![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article aims to provide a more complete and dynamic account of the legal framework that underpins religious regulation in Central Asia from independence in 1991 through 2018, focusing on Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In contrast to existing approaches that rely on a few key laws, high-profile events or secondary sources, our analysis includes the entire body of legal documents available in government digital legal data repositories. We find that although these three Central Asian states’ approach to religious regulation has become more repressive over time, they have done so at very different paces and to very different degrees. While they have all increasingly restricted religious belief and practice that falls outside state-approved interpretations of Islam, the turn towards criminalization was much quicker and more blatant in Uzbekistan than in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and has been much more absolute in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan relative to Kyrgyzstan.
Acknowledgement
This article is part of a larger research project on Religious Regulation and Political Mobilization in Central Asia. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other department, agency, organization, employer or company.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The full database is available at http://www.relreg.com/. All documents mentioned here can be accessed through the search function on the website.
2 The fact that religious regulation does not conform to constitutional guarantees of religious freedom is not unique. Freedom of speech, for example, is guaranteed in all the Central Asian constitutions, but severely limited in practice throughout the region. It is also not unique that the governments in this region heavily regulate religion. As in other parts of the predominantly Muslim world, this is in part due to the latent and sometimes active threat religion poses as a form of oppositional political identity and as a locus of political mobilization that cross-cuts other forms of identity.
3 They are also limited by the dearth of systematic data on religious revival (see Jones Citation2018, chapter 1).
4 When they do use primary sources, moreover, it is not systematic. In the Religion and State codebook, for example, it is not clear either how religious laws are identified or how many and exactly which laws are included. Fox does state that copies were obtained from www.religlaw.org or www.legislationline.org when available. However, at least for Central Asia, these sources are limited. For example, for religion in Kyrgyzstan as of December 2017, www.legislationonline.org only includes the full text of a single draft law, and www.religlaw.org only includes five laws.
5 This is of course not the only way to mitigate bias. The Religion and State project attempts this, for example, by relying on multiple sources, including scanning the text of primary sources.
6 The OSCE, for example, provided careful analysis of legislative texts.
7 For Kyrgyzstan, we used Toktom and the Ministry of Justice’s Central Data Bank of Legal Information. For Tajikistan, we used the Central Bank of Legal Information of the Republic of Tajikistan, the database of the National Centre for Legislation under the President, and Spinform. For Uzbekistan, we used the National Database of the Legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan. We used Paragraf for all three countries. As a first pass, we used the built-in keywords related to religion to collect regulations.
8 Here we define repression as restrictions on the selection or profession of certain religious beliefs and practices and subsidy as institutional, fiscal or political support for a particular set of religious beliefs and practices (based on a singular official interpretation of Islam).
9 Because these are unitary states, we do not consider subnational legislation. We do, however, recognize that enforcement varies at the subnational level, and we are in the process of collecting these data.
10 While we acknowledge the reciprocal relationship between state repression and political mobilization (Davenport Citation2005; Carey Citation2006), we seek eventually to isolate the effects of religious repression on political mobilization.
11 Regarding popular Islam and official Islam, see Ro’i (Citation2000).
12 Uzbekistan was not included in the most recent wave of the World Values Survey. However, in the 2011 iteration, 73% of Uzbekistani respondents said that religion was rather or very important in their lives.
13 For example, in 2018 Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan both ranked in the 45th percentile in the World Bank’s Political Stability and Absence of Violence index. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were in the 25th, 20th and 35th percentile, respectively. As of 2018, GDP per capita was US$ 9813 and US$ 6967 in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, respectively; while in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan it was US$ 1308, US$ 827 and US$ 1529, respectively (World Bank data).
14 The brutal civil war from 1992 to 1997 may have contributed to the delay. However, the government established a state body for religious affairs in 1994 to register religious organizations.
15 A 1997 government resolution (No. 20) criticized the 1991 law for being ambiguous about registration, making it difficult to control the size and activities of religious organizations.
16 This is also when the government begins to regulate the hajj and other pilgrimages. A 1997 resolution (No. 20) tasks the SCRA with creating the rules, and a 1998 resolution (No. 83) assigns responsibility for implementation.
17 For details, see the 2001 resolution (No. 155) ‘On the work of the State Commission under the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic on Religious Affairs on the Implementation of the Decree of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic On Measures to Implement the Rights of Citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic on Freedom of Conscience and Religion’.
18 In 2001–02, Kyrgyzstan signed agreements with neighbouring states to combat terrorism and religious extremism, which established a Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure. For details, see http://ecrats.org/ru/about/history/ and http://ecrats.org/ru/about/documents/.
19 The 2014 version of this ‘concept’ explicitly endorses the Hanafi Madhab as consistent with traditional Islam in Kyrgyzstan.
20 The Muftiate, or Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan, is the successor to SADUM in Kyrgyzstan. However, although it is dependent on the state ‘in a symbolic sense’, it is not de jure under government control and does not receive direct state funding (Borbieva Citation2017).
21 For details, see the Open Viewpoint Public Foundation report titled “Freedom of Religion: On the Implementation of the Rights of Believers in Kyrgyzstan” published in 2015 (https://www.osce.org/odihr/187536).
22 Internet activity and joining social media groups, for example, could constitute a terrorist act (Aslanova Citation2016). Enforcement also appears to have increased (Human Rights Watch Citation2018).
23 A 2014 presidential decree (No. 11) created the Foundation for the Development of Spiritual Culture (Yiman) to promote and provide education on acceptable Islamic beliefs and practices (an archive of the organization's “About Us” webpage can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20160829124930/http://ru.iyman.kg:80/about_us/).
24 However, as others have observed, the 1992 constitution also builds in the primacy of the state’s ‘rights and interests’ in determining when and how the freedom of religion can be curtailed (OSCE Expert Working Group Citation2009, 8).
25 Islam Karimov served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic from 1989 to 1991, and as the country's first and only president from 1991 to 2016.
26 The government did take some steps towards improving religious freedom conditions, such as releasing prisoners convicted on religious charges and removing thousands from its ‘blacklist’ of religious extremists (United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Citation2019, 124–130).
27 These limits were reinforced in subsequent legislation, e.g., a 1992 amendment (No. 664-XII) to the 1991 law on public associations (No. 223-XII) allows the state to seize funding they provide to political parties and social movements.
28 SADUM had actually become nominally autonomous in the early years of independence, but was brought back firmly under state control by 1993 (Khalid Citation2007, 171).
29 It continues to be the primary basis at the time of writing, with amendments.
30 President Karimov and his minister of foreign affairs justified the law as necessary to prevent the spread of fundamentalism and extremism from Tajikistan into Uzbekistan (Shields Citation2004, 19).
31 This is in accordance with the procedure for registration outlined in the Cabinet of Ministers Decree (No. 263, 20 June 1998).
32 Hokimiyat refers to a government or administration.
33 Roughly translated as ‘neighbourhood associations’, these are based on a traditional Islamic institution that persisted in Uzbekistan under Soviet rule and served primarily a social function (Sievers Citation2002).
34 Translation from Bogner, Shields, and Struthers (Citation2003, 9).
35 This shift began in the late 1990s. For example, a 1999 presidential decree (No. 2282) established the Tashkent Islamic University ‘to safeguard the rich spiritual and cultural heritage of the sacred faith of our people … [and] increas[e] the religious literacy of the people on the basis of research of unique sources inherited from our ancestors’.
36 In 2008, for example, the government issued a resolution (No. 938) to preserve sacred sites, including shrines, as well as to assist in inculcating government-approved Islamic philosophy, culture, religion and education.
37 Just before this, the government issued rules that placed restrictions on events pertaining to religious holidays that included over 100 people (No. 15, 13 Jan. 2003).
38 It also required them to actively suppress ‘unregistered religious organizations’.
39 Although this regulation explicitly excludes ‘religious worship, rites and ceremonies’ held by official religious bodies (Chapter 1, Article 2), it can be used to prevent nongovernmental organizations from engaging in religious activities outside these recognized events.
40 A few months later, a new resolution (No. 3071, 27 Sept. 2018) outlined the procedure for receiving this letter of consent, as required by this resolution.
41 This replaced both the Islamic Academy of Uzbekistan and the Tashkent Islamic University.
42 For details, see OSCE (Citation2019).
43 This law does not have a number, perhaps because it was adopted soon after independence.
44 President Rahmon vetoed the initial version of this law which banned political parties from organizing along religious lines (Olcott Citation2012, 38).
45 On the Improvement of the Structure of the Central Executive Bodies of the Republic of Tajikistan.
46 On the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Tajikistan.
47 It was also part of a broader strategy aimed at not only reducing government spending but also disbanding and merging government agencies to minimize positions held by the political opposition (Tomek Citation2018).
48 The guidelines for both registration and religious literature were established by the July 2009 resolution, On the Approval of the Procedure for Conducting State Religious Expertise Examinations (No. 389, 2 July 2009).
49 Madhab refers to an Islamic school of thought. The major Sunni madhabs are Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, and Shafi'i.
50 Imam-Khatib refers to an imam who delivers the sermon for Friday prayer and Eid prayers.
51 Imam-khatibs, for example, receive a government salary of the equivalent of 160–300 US dollars monthly (Zhovtis, Kabak, and Khaidarova Citation2015).
52 Up to this point, the main restriction was the Ministry of Education’s 2005 order banning hijabs in schools, which was reinforced by its 2007 order mandating a dress code in schools (Peck Citation2007).
53 By November, the Foreign Ministry claimed that 500 of the 4000 Tajik citizens studying abroad had voluntarily returned (RFE/RL Citation2010b; Sarkorova Citation2010). However, many did not return voluntarily (Najibullah Citation2010).
54 The codes continued to be revised to increase punishments and to establish penalties for new crimes. For example, an amendment to the Administrative Code in 2012 (No. 843, 3 July) introduced penalties for obtaining religious education abroad without following the proper procedure, preaching and teaching of religious materials to youth, and establishing foreign relations as a religious organization (474-2, 474-3, 474-4).
55 Other legislative changes during this period were aimed at neutralizing the IRPT and ensuring that religious political parties would no longer have any legal basis to function (see, e.g., amendment (No. 1209, 8 Aug 2015) to the 1998 ‘Law on Political Parties’ (No. 680, 13 Nov) and amendment to Article 8 of Tajikistan’s Constitution).
56 For example, in 2015 the Supreme Court banned the IRPT and labelled it a terrorist group (Najibullah Citation2018).
57 For example, in 2014 Chief Mufti Abdulkodirzoda issued a fatwa against criticizing the regime (RFE/RL Citation2014).
58 For example, in 2017 local authorities began to actively enforce a 2012 ‘recommendation’ from the Council of Ulema that beard lengths be no more than ‘a clenched fist’ for Hanafi Muslims (Tribune Citation2012; KazIslam.kz Citation2017).
59 While space does not permit a detailed account, many of these efforts have targeted personal dress and grooming choices that the government argues are indicators of extremism (Pannier Citation2016; Torfeh Citation2017).