Tag Archives: religion

Minaret removed in Georgian village

AUG. 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — On Aug. 26, the authorities in Chela, a town in the region of Ajara in south-west Georgia, removed a minaret from a mosque. The official reason was to inspect whether the minaret had been constructed legally. Protesting Muslims claimed the removal was an attack on their right to worship and a debate over religious freedom kicked off.

Most of Georgia’s 4.5 million people belong to the Georgian Orthodox Church and are guided by the Church’s relatively conservative views. A Muslim minority, roughly 10% of the population, lives in Georgia, mainly in the south-east near the border with Azerbaijan or in the south-west along the border with Turkey.

The authorities dismantled the minaret from Chela and drove it to Tbilisi for inspection. There they decreed that, although the minaret had been made of illegal material, it should be resurrected. And so they loaded the minaret back on to a truck and drove it back to Chela.

Near Chela, though, a group of Orthodox Christians, stepped in and blocked the road. They don’t want the minaret to be resurrected.

The minaret now lies in pieces a few kilometres from Chela. Meanwhile, Georgia debates its view on religious tolerance.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)

Priests arrested for homophobic violence in Georgia

MAY 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian police arrested and charged two Orthodox priests with leading attacks on a gay rights parade on May 17, media reported. The attacks brought condemnation from Georgia’s Western allies and tarnished the country’s reputation for liberal thinking.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 136, published on May 27 2013)

Azerbaijan limits religious freedom

FEB. 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s parliament passed a law limiting the sale of religious books and videos, media reported. Parliamentarians justified the restrictions by insisting they were necessary to reduce the inflow of extremist propaganda. Religious items now have to be vetted and can only be sold in designated shops.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 125, published on Feb. 22 2013)

Azerbaijan’s parliament passes law limiting religion

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 125, published on Feb. 22 2013)

Kyrgyz clerics ban New Year

DEC. 27 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – In what is perhaps a sign of hardening Islamic sentiment, senior Muslim clerics in Kyrgyzstan have called for New Year celebrations to be scrapped as they are “un-Islamic”, media reported. Most people in Kyrgyzstan are Muslim, although religion does not dominate public life.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 118, published on Dec. 28 2012)

Muslims protest in Azerbaijan

SEP. 17 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Baku detained 30 protesters marching towards the US embassy to demonstrate against an anti-Islamic film that has angered many Muslims, media reported. The police blocked the protest, which reporters estimated attracted 100 people, before it reached the embassy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 105, published on Sep. 21 2012)

Christian activists attack gay parade in Georgia

MAY 17 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – A group of around 20 people attempted a rare gay pride march through the centre of Tbilisi until Christian activists and priests blocked their path and smashed their placards, media reported. The incident highlights Georgia’s deeply conservative society. Homosexuality is still a taboo subject.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 089, published on May 25 2012)

People riot in Azerbaijan

MARCH 1 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 1,000 people rioted in Quba, a town of 40,000 people in the north of Azerbaijan, burning down the house of the regional governor in the worst street violence since President Ilham Aliyev came to power in 2003.

Police in full riot gear resorted to tear gas and rubber bullets to restore order.

The trigger for the violence was a video of the governor chastising the people of Quba for selling their property. The day after the riot, the central government sacked him.

This protest was different from anti-government demonstrations in the past year in Baku. Most of those had been organised on Facebook and the internet by an emerging middle class. The authorities had been ready for them and snuffed them out before they could gather momentum.

There have also been protests by radical religious Azerbaijanis demonstrating against the government’s secular policies. Again these had been pre-arranged and easily dealt with.

In Quba, though, the protest had been spontaneous, non-religious, non-political and violent. All it took was a thoughtless remark by a governor to set alight seething frustration, showing just how fragile the authorities’ control is.

At least in Quba the authorities reached for tear gas and rubber bullets rather than the live rounds that their counterparts in western Kazakhstan used to quell a riot in December.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 080, published on March 8 2012)

Jehovah’s Witness activist jailed in Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan bans religion from art