DUSHANBE, February 16, 2009, Asia-Plus — The Supreme Court‘s military board has rejected appeal by the Jehovah’s religious group.
The source at the Supreme Court said that on February 12, the Military Board of the Supreme Court upheld the Dushanbe military court’s verdict against the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious organization in Tajikistan, rejecting appeal by local Jehovah’s Witnesses community.
As it had been reported earlier, the military court of the Dushanbe Garrison on September 30, 2008 handed down ruling putting a ban on the Jehovah”s Witnesses religious group in Tajikistan. According to Nozirjon Bouriyev, a spokesman for Tajikistan”s State Committee for National Security (GKNB), the court found that the group had broken religious laws and had illegally imported religious literature.
We will recall that Tajik government suspended activities by Jehovah”s Witnesses in the country in October 2007 because of their refusal to serve in the military. According to Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, two other Christian organizations — an evangelistic Baptist group called Hayat Faravan (Full Life) and the missionary group Ehya (Revival) — were also ordered to suspend their activities for three months. Tajik officials claimed that these groups have increased their propaganda activities and bring an excessive amount of religious materials into the country.
The Jehovah”s Witnesses have around 5 million members worldwide but number only in the hundreds in Tajikistan, most of whom joined in the early 1990s. The organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses had worked in Tajikistan since 1997.
