The controversial new law on religion which passed Parliament is waiting for the President’s signature. The law will outlaw unregistered religious activity, and increase the requirements for registering religions. It also appears to exclude small religious groups and mandates government approval of all religious texts. The law is clearly created defensively to prevent cult-like activity or terrorist cells from working in the country. However it effectively criminalizes religion by demanding that religions prove themselves innocent before being allowed to work. There have also been allegations that provisions of the law have already been enforced (even though the law has not passed yet) in order to take valuable land away from religious groups.

This at least is what most people seem to be saying about this new law On Religion. For a fuller treatment of the law and some of the controversies, check Forum 18’s article: KAZAKHSTAN: “We will wait until after the New Year, and then seize his property”

However, today I got a bulletin from the Kazakhstan Embassy to the US, defending the law. Since it as yet does not appear to be online anywhere, I thought I would publish it here so it could be more widely spread [If anyone from the Embassy objects to my posting the article, please let me know and I will take it down immediately].

On the whole, the article is not convincing. First of all, it is true that many ethnicities and religions live side-by-side in Kazakhstan and that certainly Kazakhstan does much better on the front of interethnic or interreligious tolerance than any other country in the CIS or many countries in the world. However the claim that there has never been any violence due to religious or ethnic conflict is not supportable, except for the fact that it is illegal to call anything in Kazakhstan an ethnic conflict. Therefore officially there has never been ethnic conflict and never will be.

While the Embassy invokes 9/11, the list of insensitivities (a word that itself is rather mild) in Kazakhstan are pretty lame. (more…)

As KZBlog asked. looking for co bloggers, let me introduce my self first.
I am Hans, a Dutch in Istanbul. I worked and lived in 8 countries, incl. 3 times in the USA.
There are a lot of issues where I can write about regarding Kazachstan-Turkey relations.
So I will drop once and a while a posting regarding Turkish Kazachstan relations.

Kindest
hans

Housing problems in Almaty are nothing new. Real estate prices are incredibly high and cheaper housing is destroyed to make room for new and inevitably high-priced development complexes. A number of regions on the outskirts are home to squatters who are forcibly ejected and denied compensation, or given inadequate compensation, when the land is marked for development.

The controversy is exacerbated by of the financial crisis which is causing unemployment, rises in prices and an increase in the cost of living. The poor have no place to live. There have been clashes with police in Shanyrak and other regions as well as protests, letters to the akimat and other political actions in the past few years. However storming the akimat building in Almaty is something new.

On 10 Dec dozens of protestors tried to meet with the akim to protest the demolition of their homes. When they were not given a meeting, they tried to force their way into the building. Then on 16 Dec, (more…)

Just to let you know about a call for papers to be presented at the II Astana Economic Forum, Astana, March 11-12, 2009

You can read the full announcement at that link.
Section areas to submit papers for are:

1. World economic crisis and its impact on economic security of countries
2. Budget management under conditions of instability of the world economic system
3. Competitiveness improvement of national economies as the factor of global risks downside
4. Public-private partnership development under conditions of global challenges
5. Entrepreneurship development under conditions of global risks
6. Islamic economy development under conditions of globalization
7. Institutional aspects of global technology and innovation changes
8. Spatial development management as a way to achieve economic stability

Sorry for the month long sabbatical but between work, family issues, and the laziness that comes to the whole nation in December due to the quadruple hit of holidays: Kurban Ait, Independence Day (16 Dec), New Years, and Orthodox Christmas (7 Jan) not to mention Expat Christmas (25 Dec), I didn’t spend a lot of time on teh Internets. But I am back to a more regular schedule on this blog though there may be some more dead time with all these days off from work.

Honestly, as anyone who browses this blog can see, I don’t have the time to devote to it that I would like. Therefore I am taking a step I never thought I would take. But I am inviting other bloggers to post on this site from time to time. You don’t have to make any definite commitments to post regularly. The topics would be limited to Kazakhstan or greater Central Asia but anything from politics to economics to travel stories to amusing stories or ‘news of the weird’ is fine. Posts can be cross-posted as well. I would like to chose only people who have some blogging experience. If you are interested send me an email at: Comments (6)

Another first: The first podcast in Kazakh has been put up on the Web. The author, Bakhitzhan Moldatayev from Taraz, is an economics student who loves IT. He runs a blog at www.molda.kz and aims to try to develop KazNet or the Kazakhstan Internet as much as possible.

The podcast is called “Алғашкаст”or “Firstcast” (Dear readers, am I translating correctly?) and the first episode deals with the role of the Kazakh language on the Internet. The second episode is already out and deals more broadly with issues related to Kazakh language websites, including government policy. You can monitor Molda’s blog for episodes or just watch the Podcasts category. The blog is in the Russian language.

Since I don’t speak Kazakh, I can’t say much about the podcasts’ content but if anyone feels like commenting or posting on them, let me know. I’d love to hear more about them.