Protestants to challenge Kyrgyzstan’s religion law

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Officials claim they have formed a commission of government and religious representatives to resolve three controversial provisions of the restrictive new religion law signed by President Kurmanbek Bakiev in January. Kanatbek Murzakhalilov of the State Agency for Religious Affairs identified the three provisions as restrictions on sharing faith and distributing religious literature and the high threshold of members required before religious communities can register and thus function legally.

However, he refused to give a timetable for any decisions or to say if these restrictive provisions will be removed. He said only afterward would regulations enacting the law be prepared.

Kyrgyzstan’s Lutherans, Seventh-day Adventists, Baptists, Pentecostals and other Protestants are expected to make a joint challenge to the new law in Kyrgyzstan’s Constitutional Court on June 4. Aleksandr Shumilin, chair of Kyrgyzstan’s Baptist Union, said this is because the law is “very anti-democratic.”