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Tashkent: Nurulla Zhamolov, the senior religious affairs
official for the Karakalpakstan [Qoraqalpoghiston]
Autonomous Republic of northwestern Uzbekistan, has
banned specific religious books and films confiscated
from religious believers on at least three occasions
known to Forum 18 News Service in 2009.
The confiscations happened during police and National
Security Service (NSS) secret police raids. Among works
Zhamolov has "banned for import, distribution or use in
teaching on the territory of the Republic of
Karakalpakstan" are the Bible, a hymn book, a Bible
Encyclopaedia, a Bible dictionary, a children's Bible,
and the 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ" by Mel
Gibson, although this has legally been shown in cinemas
in the capital Tashkent.
The bans were set out in "expert analyses" provided for
court hearings of local Protestants, and revealed in
court documents and a prosecutor's office letter.
The authorities in Karakalpakstan routinely confiscate
religious literature they find in the homes of religious
believers during raids. It remains unclear what further
activity the authorities will undertake in the wake of
the bans on specific works.
It also remains unclear whether Zhamolov's ban on the
Bible includes a ban on the Russian language Synodal
version, a nineteenth century translation widely used
not only among Russian speaking Protestants but by the
Russian Orthodox for private reading outside church
services (which are in Church Slavonic).
Forum 18 tried to find out from Zhamolov of the
Religious Affairs Committee why peaceful religious
communities have been raided, why peaceful religious
believers have been detained and fined, why religious
literature has been confiscated and why he has issued
"expert analyses" banning the import, distribution and
use of named religious books in Karakalpakstan.
However, the man who answered his phone on 20 May told
Forum 18 it was a wrong number.
Subsequent calls went unanswered. Officials in the Uzbek
capital Tashkent were likewise unwilling to talk about
the raids, the confiscation of religious literature or
state censorship of religious literature. The official
who answered the phone at the government's National
Human Rights Centre of Uzbekistan told Forum 18 on 20
May that its director Akmal Saidov and deputy director
Akhmat Ismailov were out of the office, while Ikrom
Saipov, who heads the department dealing with citizens'
complaints, was on leave.
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