The trial of a Jehovah’s Witness charged with inciting interethnic enmity started April 6 in Astana, the capital city.
Teimur Akhmedov, 60, was arrested in January for what the Committee for National Security (KNB) described as propagating ideas that “disrupt interreligious and interethnic concord.” Akhmedov, who pleaded not guilty at a preliminary hearing March 27, faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.
Although Mr. Akhmedov suffers from a bleeding tumor, he has been denied hospitalization despite a report from the National Scientific Center for Oncology and Transplantation (the national cancer center) that recommends he undergo surgery.
Mr. Akhmedov maintains that he did not violate the law and that his expressions of religious faith and belief are protected by Articles 18 and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantee “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” and “the right to freedom of expression.”
In a report August 9, 2016, the UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors violations of the ICCPR, drew attention to Kazakhstan’s “broadly formulated definitions of crimes” of individuals exercising their freedom of religion and belief. The Committee urged Kazakhstan to guarantee the effective exercise of freedom of religion and belief and freedom to manifest a religion or belief in practice.
Mr. Akhmedov’s lawyers have filed complaints with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN Special Rapporteurs on freedom of religion and belief and on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association.
The U.S. Embassy in Astana has sent a representative to monitor the case. Diana Okremova, director of the Kazakh Media Law Center advocacy NGO, is attending the trial. A reporter from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is the sole journalist attending and has been granted permission by the court to take handwritten notes, according to RFE/RL.
For more on religious persecution in Kazakhstan, read here.
