KAZAKHSTAN USCIRF–RECOMMENDED FOR SPECIAL WATCH LIST KEY FINDINGS I n 2020, religious freedom conditions in Kazakhstan continued to improve. The government remained committed to reforming its approach to religion in conversation with U.S. counterparts; President Kassym Tokayev, who assumed the presidency in 2019, has explicitly sought to improve Kazakhstan’s record on international religious freedom. In February, government officials joined the second U.S.-Kazakhstan Religious Freedom Working Group, held at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC, with the participation of civilian experts and U.S. officials, including from USCIRF. The Kazakhstani government representatives presented their road map for religious legislation and oversight reform over the next two years and responded to suggestions and concerns from the U.S. side. At a third working group held virtually in November, the Kazakhstani government provided an updated version of the road map and a tentative timeline for its realization. Problematic legislation remained in force in Kazakhstan during 2020, but significant reforms are likely in the upcoming year. Those reforms may include simplification of the registration process and a reduction in the number of founding members needed to register, removal of official approval for religious events, elimination of expert review of religious documents, and implementation of an appeals process in cases in which registration has been denied. Such reforms, if enacted, would significantly reduce Kazakhstan’s systematic limitations on religious freedom. Other positive indicators in 2020 included the government hosting a religious freedom roundtable in the capital of Nur-Sultan early in the year, prior to the outbreak of COVID-19. The government also announced its intention to convene such meetings regularly across Kazakhstan in a joint effort between the Ministry of Social Development and Information and Love Your Neighbor Community (LYNC), a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that works on international religious freedom. Meanwhile, the number of administrative prosecutions for religious offenses continued to decline, reaching 131 in 2020—down from 160 in 2019, 171 in 2018, and 284 in 2017. Despite these noteworthy signs of improvement, ongoing religious freedom violations and allegations of abuse continued to plague Kazakhstan. Legislation that restricts religious freedom was the primary source of such systematic and ongoing violations. Before it enacted the 2011 religion law, Kazakhstan was one of the least repressive post-Soviet Central Asian states with regard to freedom of religion or belief. That law, however, set stringent registration requirements with high membership thresholds, and it banned or restricted unregistered religious activities, including those related to offering education, distributing literature, and training clergy. Other vague criminal and administrative statutes enable the state to punish most unauthorized religious or political activities, and religious groups have since been subject to ongoing and intrusive state surveillance. The total number of registered religious groups plummeted after 2011 as a result of that law— especially “nontraditional” groups, which declined from 48 to 16. Government experts can deny registration in a closed process, which applicant groups have no ability to appeal. For example, Scientologists have been denied status as a religion since 2012, and Ahmadiyya Muslims cannot receive official registration unless they remove “Muslim” from their community’s title. Without a clear legal framework in place to protect religious freedom for all, such abuses are likely to persist and the overall situation could deteriorate once again. RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT • Include Kazakhstan on the State Department’s Special Watch List for engaging in or tolerating violations of religious freedom pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA); • Continue engaging with the Kazakhstani government through the U.S.-Kazakhstan Religious Freedom Working Group to press the government of Kazakhstan to: • Repeal or amend its religious registration laws, in part by setting the required number of founding members at no more than 10 individuals; • End mandatory expert review of founding documents and religious literature or significantly reform the process to make it more transparent; • Cease the detention and sentencing of individuals for their peaceful religious expression and practice; • Hold local officials accountable for religious freedom abuses; and • Open the Congress of the Leaders of the World and Traditional Religions in 2021 to representatives of all faiths, in cooperation with the recently founded Religious Freedom Roundtables; and • Provide religious freedom training to law enforcement and local officials through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Kazakhstan as part of broader initiatives to combat corruption and promote good governance. KEY USCIRF RESOURCES & ACTIVITIES • Hearing: Religious Freedom in Russia and Central Asia • Issue Update: The Anti-Cult Movement and Religious Regulation in Russia and the Former Soviet Union 76 USCIRF | ANNUAL REPORT 2021