Tag Archives: religion

Jehovah Witness holds meeting in Uzbekistan

JUNE 28 2017 (The Bulletin) — A delegation of senior officials from Jehovah Witness chapters in Europe and the United States travelled to Tashkent for a meeting with the Uzbek government. Very little detail on what was discussed was released by the Uzbek government but the Jehovah Witness officials may have been complaining about an ongoing crackdown against its members.

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)

Tajikistan bans Hajj for under 40s

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JUNE 20 2017 (The Bulletin) — The authorities in Tajikistan have banned people under the age of 40 from travelling to Mecca this year for the Hajj, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Officials said that ban was designed to give older people the chance of completing the Hajj but analysts said it could be designed to try and prevent young people from becoming radicalised. Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries are worried about the spread of radical Islam.

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(News report from Issue No. 334, published on June 26 2017)

Uzbekistan’s Pres. Mirziyoyev reaches out to Muslims

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TASHKENT, JUNE 15 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev hosted an iftar, a religious dinner eaten after sunset during the Islamic festival of Ramadan, for the first time in Uzbekistan, possibly a sign that he is trying to woo pious Muslims.

The dinner featured 1,200 people and was televised, a medium widely used by the Uzbek authorities when they want to get a message out to the population.

One Uzbek man in his 20s said that this was a clear signal that Mr Mirziyoyev was trying to make a clean break with the policies of former president Islam Karimov who distrusted and marginalised Islam.

“It seems that our president began taming imams with soft power,” he said.

Another young Uzbek was more direct and said that Mirziyoyev may have other priorities.

“Putin was also a Communist and a KGB agent and now he manipulates the masses via the Russian Orthodox Church,” he said of Russian President Vladimir Putin who promoted the Orthodox church and rebuilt cathedrals once he took power, in direct contrast to the Soviet Union’s treatment of religion.

“So does Mirziyoyev, I think.”

Although there has been a gradual increase in some civil liberties in the past nine months or so, people in Uzbekistan are still wary of discussing politics and both men declined to be named.

Uzbekistan is officially a secular republic, although its population is predominantly Muslim. After independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Karimov argued with leaders of a popular Islamist movement. He ended up banning them, leading to the creation of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) which launched a series of bomb attacks in the 1990s.

Karimov also blacklisted hundreds of pious ordinary Muslims and tried to ban some practices, such as the iftar.

On a trip to Bukhara in the south of the country earlier on June 15, before his iftar, Mr Mirziyoyev also suggested that he was going to roll back some of the Karimov-era restrictions on Muslims.

He said that he wanted to rebuild the 15th century madrasah Mir Arab and also that it might be time to move some people off an official blacklist of Muslims.

“All the blacklisted can’t be radicals. You should speak to them, recheck their views and learn if there are any innocent who were blacklisted inequitably,” he told an audience of thousands on a conference call that lasted several hours with religious and secular leaders across the country.

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(News report from Issue No. 333, published on June 19 2017)

Turkmenistan has imprisoned Gulenists, says HRW

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JUNE 9 2017 (The Bulletin) — The New York-based Human Rights Watch accused the Turkmen government of illegally detaining and imprisoning 18 men allegedly linked to the Gulen network that Turkish President Recep Erdogan accuses of plotting a coup.

In its report, Human Rights Watch said that the men were part of a group of 100 men arrested in September and October last year after a request from Turkey.

“The men’s families found out about the arrests in Turkmenistan only through unofficial contacts. They were allowed no contact with their loved ones until after the trial, which was closed and held at the pretrial detention centre. Four state- appointed lawyers served as the men’s defence counsel,” HRW said in its press release.

In Turkey, the security forces have rounded up thousands of supporters of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen. In Central Asia and the South Caucasus, Turkey has asked the authorities to detain and deport people linked to Gulen, mainly in the education sector.

Gulenists travelled to these newly independent former Soviet republics in the 1990s and set up what are now some of the region’s best-regarded universities and schools.

Human Rights Watch said it had seen a summary of the verdict handed out to the men which said that the court had found them guilty of offences linked to the incitement of social, ethnic and religious hatred and also involvement in criminal organisations.

Turkmenistan has one of the worst records for human rights and free speech and is considered a secretive, closed-off country. It has not commented on the Human Rights Watch allegations.

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(News report from Issue No. 332, published on June 12 2017)

Trial of Archpriest begins in Georgia

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MAY 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The trial began of Archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze who is accused of trying to kill the Patriarch’s Secretary, Shorena Tetruashvili. In a case that has captivated Georgia, Archpriest Mamaladze was arrested trying to board a flight to Germany carrying cyanide earlier this year where Patriarch Ilia II was receiving medical treatment. It had been thought that the Archpriest had wanted to kill Ilia II but this has now been rejected. Instead, prosecutors believe that he had a vendetta against Ilia’s secretary.

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(News report from Issue No. 328, published on May 12 2017)

Archpriest planned to kill Patriarch’s secretary, say Georgian officials

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APRIL 28 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Prosecutor’s Office said that they are going to charge Archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze with plotting to murder the secretary of Patriarch Ilia II, ending weeks of speculation that the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church had been the intended target. Archpriest Mamaladze was arrested in January carrying cyanide as he boarded a plane bound for Germany where Ilia II had been receiving hospital treatment. Prosecutors now believe that he had a vendetta against Patriarch Shorena Tetruashvili, Ilia II’s secretary.

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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Priest accuses Georgia of unfair trial

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APRIL 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze, the priest waiting for his trial on charges of attempting to poison a senior member of Patriach Ilia II’s inner circle, has said that he is going to apply to the European Court for Human Rights against what he has said is an unfair process. Archpriest Mamaladze was arrested this year trying to board a flight to Germany with cyanide, a case that has captivated the Georgian public.

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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)

Georgian official investigate archpriest

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MARCH 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s prosecutors said they are investigating archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze for planning to kill Shorena Tetruasvili, an aide to Patriarch Ilia II, when he was caught carrying cyanide as he boarded a plane in Tbilisi bound for Germany this year. Initially, prosecutors said archpriest Mamaladze had been planning to kill the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church as he rested in Germany after medical treatment.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Georgian police arrests priest accused of plotting assassination

TBILISI, FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian police arrested Deacon Giorgi Mamaladze, a Georgian Orthodox priest, on suspicion of planning to assassinate a senior member of the Church, potentially even Patriarch Ilia II, shocking this deeply religious country.

Deacon Mamaladze was arrested at the Tbilisi National Airport after an informant said that he was travelling to Germany carrying cyanide. Patriarch Ilia is recuperating in Germany after an operation on his gall-bladder.

In a statement, Chief Prosecutor Irakli Shotadze said: “A citizen contacted the Prosecution Service of Georgia and stated that his/her acquaintance, Father Giorgi, had asked him/her for help in obtaining the life-threatening poisonous substance cyanide. As the person who submitted the statement had found out during the meeting, Father Giorgi was to murder a high-ranking clergyman using the aforementioned substance.”

Mr Shotadze, the prosecutor, did not name Ilia II but media immediately suspected that he was the target because of the Germany link.

Politicians have also fed the febrile air of conspiracies and counter conspiracies. PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili said security around Ilias II, Georgia’s figurehead and one of its most powerful people, was to be beefed-up.

“Given the extraordinary nature of this situation, I delegated my personal security detail to Berlin,” he said in an official statement. “We have averted a calamity, a treacherous attack on the Church, an act against our country, has been prevented.”

Father Mamaladze has denied the accusations.

There was also scepticism on the streets of Tbilisi. Tsiuri, a 24-year-old lawyer, said infighting was to blame.

“Although I do not trust Mamaladze, I am sure that this entire thing was staged. Two weeks ago some rumours spread about a possible assassination attempt against the Patriarch,” he said. “Our church is fractured and different groups are fighting for power. Somebody was trying to put Mr. Mamaladze offside by discrediting him.”

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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Suspected arsonists torch Muslim cultural centre in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge

TBILISI, JAN. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian investigators travelled to Duisi, the largest village in Georgia’s predominantly Muslim Pankisi Gorge, to inspect a suspected arson that damaged a Culture House run by the Kakheti Regional Development Fund (KRDF) earlier this month.

KRDF members said that jerry cans with fuel and oil were found inside the building and that the fire was an arson attempt.

The fire, sources said, highlights increased tension in the Pankisi Gorge between reactionary Islamists and more liberal thinkers. The IS extremist group has successfully recruited men to join their forces in Syria from the Pankisi Gorge.

Iza Bekauri, spokesperson for KRDF said that the centre has previously been threatened.

“There have been threats that we should get out of the Gorge. They said our work here in this place is unacceptable and we should leave,” media quoted her as saying.

The KRDF is a government sponsored programme that aims to help refugees in the Pankisi Gorge integrate. These are mainly ethnic Chechens who escaped from fighting in Russia’s North Caucasus in the early 2000s.

As well as providing legal assistance to Chechen refugees, the the community centre promotes educational and recreational activities for both youths and women.

A KRDF employee who wanted to remain anonymous told The Conway Bulletin that some radical elements in the Pankisi Gorge were against women using the centre.

“They like our educational activities but they don’t like our cultural events, women engagement and Women Council’s work,” he said.

Levani, a local dentist, said that a lack of education was the problem.

“Some young men don’t like the idea of women being more independent. Chechens have been living there for long time and they love Georgia. The problem is Pankisi is a remote and isolated part of our country. The problem is not Islam, the problem is limited education”, he said.

The KRDF has said it will consider suspending its activities if the area is deemed unsafe.

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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)