KAZAKHSTAN: Imprisoned atheist mad, bad, or neither?

[rug]

This article was published by F18News on: 18 April 2013
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org

Imprisoned atheist Aleksandr Kharlamov is due to undergo a second officially-ordered psychiatric examination since his 14 March arrest, as Kazakhstan's prosecutors seek to imprison him on criminal charges of "inciting religious hatred". He rejects the accusation, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment. "No-one suffered from what he wrote on religion," the investigator police Captain Alikhat Turakpayev admitted to Forum 18 News Service, "but inciting religious hatred is banned by law." The 62-year-old Kharlamov is being held in the Investigation Isolation Prison No. 1 in Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty awaiting further psychiatric evaluation.

Kharlamov's lawyer, Manshuk Medikhanova, told Forum 18 on 11 April – shortly after her client's transfer to Almaty - that there is an 80 percent chance that he will be convicted and imprisoned.

Writings on religion an excuse?

Kharlamov is a journalist for the local newspaper "Flash!" and anti-corruption campaigner in Ridder, in East Kazakhstan Region. His partner, Marina Kaplunskaya, told Kazis Toguzbayev of Radio Free Europe's Kazakh service for a 15 April article that the authorities were angered by an article he wrote in 2011 about the trial of a police officer in Ridder. Kaplunskaya said he had been highly critical of the judge and prosecutor in the case, and thinks the attempt to prosecute him for his writings on religion is an excuse.

Kuat Rakhimberdin, head of the East Kazakhstan regional branch of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, agrees. "Aleksandr Kharlamov is involved in many types of activity, but he annoyed the police and this appears to have been what triggered the case," he told Forum 18 from the regional capital Oskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk) on 11 April. "His writings on religion are just the excuse. But in any case, this is a violation of his right to freedom of speech and religion."

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1826

[Jim__]

1. It looks like they got him.

It would be kind of hard not to run afoul of the quoted law:

On the basis of the "analysis", a criminal case against him was opened on 25 January 2013 under Criminal Code Article 164, Part 1. This Article is both unclear and wide-ranging. It criminalises: "Deliberate actions aimed at the incitement of social, national, clan, racial, or religious enmity or antagonism, or at offence to the national honour and dignity, or religious feelings of citizens, as well as propaganda of exclusiveness, superiority, or inferiority of citizens based on their attitude towards religion, or their genetic or racial belonging, if these acts are committed publicly or with the use of the mass information media."

FYI - your top link doesn't work - the trailing ">" is included in the URL.

[rug]

2. It would be hard for anybody not to run afoul of that law.

It doesn't distinguish between incitement and criticism.

(Link fixed, thanks.)