Third of Kazakhstan never heard of Religion Law

Approximately one third of the population in Kazakhstan has no idea about the law on Religious activities and religious institutions recently signed by the President, Tengrinews.kz reports with a reference to the survey lead by the Institute of Political Solutions. “I hear about it for the first time,” over 30% of the respondents said. In the meantime another third of the respondents – 37%, believe that the new development will have a positive impact on the relations between the state and religion. The law is perceived negatively by 11.9% of respondents, the majority of them being Muslim. They are convinced that the law on religion imposes limitations on believers in following their fundamental religious orders. 21% of the surveyed could not identify their opinion on the law. Overall, the majority of the population (70%) is satisfied with the government’s religious policy. Christians say that their religious needs are properly met. Those unhappy with the state’s religious policy are rather few – 14.8%, half of them believe that insufficient attention is being paid to religion-related issues, whereas one third is convinced that the government has been recently excessively active in “promoting” its religious policy, regardless of the fact that Kazakhstan is a secular state. According to the opinion poll of the Institute of Political Solutions, 64.2% of the citizens of Kazakhstan identify themselves as Muslims. 25.5% consider themselves Orthodox Christians; Judaism and Buddhism are followed by 0.4% of respondents.