From February 2025, the new law “On the freedom of religion and religious associations” signed by President Sadyr Japarov at the end of January becomes effective in Kyrgyzstan. According to experts, the law contains restrictive measures, yet they believe that new regulations will help the state solve a number of issues.
What is the law for?
The president’s press service announced the signing of the law on January 21 and noted the new document is going to ensure the freedom of religion and determines the status, rights and obligations of religious actors.
According to the presidential administration, the law contains a clearer procedure of interaction between the state and religious organisations, activity of religious educational institutions, sets forth a list of prohibited actions in religious activity, as well as regulates other matters related to religion.
Azamat Yusupov, head of the State Committee for Religious Affairs, speaking before the parliament in December, said in detail which issues are faced in the religious sphere and why the new law is needed.
He said that the current law “On the freedom of religion and religious associations” – the main document regulating the religious sphere – was outdated.
“Many issues that now prevent from pursuing the effective religious policy are not specified in the current law. For example, the order of importation of religious literature to Kyrgyzstan, chaotic construction of religious projects, arrangement of the process in religious education, departure of citizens abroad for religious education, uncontrolled distribution of religious literature on the streets and in public places, door-to-door visits of various religious groups and forcing values of various religious movements, arrangement of activities of various foreign religious missionaries and charitable foundations,” Yusupov said.
According to him, the new law is required to solve all the issues voiced by him and to pursue a correct state policy in the sphere of religion.
“Since independence, citizens go abroad to obtain religious education, come back with various methods of religious propagation, which lead to the creation of various communities, some of which do not take the muftiate seriously, privatize religious buildings, and divide the society into various groups. There have been facts when citizens reject to get education and turn away from modern medicine,” Yusupov said.
He noted that there have been cases when the academic process in religious educational institutions is out of control. Besides, representatives of diverse religious groups began to spread their ideas and adopt their approaches.
“As a result, as you know, there was a problem when thousands of citizens began to leave for Syria. Given these problems, the State Committee together with state bodies and a group of experts developed the new draft law, which was discussed with the representatives of all religions,” he said.
According to him, the country has been monitored for the last three years, and a whole list of problems to be solved by the state was compiled.
Dawah — a main stumbling block?
The process of law adoption took several months. It was first brought up for public discussion by the State Committee for Religious Affairs in August 2024. Right after, the public began to argue over some provisions, for example, a ban on door-to-door visits with the purpose of spreading the religion. Some activists called it back then as the law against dawa – a way to involve citizens into religion through visiting their houses and apartments by representatives of mosques or religious associations.
However, Askat Alagozov, press secretary of the President, refuted it, and asked the society not to spread provocative messages, saying it was incorrect to call the law regulating the religious sphere in the country as the initiative ‘against the dawah’.
Some lawyers and experts have expressed their opinion saying that the law was ‘unfinished’ and it was needed a modification. In early September, it became known that President Sadyr Japarov held a meeting with religious activists, and it was decided on the basis of it that the document would be modified and only then would be submitted to Zhogorku Kenesh.
The modified law was submitted to the parliament last November. It contains such fundamental norms as warranty of the freedom of religion, and a ban on conversion to any religion by psychological and physical violence. According to the document, the state does not interfere with the work of religious organisations, if they comply with the law, do not fund activities of religious organisations, and do not hold political events in places of worship. At the same time, the document contains provisions prohibiting religious associations and religious figures from intervening into politics – they cannot establish parties or take part in elections of the president and members of parliament, fund parties or take part in election campaigning.
During the discussion in the parliament, deputy Zhalolidin Nurbaev asked his colleagues to discuss the document thoughtfully. In his opinion, the people who give the dawah help influence the young people in remote areas, who stop committing illegal or improper actions in moral terms once they follow the path of religion.
“The dawah is calling the people to the good and an attempt to lead the people away from the wrong path. Now they are offering to ban it. If we recall our situation 25 years ago, many people were unaware of religion and many young people were involved in theft, used alcohol, and committed violence. It was due to the dawah that religion spread. One of the important achievements was that there was no longer regionalism there,” the parliamentarian said.
Later on, during the discussion of the law, Azamat Yusupov, the head of the State Committee for Religious Affairs, refuted information about the intention to ban the dawah. He said that there was a misunderstanding in the society and explained that the state was planning to ban the door-to-door visits, while the dawah could be given by other means.
“The dawah is not only a door-to-door visit, it can be writing books, group or YouTube training. We simply say that it should be performed in a certain way. All parties to the discussion have reached this opinion – we, experts, representatives of the muftiate. We are not banning the dawah, it is out of the question. The question is only the ways of dawah. There are various sects, both registered and unregistered, which use the door-to-door approach. There are extremist groups, which are banned by law, and they use this approach, too,” Yusupov said.
A week after this speech, the State Committee for National Security reported the neutralization of the ‘largest structural network of the religious and extremist organisation ‘Hizb ut-Tahrir’. The security service reported that 22 detained persons in Dzhalal-Abad region were teaching extremist ideology to citizens, and also distributed leaflets against the new version of the law “On the freedom of religion and religious associations” among religious organisations.
By results of the draft law discussion, members of parliament did not exclude the provision banning the door-to-door visits. The law was passed in late December, and was signed by the president in a month.
Sadyr Japarov wrote a long post on Facebook after he had signed the law. According to him, the document contained only one controversial issue – door-to-door visits for the purpose of preaching. He noted that citizens with secular views were against such door-to-door visits. However, the head of state did not rule the possibility of revising this provision in future.
“We have not yet settled the matter of door-to-door visits for preaching. We have not specified who gives permission for such visits, who can take part in them, what level of education is needed, who may perform the dawah, which leaflets or books may be distributed, and who will check these materials. No one is against the dawah. You can perform it in mosques, at weddings, funerals, markets or other public places. Later on, the dawah may be performed. The Muftiate and the Council of Ulema must establish clear requirements and rules: who may take part, which body is responsible for issuing permits, who is responsible for control, and submit them to us. We will consider and support them,” Japarov wrote.
Thus, from now on the law prohibits door-to-door visits of residential and non-residential premises, except for religious facilities, for the purpose of distribution or forcing religion by means of leaflets and brochures.
Are rights of believers being violated?
Amendments were made to a number of laws that impose some bans in addition to the law “On the freedom of religion and religious associations.” For example, now the state has the right to impose a fine for wearing such clothing that prevents from proving a person’s identity in state bodies and public places. When the draw law was first submitted for public discussion, this provision provoked many disputes and some citizens pointed out that Muslim women would be banned from wearing head coverings. However, the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan noted later that it was the issue of niqabs that cover the whole face of a woman. According to the muftiate, women may wear hijabs or scarves.
According to lawyer and human rights activist Erzhan Sulaiman, the new law has levelled down the national standard of right to the freedom of religion, while Kyrgyzstan gets regular recommendations from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to bring its laws in line with international standards, i.e. to expand the freedom, guarantee the freedom of religion, and to exclude unjustified and inadequate infringement on rights.
Although the lawyer notes that the state has a number of external and internal grounds for passing the law, he believes that no real threats to the national security have been provided to the society to justify such infringements.
According to Erzhan Sulaiman, infringement on the rights of believers is the ban on door-to-door visits, wearing niqabs, and the need to get a permit for religious teaching. According to him, infringement on human rights and freedoms most commonly fail to contribute to effective counteraction to religious extremism, so a consensus must be sought and mutual concessions must be made. He noted that the provision on religious education only with the muftiate’s permission, on the one hand, is aimed at preventing the people without proper education from spreading religion improperly, but, on the other hand, ordinary citizens lose the right to speak about religion and share their opinion.
“Full implementation of the law can lead to a situation where only imams and the ulemas will speak about religion. The right to free speech may be violated. Speaking of the ban on niqabs, women in our society do wear hijabs, but only few of them wear niqabs, and it is their right because this is about Islam and it is the freedom of the Muslim women. If the state wants women not to wear niqabs, it should be done not through prohibitions, but through education,” the lawyer said.
Independent expert Ilkham Umarakhunov agrees that some legal provisions violate civil rights. However, he believes the state takes ‘slightly repressive’ measures to fight the potential threats.
“For example, I take the door-to-door visits as a political issue. It is the private space of people, it is the matter of their security, so it’s quite understandable why the state wants to stop this practice. But I am more concerned about the fact that the society confuses it with the dawah automatically. We must understand which things are valuable to the society and where they lead to, how the state should balance between ensuring human rights, religious freedoms and simultaneously it should not pose any threats to the secularism. I mean avoidance of religious ideology in managerial decisions, politics by the secularism,” the expert said.
Furthermore, he emphasised that some legal provisions can cause difficulties in the law enforcement practice.
“As to the prohibition of certain clothing, just imagine that many people wear such clothing in the streets. Will they all be detained? It will be quite difficult, and it would be a heavy administrative burden on the responsible authorities,” Umarakhunov said.
However, he said that many procedural moments would be regulated by statutory instruments and it is impossible to get all the answers now. Also, he added that the law contains not only prohibitions, but also some exemptions for religious organisations.
Despite the fact that the law has already been passed and takes effect in February, the society continues the dispute. Social network users have divided into supporters and opponents to the amendments. According to experts, the effects of the new provisions on the country’s religious scene will only be apparent once the law is enforced.”
