Two Articles of the Code of Administrative Offences which punish unregistered religious activity, missionary activity without state approval and activity not specifically mentioned in a community’s officially-approved statute remain almost unchanged in the Justice Ministry’s published draft text of a new Code, Forum 18 News Service notes. “Offences” under these Articles are punishable by fines of up to 300 times the minimum monthly wage and temporary or permanent bans on a religious organisation’s activity. Justice Ministry officials told Forum 18 that the text is with the Presidential Administration for comments before being finalised, approved and sent to Parliament. “We want them to remove these two Articles entirely,” a Council of Churches Baptist, whose communities have repeatedly been punished under these Articles, told Forum 18. “The Administrative Code shouldn’t punish the core practice of a faith,” an Ahmadi Muslim told Forum 18.

Also complaining of the harsh impact of these two current Articles are the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their representatives pointed out to Forum 18 that in the western Atyrau Region, their adherents suffered heavy fines in 2007 and 2008 merely for conducting religious activity that was not registered. In June 2007 one Jehovah’s Witness was fined 109,200 Tenge, (5,410 Norwegian Kroner, 670 Euros or 902 US Dollars) and five others half that amount under Article 374-1. In May 2008 one was fined 116,800 Tenge and seven others half that amount under the same Article.

In addition, Jehovah’s Witness congregations in several places have been banned for six month periods under Article 375, although in two cases in South Kazakhstan Region in late 2008 Jehovah’s Witnesses were able to have these bans overturned by the Regional Court (see F18News 19 December 2008 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1233).

Jehovah’s Witnesses declined to say whether they believed these Articles should be retained, amended or abolished when the new Administrative Code is adopted, stressing that they do not comment on “political issues”.

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