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Kazakhstan's Parliament Passes Controversial Amendment To Religion Law

By Howard M. Friedman

Kazakhstan's Parliament on Wednesday gave final approval to restrictive amendments to the country's Religion Law. The bill would also amend the Code of Administrative Offenses and certain other laws. The controversial bill now goes to President Nursultan Nazarbaev who must decide whether or not to sign it into law. A report by Forum 18 published on Wednesday describes the effect of the amendments:

[T]he Law would for the first time explicitly ban unregistered religious activity. It would also ban anyone from sharing their beliefs without both the written backing of a registered religious association and also personal state registration as a missionary. It would require permission from both parents for children to attend any religious event.

Small "religious groups" ? the lowest level of registered community - would only be authorised to carry out religious activity with existing members and would not be allowed to maintain places of worship "open to a wide access". Nor would they be allowed to conduct missionary activity. Apart from a few personal items, all religious literature imported into the country would require approval through a "religious expert assessment".

Penalties for holding religious services, conducting charitable work, importing, publishing or distributing religious literature or building or opening places of worship in violation of "demands established in law" would be increased. Repeat "offences" ? if the current draft is adopted ? would lead to a religious community being banned.

Radio Free Europe points out that the passage of the bill by the Majilis-- the lower house of the country's legislature-- came only hours after government officials met with experts from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and agreed to allow OSCE to review the latest draft of the proposed law.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on November 28, 2008 (boomark / email).