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Kazakhstan

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A group of Christian children in Kazakhstan

In 2012 Aleksei Asetov, leader of a small unregistered church in Ekibastuz in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan, was fined about 18 months of the average local wage for banned religious activity. He was one of the first Christians to be fined under harsh new laws on religious practice introduced in October 2011.

Churches in Kazakhstan already faced severe restrictions, but the new laws introduced even tighter controls. A complex system of registration was established for all religious organisations, and unregistered activity was banned; all groups were required to re-register by October 2012 or face liquidation. A group must have at least 50 members to be registered, and many small churches were stripped of their legal status in early 2012. Larger congregations have also been denied re-registration on various grounds.

Unregistered churches face harassment and judicial penalties; meetings have been raided and leaders and members fined or detained. One group of churches that refuses on principle to register with the authorities has been warned that members’ homes that are used for worship will be confiscated if the Christians continue to meet there. In October 2012 officials in Almaty filmed the worship service of one of these churches and wrote down the names of the worshippers.

Even registered churches are subject to controls and interference with their activities. Their registered status seems to provide little protection against raids, fines and the confiscation of literature. Smaller Christian groups are also enduring increased discrimination, as well as negative coverage in the state-run media.

More than half of Kazakhstan’s population are Muslims, but the country also has a large Russian Orthodox community. Yet the number of (known) believers among ethnic Kazakhs, a traditionally Muslim people group who make up just over 50% of the population, grew from none in 1990 to as many as 15,000 by 2010. Converts frequently face pressure from their Muslim communities to return to Islam.

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  • Two Christian boys in Egypt were found guilty on 4 February of “showing contempt for Islam” by allegedly desecrating pages of the Quran. Nabil Farag and Mina Risq were aged just 9 and 10 at the time of the alleged incident on 30 September 2012. They were accused of tearing up and urinating on pages of the Quran in the village of Ezbat Marco. The youngsters were convicted despite evidence being produced in court that they are illiterate and therefore not able to identify Quranic text. Give thanks that Nabil and Mina were not punished; they were only remanded to the custody of their parents. Pray that the boys will suffer no further repercussions from this incident; they may be vulnerable to attack or subject to discrimination. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed 6 hours ago

  • In another chilling sign of Egypt’s move towards becoming an Islamic state, it was announced in March that a religious police force had been established to uphold Muslim morals. The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice shares its name with the notorious religious police of Saudi Arabia. For some months previously, vigilante Salafist gangs had been operating as self-appointed enforcers of morals, raiding shops and harassing staff and customers. The Christian community is concerned that it may now be subjected to the demands of sharia law. Pray that this will not happen and that the Islamisation of Egyptian society will be checked and then reversed. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Wed, Jun 2013 00:00

  • Christian girls in Egypt are extremely vulnerable to being kidnapped by Salafists who forcibly convert them to Islam and marry them to Muslim men against their will; over 500 have been victims of this heartless campaign since the revolution of January 2011. The Association of Victims of Abduction and Enforced Disappearance (AVAED), an Egyptian Christian organisation, says that the authorities collude with the Salafists. Give thanks for the safe return of Agape Essam Girgis (13), who was abducted from el-Ameriya on 23 December 2012. Sadly, most cases do not have a happy ending. Pray that the Lord will comfort those families whose daughters are still missing and intervene mightily to deliver the Christian girls from the hands of their captors. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Tue, Jun 2013 00:00

  • Pray for our brothers and sisters in North Africa living in the shadow of militant Islamism. Following the French intervention against Islamist groups who had taken over large parts of Mali, militants attacked a gas facility in Algeria in January and killed 37 people. An Algerian employee who managed to escape said, “We were told that because we were Muslim we would not be killed, and it was only the Christians they were after.” The Islamists associate Christianity with the West, so Christian targets and individuals as well as Western ones are especially vulnerable to attack. Ask that the Lord will protect Christians in the region against violence and the oppressive grip of sharia law. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Mon, Jun 2013 00:00

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