KHUJAND, July 27, 2010, Asia-Plus — The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has banned activities of the Khujand-based NGO, Dasti Madad (Helping Hand). According to MoJ, the NGO that operated in Khujand’s neighborhood Bofanda for almost twelve years has been banned for religious propagation.
In the meantime, Aleksandr Kolesnikov, a lawyer with Dasti Madad, told Asia-Plus that the organization had not been engaged in religious propagation. “The fact of the matter is that Dasti Madad had its youth organization, Hayoti Javonon (Life of Youth), in 2005; this organization then became independent and it now bears no relation to Dasti Madad,” said Kolesnikov, “In 2008, this organization received presents from people in America and Europe, including church members, for Christmas and they decided to distribute presents to children. The MoJ banned Hayoti Javonon and this has reflected on our organization.”
“However, this was not the main reason for banning our organization; among the reasons was also named the fact that the office work was carried out in not the state language,” said the lawyer, “The other reason is one of the NGO programs — children’s rehabilitation center, Oasis. Children at the center have full board and lodging. They noted that only the state-run organizations may be engaged in upbringing of children at the whole allowance. We do not have such a right, though we were doing this during ten years and everybody was dissatisfied. Under the other program, we were helping children who do not attend schools; they said the Ministry of Education must be engaged in this issue. Now they are liquidating our organization. We had legal proceedings with them but all our efforts were unavailing.”
