KAZAKHSTAN: Jailed for refusing to pay fines for exercising human rights without state permission
ICC Note:
A nineteen-year-old Baptist man was fined for attending a worship meeting without permission from the government. As a matter of principle he opted for civil disobedience and refused to pay the fines. “Council of Churches Baptists think such fines are wrong, as neither Kazakhstan’s Constitution nor the country’s international human rights obligations allow punishments for exercising human rights without state permission.” As punishment, the man was sentenced to 10 days in prison.
By Felix Corley
1/28/2014 Kazakhstan (Forum 18)-A 19-year-old Baptist in Semey [formerly Semipalatinsk] in East Kazakhstan Region is due to complete a 10-day prison term on 30 January, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Maksim Kandyba is being punished for refusing to pay a fine handed down in June 2013 to punish him for attending a meeting for worship without state permission. The verdict seen by Forum 18, says he had to be given the maximum term of imprisonment because of the “social danger” of his refusing to pay the fine. Sentenced to three days’ imprisonment elsewhere in the same Region on the same day on the same grounds was fellow Baptist Pavel Leonov.
Kandyba and Leonov, like other Council of Churches Baptists, have adopted a policy of civil disobedience, refusing to pay fines imposed for meeting for worship without compulsory state registration. Council of Churches Baptists think such fines are wrong, as neither Kazakhstan’s Constitution nor the country’s international human rights obligations allow punishments for exercising human rights without state permission.
In 2013 alone, more than 150 people including Kandyba and Leonov are known to have been fined for exercising freedom of religion or belief without state permission (see F18News 11 November 2013 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1895). Kandyba and Leonov are – like others who refuse to be fined for exercising their human rights – already on the list of those banned from leaving Kazakhstan. At least eight other members of Kandyba’s church – including his father – are also facing administrative punishments.
Numerous similar fines continue to be imposed. Kandyba’s and Leonov’s prison terms are the third and fourth known jailings in 2014 for refusal to pay fines imposed for exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief. Two fellow Baptists, Vyacheslav Cherkasov and Zhasulan Alzhanov, were each sentenced to 48-hour prison terms in Akmola Region on 9 January
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