Source: Forum 18, January 6, 2014
After raids on a Baptist church and a Christian center in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, in October 2012, a court in December 2013 fined two Protestants the equivalent of nearly four weeks’ state-calculated average wage each for having “extremist” materials. Only one of seven confiscated items is known to have been banned as “extremist” through the courts.
Protestants have repeatedly rejected accusations by state bodies that works confiscated from them are “extremist” and deserve to be banned. An Astana court is due to rule on January 13 whether a text by Salafi Muslim Mohammed ibn Abdul-Wahhab is “extremist” and should be banned.
Because court hearings to rule whether materials are “extremist” take place unannounced and because no published list of banned books appears to exist, people in Kazakhstan remain unaware of what has and has not been banned. “Extremism” bans are part of a harsh system of state-imposed religious censorship.
» Read full story. Also from Forum 18, in Turkmenistan, Singing About God Here Is Banned.