5 March 2021
Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18
Independent imam Sirojiddin Abdurahmonov, who was also jailed in 2010, was jailed in February for five and a half years along with an unknown number of others. Conscientious objector Rustamjon Norov s appeal against a three and a half year jail sentence is due on 11 March, and a judge has refused to explain why he allowed a Russian Orthodox nun with no connection to the case to testify for the prosecution.
On 12 February, a court in the capital Dushanbe jailed Imam Sirojiddin Abdurahmonov (widely known as Mullo Sirojiddin) for five years and six months, along with an unknown number of others. The arrests followed a November 2020 National Security Committee (NSC) secret police raid on Imam Abdurahmonov s Dushanbe flat when he was teaching a small group about Islam. The NSC also confiscated the Imam s religious books and computer.
19 February 2021
Olga Glace, Forum 18
Bailiffs accompanied by police used an angle grinder and a crowbar on 17 February to gain access to Minsk s New Life Pentecostal Church to evict it. Officials told the Church they were enforcing a 2009 court order. Aleksey Petrukovich, who signed the enforcement order, refused to explain why the eviction happened, and why force was used. I am indignant. This is a hostile takeover of church property with the excuse of official papers, Sergiy Melyanets, a member of a different Church who witnessed the eviction, told Forum 18.
On 17 February, police and court bailiffs forcibly evicted New Life Full Gospel Church from the building it has used in the capital Minsk since 2002. Some 30 bailiffs, police, and Housing Repairs and Utilities Association officials took part in the eviction. Bailiffs used an angle grinder to cut the door lock to gain entry.
The generous Middle Eastern tradition of istiftah lives on in Iraq
The first customer of the morning is thought to set the tone for the rest of the day
An Iraq man opens his shop in the old bazaar in Arbil, the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region. As the sun rises over Arbil s historic bazaar, shopkeepers sweep their stoops and eagerly await the istiftah, the first customer of the day. AFP
The istiftah is believed to be a good omen. AFP
The first customer of the day gets to name his or her price for the goods or service being purchased. AFP
15 February 2021
Felix Corley, Forum 18
A court in Lebap Region jailed 20-year-old Jehovah s Witness conscientious objector Nazar Alliyev for one year for refusing compulsory military service. He is the seventh to be jailed in 2021 so far and joins 14 other jailed conscientious objectors (9 of them serving second sentences). We deeply regret the criminalization of conscientious objection, four UN human rights Special Procedures wrote to the Turkmen government in December 2020, adding that Turkmenistan must provide meaningful alternative service . The regime has not responded to the UN.
On 10 February, a court in the eastern Lebap Region jailed 20-year-old Jehovah s Witness conscientious objector Nazar Alliyev for one year for refusing compulsory military service. He is the seventh conscientious objector known to have been jailed so far in 2021. All had offered to perform an alternative civilian service, but Turkmenistan does not offer this. Turkmenistan has rejected repeated Un
George Yancy
George Yancy: Here in the West, where a few monotheistic religions dominate the culture, knowledge and understanding of Indigenous African religious practices is rare. Is Yoruba monotheistic or polytheistic? Or is it something else entirely?
Jacob Kehinde Olupona: Yoruba religion manifests elements of both. It differs from many world religions that define their cosmology primarily in theistic terms. Yoruba religion focuses on the lived religious experience of the people rather than on systematized beliefs and creeds as we see in other world religions such as Islam and Christianity. Yoruba religious traditions are woven around oral traditions and practices. The spiritual realm exists parallel to the human realm and it accommodates the Supreme Being, gods, ancestors and minor spiritual entities who interact with the human realm at different levels.