WARSAW, September 30, 2009, Asia-Plus — The second day of the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, Europe”s largest human rights and democracy conference, which opened in Warsaw on September 28, started with lively discussion of issues related to freedom of religion and religious creed.
Abdelfattah Amor, United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, noted that freedom of belief is an absolute freedom, and therefore, Freedom of belief is an absolute freedom, and therefore, every human being has the right to make his or her basic choices without any external pressure.
Speaking at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw, member of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Khujand Zafar Rahimov told those present about numerous violations of human rights with regard to him and continuing police prosecutions in the Sughd province.
“My family and me were falsely accused of religious extremism,” said Rahimov, “They were beating me threatening with imprisonment because I am member of Jehovah’s Witnesses community that was banned in Tajikistan in October 2007. Such instances are numerous in the Sughd province.”
Representative of the Association of Churches of the Evangelical Christian-Baptists in Tajikistan, Ms. Zulfia Qayumova, called on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to assist with making changes and addenda to that problematic law that could severely limit religious freedoms in Tajikistan.
Many Western human rights organizations recommended Tajikistan to stop the practice of persecuting registered and unregistered religious communities.
Representative of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, in particular, noted that the new religion law adopted in Tajikistan this year empowered the government to impose stricter control over religious activities. “Jehovah’s Witnesses community is banned and local authorities are continuing to persecute the Protestant community,” he said.
The OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting opened on September 28 with calls on governments to increase efforts to adhere to the commitments they have undertaken as participating States of the OSCE.
We will recall that 17 residents of the city of Khujand, the capital of the northern Sughd province were arrested by security officers on September 23 on suspicion of being members of Jehovah’s Witnesses community. The source at the Khujand prosecutor’s office said, “When searching the apartment, the law enforcement officers found a large number of literature inciting religious enmity and hate towards national culture and other religions,” the source said. According to him, criminal proceedings have been instituted against them under the provisions of Article 189, Part 2 (incitement of ethnic, racial, regional and religious enmity) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code. Investigation is carried out by the Sughd security directorate.
Tajikistan”s Jehovah”s Witness community was stripped of its legal status and banned from operation in the country in November 2007. Tajik officials, when contacted, cited conscientious objection to military service and public displays of faith as their main grievances against the community. The ban prohibits any religious activity by Jehovah”s Witnesses anywhere in 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.
