Bishehk, January 20: A controversial law is accused of suppressing religious freedoms in the predominantly-Muslim Central Asian state, amid complaints that the government is not distinguishing between extremism and peaceful faith expression.
“This law makes it difficult, first of all for Islamic movements and the Muslim community to open new mosques and madrassas,” Kadyr Malikov, a Muslim scholar, told.
The legislation restricts the activities and registration of religious groups in the Central Asia republic.
Under the law, religious groups need at least 200 members instead of ten before they can legally operate.
It bans the distribution of literature – printed, audio and video – related to religions in public places, schools and higher educational establishments.
Even already legally established religious groups must re-register; a requirement which forces small communities to become illegal and go underground.
“This creates difficult relations between the secular government and the Muslim community,” says Malikov.
Bolot, a young evangelical preacher, says he and his group are victims of the law.
“In our church we don’t have official registration because we have only 25 people,” said Bolot who has been arrested twice this year himself.
“They asked me to stop the church because it’s against the law.”
Muslims make up 75 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s 5-million population.
Around 50,000 people are evangelical Christians and many others are Orthodox Christians.
Official Religions
Many believe the government is enforcing such a law to impose certain forms of religions on the people.
Malikov, the Muslim scholar, says the authorities consider anything outside the boundaries of the officially recognized forms of faiths to be dangerous.
“The people in government can’t separate traditional or peaceful Islam from extremists,” he contended.
“In some schools they prohibit girls who wear the hijab from going to school. In the constitution everybody has the right to education.”
The secular government, however, denies targeting faiths.
It says the recent law was tailored to counter proselytization by some faith groups.
“We haven’t reduced religious freedoms; we are just trying to bring some order to these organizations,” Kanibek Osmonaliyev, the head of the state commission on religion, told the BBC.
“People asked us to take measures because they were worried their families would be broken up by these groups.”
-Agencies