Tajikistan: Religious communities forced to pay for state human rights violations
ICC Note:
“Tajikistan charges religious communities [including Christians] high prices for censorship which violates the internationally recognised human rights to freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief,” Forum 18 News Service reports.
By Mushfig Bayram
1/12/2011 Tajikistan (Forum 18 News Service) – Tajikistan charges religious communities high prices for censorship which violates the internationally recognised human rights to freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief, Forum 18 News Service has found. An Imam of an officially registered mosque, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of state reprisals, told Forum 18 that he is confident he will receive Religious Affairs Committee permission to print books. But he is “surprised” that charges are imposed. “We cannot afford to pay these charges to print books”, he lamented. “We do not earn much”, he observed. The Hare Krishna community have found that “even our main sacred book, the Bhagavad Gita”, must be censored. “And it is going to be very expensive for us”, Dilorom Kurbanova complained. The state Religious Affairs Committee refuses to make public how much it charges for censorship. Numbers of imported books are restricted. It is also uncertain whether communities will be fined for already having or using uncensored literature, and what will happen to confiscated literature.
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