No "Christian" Video's for Uzebekistani's

Mark Absher

10-28-10

6:00PM

Murat Jalalov was found guilty recently of owning one “Christian” video recently. He nearly received a 15-day jail sentence, but instead was assessed a massive fine. This is not an uncommon thing in Uzbekistan unfortunately. This man, who was a Protestant, joined many others in this country by being oppressed by the government. In 2010 alone Jehovah’s Witnesses claim to have paid fines on more than 100 occasions for their religious efforts. This country, Uzbekistan, levies fines and threatens imprisonment to religious groups who do not have the requisite permits. This has drawn a large amount of scrutiny from the international community. The government of Uzbekistan claims that the video’s that have been confiscated can be used “among local ethnicities for missionary purposes.” The judge at first told Murat that he would be imprisoned for 15 days, but later backed down and instead fines him the equivalent of around 1900 US dollars. To put this amount in perspective, in this part of the country the average wage is around 30 US dollars a month. As evidenced by this we can see how this former Soviet state is following in lock-step with the Russian government to limit freedom of religion.
This is another case of a severe social problem. It meets the criteria set out at the beginning of our study in this course. It is evident that people view this as an infringement on basic freedoms, as the international community continues to lobby for changes in this part of the world. Will there be a quick resolution? History tells us no. What is intriguing about this case is how the judicial branch is right in step with the local government to make a point with this huge fine and threaten imprisonment. We have studied about crime, crime rates, roots of crime, and more relevant the prison population of various parts of the world. This can not seem like a crime from my perspective, heck it was just a movie in the man’s private home. Change is needed.


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