Mongolian man arrested for witnessing
A Mongolian citizen of ethnic Kazakh descent has been sentenced to 13 years in a prison labor camp in western Mongolia on charges of propagating the Christian faith.
According to Christians in Kazakhstan who had previously been in regular contact with the jailed Christian, police officials in the Bayan-Olgey declared Kojash was guilty of “distribution of wrong religious propaganda.”
Signed by Law Lt. Zamanbek and Police Sgt. Nargut, the police letter declared, “According to the Constitution of the Republic of Mongolia, only the Buddhist and Islamic faiths may be propagated.”
From the village of U-xusin, Kojash is a medical doctor who had reportedly come to faith in Christ the previous year through radio broadcasts in the Kazakh language. When he wrote to receive more information, he was put in touch with local Christians in neighboring Kazakhstan who began to correspond with him regularly.
Sources n Kazakhstan verified that in the months previous to his arrest, Kojash had been sharing Scripture portions and other literature, audio tapes and video cassettes with others in his home village interested in Christianity.
The 1992 Constitution of Mongolia guarantees freedom of conscience and religion to all its citizens equally, along with requiring separation of religion and the state. National laws allow proselytizing by registered religious groups, as well as contacts with co-religionists outside the country.
(CD)
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