TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — Uzbekistan has continued short-term jailing of religious minorities, with three Protestant Christians from a registered church receiving 15-day jail terms May 18.
Three other Protestants — arrested after a raid on the Tashkent church — were each fined 80 times the minimum monthly wage, and two other Protestants were fined five times the minimum monthly wage.
Six computers seized during the raid were ordered to be given to the state, and seized Christian literature was ordered to be destroyed.
“Everyone was shocked at the verdict because the defendants proved in court that they were innocent and there were so many violations of legal procedure,” one Protestant said.
The court sat into the evening and the sentences were given at about 10:30 local time.
Among other recent punishments for “illegal” religious literature, one Baptist has been fined 20 times the monthly minimum wage and his religious literature — including the New Testament — was ordered to be destroyed.
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