Kazakhstan: ‘The Church Will Be Closed Down Anyway’

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

TALDYKORGAN, KAZAKHSTAN (ANS) -- Kazakhstan continues to use land use regulations as a means to prevent religious communities and their members exercising freedom of religion or belief, Forum 18 News Service (www.forum18.org) has revealed.

A street scene in Taldykorgan

In one of several recent examples, in Taldykorgan the authorities have with this tactic forced a Methodist church to “voluntarily” close and fined the wife of the Church's Pastor.

Pastor Valery Kim told Forum 18 that the Church paid for an announcement in newspapers that it was liquidating itself.

“We do not want more punishment from the authorities”, he noted. Zhumagul Alimbekov, Head of Almaty Region's Agency of Religious Affairs (ARA) Department told Forum 18 that “the Church will be closed down anyway, unless they can collect 50 signatures for re-registration”.

Asked why Kazakhstan, whose government loudly boasts of its alleged religious tolerance, obstructs people exercising the internationally recognized right to freedom of religion or belief, Alimbekov claimed: “We are a law-governed state, we must obey the law”. Religious communities also note that “expert analyses” by the ARA are obstructing communities gaining state registration and so permission to exist.

Note: Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Europe. The ninth largest country in the world by land area, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of 1,053,000 square miles is larger than Western Europe. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and also borders on a significant part of the Caspian Sea.

To read the full story, please go to: www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1708

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Dan Wooding, 71, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 48 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. He hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK and also in Belize and South Africa. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries and also provides a regular commentary for Worship Life Radio on KWVE. You can follow Dan Wooding on Facebook under his name there or at ASSIST News Service. Dan has recently received two top media awards -- the "Passion for the Persecuted" award from Open Doors US, and one of the top "Newsmakers of 2011" from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 44 books, the latest of which is "Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s." To order a copy, go to: http://www.amazon.com/CAPED-CRUSADER-Rick-Wakeman-1970s/dp/1908728302/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335474883&sr=1-1 . Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, has also recently released his first novel “Red Dagger” which is available this link.