Eurasia Insight:
KYRGYZ CLERICS SAY NEW CONSTITUTION TO DISCRIMINATE MUSLIMS' RIGHTS
10/18/07
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from BBC Monitoring

Text of report by Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg website

Bishkek, 17 October: "An edition of the constitution which has been thrust upon [Muslims] are infringing the rights of all the believers in Kyrgyzstan," the chairman of the congress of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia, Bakyt Nurdinov, said at a news conference today.

"We are forced to call into question the lawfulness and legitimacy of the new Constitution. The country's draft constitution is openly ignoring the believers' rights," he said.

According to the chairman of the committee on protecting the people's honour and dignity, Akim Toktaliyev, "the draft constitution proposed by the president stipulates that Kyrgyzstan is a secular state, in other words an atheistic, irreligious and immoral state".

The chairman of the Razum, Dukh, Vera [Intellect, Spirit and Belief] public association, Haji Duyshen Abdyllayev, who was present at the news conference, fully shares Akim Toktaliyev's opinion. In his opinion, in line with clauses 1 and 5 of Article 8 of the Constitution, which will be put to referendum, discriminate the rights of the believers who are employed in the state service.

"Who did give Education and Science Minister Kanybek Osmonaliyev the right to ban Muslim girls from wearing hijab [Muslim headscarf] at school and why is the Kyrgyz president depriving pupils of their rights to visit mosques," speakers said at the congress.

According to them, in line with the new Constitution, all the wealth, including the country's forests and natural resources will be sold out.

"So, Kyrgyzstan will totally disappear as a state from the world map in 15-20 years' time," Akim Toktaliyev said.

In case of the authorities refusing to listen to the speakers' remarks, they are threatening to stage a rally. True, the participants in the news conference did not specify the date of the protest campaign. They only said that it would be held in the "next six months".

Editor’s Note: Source: 24.kg website, Bishkek, in Russian 0654 gmt 17 Oct 07