic News Service reports Jesuit Fathers Otto Messmer, 47, and Victor Betancourt, 42, were found dead late Oct. 28 in their Moscow apartment.

The Russian bishops’ conference denounced “those who committed this terrible crime” and prayed Russian authorities would “be able to find the criminals.”

Ekklesia reports  According to the investigators’ statement, the apartment was unlocked and nothing had been stolen. “The investigation is examining all possible versions of the incident, including a personal conflict, since traces of a party were found in the apartment,” they noted.

A statement posted on the Web site of the Jesuit headquarters, www.sjweb.info, described Messmer as being of German ethnic origin, born in Kazakhstan, when it was in the Soviet Union. His brother, Nikolaus Messmer, is bishop in Bishkek, capital of the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, another country that belonged to the Soviet Union.

aBetterWay Bishop, Catholic, Court, Europe, Kazakhstan, Persecution, Priest, Russia, Santa, Web