The report is a result of cooperation between five human rights organizations: The Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Forum 18 News service, Norwegian Mission to the East, the Oslo centre for Peace and Human Rights and the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief.
Heated debate
The report was launched in a seminar where representatives of the Kazakhstani civil society as well as from the Kazakhstani government participated.
The Ambassador of the Netherlands Mr. Frans Potuyt welcomed the audience with some well-thought words on the importance of freedom of religion, as the side event was convened by the Netherlands.
Ninel Fokina of the Almaty Helsinki Committee said the report reflected the actual situation in Kazakhstan in a neutral and objective way.
Government ready to investigate
The representatives of the government; the State Committee on Religious Affairs, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Ministry of Interior, were met with several questions from religious organizations, and the Prosecutor General’s Office’s expressed readiness to investigate concrete issues, was addressed im
mediately by several religious groups and human rights activists.
John Kinahan of the Forum 18 News Service presented central points from the report in context.
Professor Artur Artemyev addressed the organizations that spread slander about various so-called “non-traditional religious groups,” and Vyacheslav Abramov of Freedom House/Media Net provided an overview of the range of such negative statements in Kazakhstani media.
Many of the more than 70 listeners signed up to speak in the following discussion. The interest demonstrates that the discussion is heated in Kazakhstan at the moment, and that the mentioned report plays a central role in the discussion.
Kazakhstan, as chair of the OSCE in 2010, should take concrete steps to keep the promises made on the eve of the chairmanship, and the report addresses this issue.
Report
The report outlines the current state of freedom of religion or belief in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, what freedom of religion or belief is in international human rights law. It also reveals the most important O
SCE human dimension commitments in the field of freedom of religion or belief, from 1975 to the end of 2009.
The report states that in Kazakhstan there are continuing violations of human rights commitments. In Kyrgyzstan the state continues to violate its commitments to implement freedom of religion or belief for all.
The report is now available in Russian as well as in English and attracted great attention at the conference.
The Side Event in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana in which the report was presentedd was arranged in cooperation with the Netherlands’ delegation to the OSCE.
Read more about freedom of religion in Kazakhstan here. Read the press release about the OSCE Conference on Tolerance and Non-Discrimination in Astana here.
HRH Oslo, based on Norwegian Helsinki Committee information.
Related links:
New NHC report: Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have to implement their OSCE commitments
Kazakhstan’s OSCE chairmanship: Kazakhstan must implement its Human Rights obligations
