Here's a brief rundown from Forum 18 on a few of the latest examples of how East European thugs are running roughshod over the human rights of religious believers: * In Azerbaijan, corrupt police planted a gun in the home of a Baptist pastor and then threw him in jail on charges of holding an illegal weapon. The pastor's brother says the purpose of the action (one in a series of persecutions of religious believers) is to halt Baptist activity altogether. "Their target is the church." Pastor Shabanov is the second Baptist pastor in the remote village of Aliabad to face imprisonment on what local Baptists insist are trumped-up charges. Shabanov's family insist he has no weapon and that police planted the gun they claim to have found. But the local police chief appears to have made up his mind. "He's a criminal," the head of Zakatala regional police told Forum 18, even though under Azerbaijani law individuals are innocent until found guilty in court.
* In Belarus, an extremely heavy fine (more than two months of the average wage) have fallen on a Baptist Christian who "organised choir singing and conducted conversations on religious topics" outside Ushachi's public market. After a plain clothes policeman had told a group of Baptists from outside the area to stop, Vladimir Burshtyn replied that they were not disturbing public order and cited religious freedom guarantees in Belarus' Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yeah, that's what it says but Alexander Lukashenka's government (and the petty tyrants in other locales who look to him for guidance) doesn't worry about the small print. The fine is, to Forum 18's knowledge, the highest yet imposed on Baptists for unregistered religious activity.
* In Tajikistan the country's only synagogue (located in the capital city of Dushanbe) has been bulldozed by the government, leaving the Jewish community without a place to worship or to conduct its food aid programme. The state's next demolition target, as part of a "city reconstruction plan" is the Bread of Life Protestant Church. Church members told Forum 18 they have been given until early July to vacate the building ahead of demolition.
* In Uzbekistan, leaders of 26 Protestant congregations across the country have published an open letter rejecting state-controlled TV stations' repeated broadcasts of a film encouraging intolerance and hatred of religious minorities. Protestant leaders also condemn "garbled facts, aggressive attacks, lies and slander" against named individuals and churches by the state TV broadcasts, and accuse the state and those who took part in the film of violating Uzbek criminal law through the broadcast. The leaders also complain that the state-controlled leaderships of schools and colleges strongly encouraged students to watch the film and so encouraged religious hatred and intolerance amongst young people. State-run newspapers and websites carried linked articles attacking religious minorities and their sharing of their beliefs, one such article stating that religious minorities "have one aim: to infringe on human freedom with all the consequences that flow from it." No wonder that direct persecutions are increasing there.
