ICC NOTE: Two western Kazakh Baptist churches experienced an event becoming all too familiar for the Christian community in the Central Asian country. Officials from their version of a religious affairs office visited two separate VBS camps with local journalists to determine whether the children present had the permission from their parents to attend. Under Kazakhstan’s religion law, children must have the permission from their parents in order to attend religious events so as to eliminate the threat of “conversion” without their knowledge. Of course the law itself has holes as it does not stipulate whether both parents must or what is to happen if the children only have one parent. Similar events took place one year ago with local Baptist congregations as they were conducting VBS once again. At that time they were charged under the law and forced to pay three months worth of wages monthly while being closed down for three months. 

8/24/2016 Kazakhstan (Forum 18) – Two congregations belonging to the Baptist Union in West Kazakhstan Region were raided by officials in early July as they held summer camps for their own and invited local children. Officials and local journalists they brought along claim the churches were attracting young people, that children might have been present at a religious event without their parents’ consent and that foreigners were present as “missionaries” without having the required state permission. The raids left the children feeling “frightened”, the pastor of one of the congregations complained.

In Kostanai [Qostanay] Region a court fined a Pentecostal Pastor in mid-July after a church member brought her granddaughter to the Church’s children’s summer programme with written permission from the child’s mother. The mother later called the police and denied she had granted permission. Anti-Extremism Police, ordinary police and the transport police then visited the church, after which the case was brought against the Pastor (see below).

Children’s summer camps run by religious organisations are often raided. Hostile media coverage of the religious organisation often follows.

In July 2015 about 20 police officers, Prosecutor’s Office officials and Education Department officials raided a church-run children’s summer camp near Kazakhstan’s second city Almaty. Officials frightened the children and “behaved like they were detaining some criminals”, Pastor Sergei Li of Kapshagai Baptist Church told Forum 18. “One seven-year old girl was frightened and cried, and after that I told them to stop questioning the children.” Asked why Almaty TV channel and its subsidiary attacked the Baptist Church without a right of reply and to the distress of members, Deputy Chief Editor Tatyana Lisitskaya responded: “The authorities gave us the materials for broadcast”. Pastor Li was fined in January 2016 because foreigners had been present at the camp without personal registration as “missionaries” (see F18News 15 July 2016 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2199).

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