Source: Forum 18, January 9, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In November, police raided a Baptist church\u2019s worship meeting, blocking the doors. Those present rejected pressure to write statements. When church leaders refused to register the church, police took administrative cases to court, but a judge dismissed them in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In September, police visited [another] Baptist church. A woman who complained that the church was teaching children later admitted she wrote the complaint \u201cunder pressure and dictation from the police.\u201d Police interrogated a pastor\u2019s child in school in the parents\u2019 absence. Police in both cases refused to comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more<\/a>. Note that the country\u2019s religious laws allow only state-registered religious communities to hold worship services, which must be held at state-approved locations. As a rule, Council of Churches Baptist churches do not seek state permission to exercise their freedom of religion. The Muslim community faces even tighter restrictions: only mosques subject to a state-controlled board are permitted to exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Forum 18, January 9, 2026 In November, police raided a Baptist church\u2019s worship meeting, blocking the doors. Those present rejected pressure to write statements. When church leaders refused to register the church, police took administrative cases to court, but a judge dismissed them in December. In September, police visited [another] Baptist church. A woman … Continue reading Kazakhstan: Police Pressure Churches to Register with the State<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14386"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14389,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14386\/revisions\/14389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}