4. Analysis
Since the collapse of the USSR the number of religious organizations in Kazakhstan started to increase because of Kazakhstan’s very liberal law on religion that was adopted during the 1990s (Tortbaev, 2010, para.4). Nazarbaev, the president of the Republic of Kazakhstan, reports that currently Kazakhstan is suffering from the increasing numbers of religious organizations (as cited in [USCIRF], 2010, para.16). One of the most popular religious organizations is Jehovah’s Witnesses that has more than 20,000 its followers in Kazakhstan. The objective of this research is to analyze whether Jehovah's Witnesses is a safe religious organization and whether the government's persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses is justified. Despite the fact that little research has been done on the issue of Jehovah's Witnesses, there is plenty of evidence to support the argument that Jehovah's Witnesses pose a threat to both individuals and national security and government's persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses is justified.
According to Zagadych, who is a Russian Orthodox Church priest, Charles Russell founded Jehovah’s Witnesses even though he had no religious education, was accused of fraud and was sued for criminal liability (personal communication, March 7, 2011). During her interview Olya, a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, has tried to give only positive information about Jehovah’s Witnesses because she is a member of this organization. Even though Olya described Russell in another way, the fact that Russell had no religious education and was accused of fraud can be proven through court’s decisions at that time. Here comes a simple question as to how a person with no religious education could translate the bible and make it the basis of Jehovah's Witnesses taching.
Jehovah’s Witnesses base their studies on the Bible that was translated by Russell. This Bible is very poor in quality and is not one of the four officially recognized Bibles (Zagadych, personal communication, March 7, 2011). Olya avoided agreeing with the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Bible is not officially recognized several times, but eventually she agreed (personal communication, March 1, 2011). Moreover, Federal Security Service of Russian Federation recognized teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremist. Additionally, teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses contain incitement of religious hatred and violation of basic human rights (as cited in Union Public Association [UPA], 2009, para. 11-12). This can also be proven by the decision of the Court of Gorno-Altaisk that confirms teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses to be not only extremist but also containing incitement of religious hatred (as cited in UPA, 2009, para. 2). From here we can conclude that Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot claim themselves to be “the only true Christians” simply because their teaching is based on a poorly translated book, their teachings are extremist and contain incitement of religious hatred and violation of basic human rights.
Despite the fact that Olya did not agree that Jehovah’s Witnesses carry commercial motives; some evidence will be presented below to try to prove this. First of all, Olya has donated as much as 1000$ to her organization. Tarzhanov who is a former member of Jehovah’s Witnesses claimed that millions of tenge from donations are sent to the headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn (as cited in Vybornova, 2006, para.6). It may seem quite strange as to why donations from Kazakhstan are sent to Brooklyn. In general money collected from donations at a particular place is used right there. In our case, money that Kazakhstani citizens donate to Jehovah’s Witnesses leaves the country. This money is not used in order to create something better for Kazakhstani citizens.
Dvoreckii is a sexton of the Russian Orthodox Church. Currently, Russian Orthodox Church has a huge problem because number of Jehovah’s Witnesses is increasing and Jehovah’s Witnesses claim themselves to be the only true Christians. Although Zagadych and Dvoreckii could be biased, their arguments are very strong. Both Zagadych and Dvoreckii claim that Jehovah’s Witnesses is a commercial organization that earns millions of dollars through donations and is sponsored by huge corporations like P&G and Coca Cola (personal communication, March 11, 2011). This claim is difficult to prove, although considering the rest of the arguments it seems possible. Regardless of the validity of this claim, there is other clear evidence that Jehovah’s Witnesses are harmful to Kazakhstan due to their political attitudes and activities.
Zagadych and Dvoreckii claimed that Jehovah’s Witnesses carry political motives (personal communication, March 7, 2011). In the past Jehovah’s Witnesses tried to create a political party in Kazakhstan in order to gain more places in parliament, and thereby, influence government’s decisions in all spheres (Zagadych, personal communication). However, right after this Kazakhstani authority introduced a law according to which parties with ethnic and religious background are not allowed to be created. Despite this, some members of Jehovah’s Witness managed to enter Majilis. The executive body of any country has to represent the interests of the whole nation. However, Jehovah’s Witnesses would be more interested in pursuing their own self-interests. This is not good for the nation. Although Olya claims that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not interfere in politics, the facts that prove that she was wrong are present. What’s more, Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to go to the army and participate in elections. On April 3rd Kazakhstan held presidential elections. Unless 65% of voters participated to the elections, this presidential election would not be considered legitimate. There is no doubt that only some of 20,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses participated elections. This poses a very serious problem for government for the future. Additionally, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not honor state symbols and sing national anthem. This information can be confirmed by Ashimov who is the former akim of Shymkent (as cited in Saldyrbaeva, 2008, para. 29). Deputy of Majilis of Parliament of Kazakhstan, Bekzhanov, indicates that activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses are contrary to democracy and are against constitutional order (as cited in Saldyrbaeva, para.5). Furthermore, even though Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that they respect the government they say that Satan rules the state. Olya did not provide me with this information because it is very controversial. However, she had confirmed this information only after I asked her about it. Both Zagadych and Dvoreckii gave this information freely. From here we can see that members of Jehovah’s Witnesses oppose the government. As far as I am concerned, it is quite dangerous when your constitutional and other rights and freedoms are controlled by a foreign religious organization. It is a common fact that there will be no stability and security within the country unless citizens of that country support the government, or at least respect the political process.
In addition to this, Jehovah’s Witnesses tend to isolate themselves from the rest of society and carry anti-social character. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not recognize any sort of holidays and subsequently do not celebrate them with other people. Olya has agreed that they do not celebrate birthdays, New Year and it is strictly forbidden to marry someone who is not a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses (personal communication, March 11, 2011). They do not support relations with their relatives who are non-members of the organization. Although Olya has not said anything about this, her daughter-in-law claimed that they have very tight relationship in their family because of Olya’s religious views (Katya, personal communication, March 17, 2011). According to Zagadych, Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that all other religions are considered to be satanic (personal communication, March 11, 2011). This information can be confirmed by Tarzhanov who is a former member of Jehovah's Witnesses (as cited in Vybornova. para.12). Even though Olya did not say anything about this, she has shown disgust when she was asked about her relationship towards other religions. Additionally, Tarzhanov states that Jehovah's Witnesses use hypnosis in order to keep its current members attend meetings (as cited in Vybornova. para.14). A question may arise as to why a religious organization uses hypnosis to retain its followers. If we summarize all the information above it can be seen that Jehovah’s Witnesses’ beliefs isolate them from the rest of the society, as they do not accept commonly accepted rules of behaviors.
In the introductory part and in the literature review it was shown that Kazakhstan has adopted several laws that restrict activities of some of religious organizations. Tortbaev (2010) who is the head of the resource center “Arlan” claims that the main reason is that during 1990s, because of Kazakhstan’s very liberal law on religion numbers of religious organizations started to increase (para.6). This posed danger to national stability as some of these religious organizations were dangerous. After 2005 Kazakhstani authority started to persecute not only Jehovah’s Witnesses but also other religious minorities like Baptists and Hare Krishna’s. Olya, Zagadych and Dvoreckii agree that this is done in order to gain control over religion. This is very important as all of them agree that some of the religious organizations are dangerous. However, Olya claims that persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses is not justified as government wrongly thinks that Jehovah’s Witnesses are dangerous (personal communication, March 7, 2011). Zagadych and Dvoreckii admit that government’s persecution is justified, but in order to solve this problem Kazakhstan must ban activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses (personal communication, March 11, 2011). Baitenova who is the head of the department of philosophy and methodology of Al-Farabi Kazakh National State University indicates that control over religious organizations must be strengthened (as cited in Saldyrbaeva, 2008, para. 8). Communist party Deputy Abylkasymov states that religious organizations act the role of ideological saboteurs and Kazakhstan needs to defend itself by different laws (as cited in Rotar, 2005, para.14). Although I support the fact that the limitation of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ activities is justified, I think that the best solution is on ideological level. Obligatory religious education must be introduced in schools and universities in order to increase people’s knowledge of religion. There should be one special course that will give students basic knowledge about some major and minor religions. This will make people less vulnerable to dangerous sects.
Bergman and Montague indicate that that many Jehovah's Witnesses suffer from schizophrenia, severe depression, alcoholism and other diseases. Moreover, not only is the level of mental illness among Jehovah's Witnesses is 1.5-10 times above the average but also suicide rates are two to three times higher on average (as cited in Dvorkin, 2002, para.1-2). All the information above was confirmed by both Dvoreckii and Zagadych. Thus, it can be inferred that Jehovah’s Witnesses are dangerous not only for the government but also for individuals.
Although the results of this research are limited, because of several factors, some positive results were achieved. First of all, three interviews were used throughout the report. In order to gain a better picture it is important to interview as many people as possible. Interviews with governmental authorities, people from security agencies and even representatives of other religions would add great value to the report. Moreover, in order to get better results several books could be analyzed. Additionally, only four months were spent on this research, this is a very little time for such an important issue. Despite all these limitations it can be stated that Jehovah’s Witnesses pose danger both to national security and individuals and limitation of their activities is justified because of numerous arguments that have been presented throughout the report.