the economy with its new plan to cut tax and increase borrowing. don t forget, don t forgive. the only way to stop this is with a labour government. applause and nasa has deliberately flown a space craft into an asteroid to push it off course in the first test of a planetary defence system. voting has ended in widely discredited referendums organised by russia in four occupied regions in ukraine. as expected, russia is claiming that an overwhelming majority of residents are in favour ofjoining russia, but not all the votes have yet been counted. ukraine and the west have condemned the five day vote as a sham and an attempted land grab by moscow. russia s president claims hejust wants to help people living there. nearly four million people from the eastern regions of donetsk and luhansk and the southern regions of kherson and zaporizhzhia were to attend polling stations and vote. the areas in question represent 15% of ukraine s territory roughly the size of portugal. b
In December 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Committee asked Belarus to respond in the case of 33-year-old Jehovah s Witness conscientious objector Dmitry Mozol. In February 2021, a court in Pinsk fined him four months wages for refusing call-up to reservist military training on grounds of conscience. He failed to overturn the criminal punishment on appeal. The law allows only individuals who have completed alternative civilian service to be exempted from reservist military training. Alternative service was introduced only in 2016, after Mozol was initially called up. Jehovah s Witnesses fear that other young men could also face such prosecution.
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
22 December 2020
Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18, and John Kinahan, Forum 18
Tajikistan restricts freedom of religion and belief, along with interlinked freedoms of expression, association and assembly. Forum 18 s survey analyses violations including: ban on and punishments for all exercise of freedom of religion or belief without state permission; severe limitations on numbers of mosques; jailing of Muslim, Jehovah s Witness and Protestant prisoners of conscience on alleged extremism charges; impunity for torture; jailing of conscientious objectors; and state censorship of religious materials.
Tajikistan has a record of violating freedom of religion or belief and related human rights such as the freedoms of expression and association. Serious violations documented by Forum 18 include but are not limited to: