Visiting Pastor in Kazakhstan Accused of Preaching Illegally

KAZAKHSTAN: “He needs local state permission to preach”
ICC Note:
Officials in Kazakhstan raided a Church on Easter Sunday saying that the visiting pastor needed permission to preach declaring that he was conducting “illegal missionary activity.” The Pastor explained to the officials that he was “leading a service in a registered local religious community and was not ‘spreading my faith’, the Religion Law’s definition of ‘missionary activity.’ The faith has already been spread in the church. My actions did not constitute a criminal or administrative offence.”
By Felix Corley
4/16/2013 Kazakhstan (Forum18)- Officials who raided a Protestant church in Stepnogorsk in Kazakhstan’s northern Akmola Region, as the Easter Sunday morning service on 31 March was finishing, have defended the raid. “The visiting pastor needed permission to preach here,” Duman Uvaideldinov of Stepnogorsk police Criminal Investigation Department – who led the raid – insisted to Forum 18 News Service on 15 April. “He will receive an official warning.”
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Raid
Pastor Andreikin – who lives in Temirtau in the central Karaganda [Qaraghandy] Region – visited Stepnogorsk at the invitation of the local New Life congregation and led several Easter worship meetings. He was concluding the Easter Sunday service on 31 March when four police officers raided the church, led by Captain Uvaideldinov of Stepnogorsk Police’s Criminal Investigation Department. The other three officers were local officers from the 4th Microdistrict. They were accompanied by Orynbasar Beisenbina, head of the Internal Policy Department at the town’s Akimat (local administration).
“Beisenbina began to accuse me of being a missionary and conducting illegal missionary activity,” Pastor Andreikin told Forum 18. “She said I was violating the law and needed to be punished.” He rejects this accusation, saying he is a duly accredited pastor of his church and that Stepnogorsk New Life Church’s charter allows it to invite visitors to preach.
“I explained to the Akimat official and the police officers that I was leading a service in a registered local religious community and was not ‘spreading my faith’, the Religion Law’s definition of ‘missionary activity’,” Andreikin told Forum 18. “The faith has already been spread in the church. My actions did not constitute a criminal or administrative offence.”
However, the police did not listen to his arguments and insisted that he and the church’s pastor, Yevgeni Medvedev, had to come to the town police station to write statements. Pastor Andreikin stated that statements should legally be drawn up on the spot if possible, rather than requiring individuals to go to the police station. “But so as not to inflame the situation, Pastor Medvedev and I were forced to submit to the demands of the police Captain and go to the police station and write statements there,” Pastor Andreikin told Forum 18.
The two pastors wrote statements, but as the police saw no evidence of any law-breaking, no record of a crime or an offence was drawn up. They were then allowed to leave. Pastor Andreikin told Forum 18 that another church member was also forced to write a statement.
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“He was conducting illegal missionary activity”
Beisenbina of the Akimat’s Internal Policy Department defended her actions against New Life Church. “Our actions were correct – they had a visitor leading the service,” she told Forum 18 from Stepnogorsk on 10 April. “He was conducting illegal missionary activity – he needs permission from the Agency for Religious Affairs (ARA) Department for Akmola Region.”
Asked why a religious community cannot invite who they like to lead a meeting or address worshippers, Beisenbina responded: “We have the Religion Law.” Asked why individuals and communities cannot enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of religion enshrined in Kazakhstan’s Constitution and in its international human rights obligations, she replied: “They have freedom of speech and religion, but not if it is against the law.”
Asked if Pastor Andreikin would face punishment if he spoke on a visit to Stepnogorsk about football, Beisenbina insisted that he had conducted a service. “And that was illegal.”
Beisenbina told Forum 18 that she herself is a religious believer, but declined to say if her religious community had ever been raided by police and what she would think were that to happen.
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