Tag Archives: Country: Kyrgyzstan

EurasiaNet.org: “A seemingly innocuous suggestion to allocate time and space for Kyrgyz MPs to observe Islam’s traditional Friday prayers has produced a furor with implications for mosque-state separation. Opponents say the measure threatens to erode the concept of secularism enshrined in Kyrgyzstan’s constitution.”

Telegraph: “The new government of Kyrgyzstan has launched a crackdown on militants it claims are linked to extreme Islamic groups.”

Central Asian Newswire: “The city council in the volatile southern Kyrgyz city of Osh has created a new commission to monitor Islamic clerics in that city.” Via Religion Clause Blog

Hannah Cummings reports at Baptist Press: “Several countries in the Organization for Security and Co-operation have violated religious liberty commitments set forth by the organization, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.”

Interfax: “Non-governmental organizations (NGO) in Kyrgyzstan have criticized the exclusion of the definition of a secular state from the new constitution being drafted by the interim authorities.”

Religion Clause Blog: “Forum 18 yesterday reported on the draft text of a new Law on Religious Education and Educational Institutions that is being drafted by Kyrgyzstan’s State Agency for Religious Affairs (SARA). Kanybek Osmonaliev, had of SARA, says a new law is needed in order to reduce the number of Islamic educational institutions and to require them to offer a proper balance of religious and secular subjects.”

Baptist Press: “Christians in the central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan have been told not to meet for worship without registration, but government officials are making it nearly impossible for churches to receive approval.”

Forum 18: “Kyrgyzstan is continuing a crackdown on people exercising their freedom of religion or belief, Forum 18 News Service has found. Communities of Protestant Christians, Hare Krishna devotees and Ahmadiya Muslims have all been ordered by the authorities to stop meeting for worship, in some cases the orders having been originally issued in 2007.”

AssistNews: “On Monday, June 29th, an American missionary, Paul Billings, was informed by the State Committee on National Security that he was being deported from the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan.”

The Religion Clause Blog reports: “Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on Monday signed a repressive new Religion Law according to reports by the Press Association and by Forum 18. The law streamlines government control over religion by banning private religious schools …