15 November 2012 | 17:46

Kazakhstan Religions Agency commented banning of scientologists

Deputy chairman of Kazakhstan Agency for Religious Affairs Marat Azalkhanov commented the Kazakhstan authority's unwillingness to registrated scientologists, Tengrinews.kz reports. By refusing tem registration the agency banned their operations in Kazakhstan. "We performed a religious check of the scientologists' documents. Only two (Scientology) organizations from Almaty applied for registration. We refused them registration after the check," Marat Azalkhanov said at the 2nd forum of Kazakhstan's religious experts. According to him, the religious experts who performed the check came to the conclusion that the organization is not a religious one. "Scientologists position themselves differently in different countries. In some countries they are registered as a commercial organization. This is not our innovation, that's why a relevant claim has been submitted to the justice authorities," Marat Azalkhanov said. Earlier Tengrinews.kz English reported that scientology were likely to be banned in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has just finished re-registration of all the religious institutions in the county that slashed their number by one third. Besides, the classification of Kazakhstan’s confessions was clarified. This allowed to define their exact number: not 46 but 17. 16 out of 48 non-traditional organizations have been re-registered. The remaining 32 will be liquidated in court based on statements of Kazakhstan Justice Ministry.

Deputy chairman of Kazakhstan Agency for Religious Affairs Marat Azalkhanov commented the Kazakhstan authority's unwillingness to registrated scientologists, Tengrinews.kz reports. By refusing tem registration the agency banned their operations in Kazakhstan. "We performed a religious check of the scientologists' documents. Only two (Scientology) organizations from Almaty applied for registration. We refused them registration after the check," Marat Azalkhanov said at the 2nd forum of Kazakhstan's religious experts. According to him, the religious experts who performed the check came to the conclusion that the organization is not a religious one. "Scientologists position themselves differently in different countries. In some countries they are registered as a commercial organization. This is not our innovation, that's why a relevant claim has been submitted to the justice authorities," Marat Azalkhanov said. Earlier Tengrinews.kz English reported that scientology were likely to be banned in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has just finished re-registration of all the religious institutions in the county that slashed their number by one third. Besides, the classification of Kazakhstan’s confessions was clarified. This allowed to define their exact number: not 46 but 17. 16 out of 48 non-traditional organizations have been re-registered. The remaining 32 will be liquidated in court based on statements of Kazakhstan Justice Ministry.

religion news Kazakhstan Kazakh