Uzbekistan

“Uzbekistan continues to impose bans on entry and exit from the country on people exercising their freedom of religion or belief,” Forum 18 News Service reports.

“Last month police raided an unregistered church and confiscated literature, pianos, and church property [in Uzbekistan]. A week later, the church pastor was fined $3,421 -- a cost of 100 times the minimum monthly wage,” Mission Network News reports.

“On 5 February police and NSS secret police officers raided an unregistered mainly ethnic Korean Baptist Church's Sunday worship service near Tashkent. On 7 February the state Religious Affairs Committee ruled that Christian literature confiscated during the raid was allowed only for ‘internal use’ by registered religious organizations,” Forum 18 News Service reports.

“In two separate cases in February, in different regions of Uzbekistan, courts have ordered religious literature confiscated from four Muslim women and a Protestant destroyed,” Forum 18 News Service reports.

Police raided the Sunday morning service of a Baptist congregation in Chirchik, Forum 18 News Service reports. Meanwhile, homes of Jehovah's Witnesses in Tashkent have also been raided and three Jehovah's Witness men were each given 15-day prison terms.

"Three members of the same Protestant church in Jarkurgan, a town north of Termez in Uzbekistan's southern Surkhandarya Region, are facing administrative charges to punish them for their religious activity"

“The authorities in Uzbekistan's city of Angren have warned local religious communities not to be involved in unspecified ‘proselytism’ and ‘missionary activity’, as well as not to allow children to take part in meetings for worship, Forum 18 News Service has learned,” Forum 18 News Service reports.

“Sergei Kozin, a Baptist, has been fined 80 times the minimum monthly wage after a police raid on a group of Baptists who were reading on holiday together,” Forum 18 News Service reports.

Uzbek authorities appeared to have prevented the planned visit of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill into the country, Forum 18 News Service reports. Meanwhile, fines and prosecutions of Protestants continue.

“Uzbekistan continues to impose strict censorship on religious literature of all faiths sent to the country,” Forum 18 News Service reports.

Police raided and fined Baptists conducting worship in the central city of Samarkand, Forum 18 News Service reports. In separate incidents, “Baptists in Tashkent have been fined 50 times the monthly minimum salary for visiting a friend in hospital; the Baptists were also detained by police for more than 24 hours. Also a Protestant has been fined 50 times the minimum monthly salary for possessing four books and two DVDs.”

“Seven months after a fine for "illegally" bringing Christian magazines into Uzbekistan was overturned on appeal, passport officers stopped Tashkent Baptist Lidiya Guseva from leaving Uzbekistan,” Forum 18 News Service reports.

“Police who raided a Protestant family's private home in Fergana assaulted the husband and confiscated religious literature,” Forum 18 News Service reports. Additionally, a court in Tashkent, the country’s capital, has handed down fines of up to one hundred times the minimum monthly wage to ten Protestants for participating in Christian activities without first registering with the government.

“The Uzbek government has forced eight U.S. citizens to leave the country after they reportedly attempted to convert local citizens to Christianity,” Central Asia Newswire reports.

“An indictment has been filed against a Baptist in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent,” Forum 18 News Service reports.