Andrei Panafidin, the leader of a Baptist congregation in Taraz in southern Kazakhstan which chooses to meet without state registration, has been given a massive fine, local Baptists told Forum 18 News Service. Council of Churches Baptists say this is the first fine on a member of their communities for unregistered religious worship in Kazakhstan since summer 2010. A Pentecostal congregation elsewhere in southern Kazakhstan has been banned from meeting in a private home, although it is the congregation's legal registered address. And in the commercial capital Almaty, a local administration has banned a university from continuing to rent a property it has just bought to religious organisations.
Kazakh officials repeatedly insist that religious activity is illegal without state registration, in defiance of the country's international human rights commitments. Unregistered religious activity is...
One has to have sympathy for the Baptists there, (I don't have much sympathy for the radical Muslims, however) because in only a few areas should Christians be a problem for civil authorities, q.v., Rendering To Caesar: A Biblical Perspective On Government and that is:
Matthew 28 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." ---NASB
Blocking that is blocking the universally recognized right of Freedom of Religion.
Paul Fountain | 1/30/2009
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