Kazakhstan: A Bleak Year for Religious Freedom
As reported in Forum 18, there were 279 known administrative prosecutions in Kazakhstan to punish the exercising of freedom of religion or belief in 2017.
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July 25, 2017 •
The State of Religious Tolerance in Kazakhstan: Fact vs. Fiction
In opening the Congress of the Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in June 2015, a convocation held every three years in Astana, Kazakhstan, the country’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev presented his nation as “a successful model of coexistence between 18 religions living in peace, harmony and mutual understanding.
June 17, 2017 •
Kazakh Sunni Muslim Given 5-Year Sentence for Talking About Islam
Sunni Muslim Nariman Seytzhanov was convicted in Almaty, Kazakhstan, of “inciting religious hatred or discord” under the broadly framed Criminal Code Article 174, Part 1.
April 11, 2017 •
Kazakh Jehovah’s Witness trial draws fire from world’s human rights community
The trial of a Jehovah’s Witness charged with inciting interethnic enmity started April 6 in Astana, the capital city. Teimur Akhmedov, 60, was arrested in January for what the Committee for National Security (KNB) described as propagating ideas that “disrupt interreligious and interethnic concord.”
January 7, 2017 •
Repressive Anti-religion Laws go into Effect in Kazakhstan
New controls on religious travel and literature ignore OSCE recommendations and violate Kazakstan’s international human rights commitments.
