Do My Countrymen Have a Freedom Of Faith?
Culture and History, Uzbekistan3 Comments
Photo (c) by Sean M.Scully (Wikipedia)
Timur Chekperbayev, Kazakhstani citizen of 36, was deported from Uzbekistan for being a missioner of Bahá’í religion. Judge of Khamza district court of Tashkent decided to prevent his future possible visits to the country. Though incident took place in July 2009 the information was distributed by mass-media only few days ago.
One of the local puppet propaganda online information agencies published an article titled “Sectarian has been spreading distemper” where author is arguing that follower of Bahá’í religion had a goal to spread its ideas and — attention! — Iranian influence in Uzbekistan by inveigling young Uzbeks into his sect not only in Tashkent but also in other provinces such as Bukhara and Jizzak.
Author argues that Bahá’í religion is not recognized by internationall community that is why he couldn’t do what he was doing. I can’t understand how one can argue that Bahai is not a religion at all when, according statistics, Bahá’í community is growing year by year and nowadays it is represented by 5 mln people around the world. Moreover, it is recognized by UN’s ECOSOC.
Nowadays Chekperbayev is in Kazakhstan. His followers in Uzbekistan are under investigation and strict control of the National Security Service.
I tried to contact Bahá’í Center in Tashkent which is near Parkent market throught my friends but couldn’t because no one responded to their knockings and door bells. Maybe their activities are prohibited while government tries to find something to force them to leave the country, or maybe Bahá’ís decided not to be active for this time in order to avoid possible clashes and problems with Uzbek government.
I should mention that this is not the first incident when Bahá’ís were under pressure of the government. At the beginning of August 2009 a group of them was arrested for (quote) “deceptively preaching and converting the children and Junior Youths.” It is very likely that that was a continuation of government’s continuous “investigations” on Bahá’ís within 10 days after Timur Chekperbayev’s arrest. We still don’t know if there are any other recent cases of arrests of the followers of this religion since it is almost impossible to hold track on that in the country where basic norms and principles of international and national (Constitution of Uzbekistan, art.31) human rights are daily abused.
‘One of the purposes of the Bahá’í Faith is to help make this possible. A worldwide community of some five million Bahá’ís, representative of most of the nations, races and cultures on earth, is working to give Bahá’u'lláh’s teachings practical effect. Their experience will be a source of encouragement to all who share their vision of humanity as one global family and the earth as one homeland.’
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Other sources put the number of Bahá’í at 7.5 million, with by far the largest group in India, followed by Africa and indeed the Iranian diaspora (Bahá’í were protected and privileged under the Pahlavi tyranny and are based in Israël). They’re also a wealthy sect.
I think though that the incident is overrated especially since Bahá’ísm is marginal in Uzbekistan, and Sunni and Shiite Muslims bear the brunt of Karimov’s criminal rule.
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Schwartz Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
@Turgai Sangar, actually, the Baha’is aren’t very wealthy overall, their professionally successful members in the West notwithstanding. Most Baha’is in the world are actually rural and quite poor.
As to whether the incident is overrated or not, I don’t agree, but this is a disagreement over tactics rather than strategy. The point is that there is no freedom of religion in Uzbekistan. The problem is manifested in different ways for Bahais and Muslims, but it’s a common problem nonetheless.
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