Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hollywoodaction]

I need more details. Were they squatters? Exproriated for some government project?

[Rteacher]

The homes were owned individually by the Krishna devotee members, but the Hakim (governer) of the Almaty region of Kazakhstan filed a complaint that the their deeds were illegal due to a technicality. Basically, he claims that they do not have all the necessary documentation to privatize their land, but he has refused to duly process their applications. Reportedly, the surrounding homes in that neighborhood have the same technical deficiency, but only the Krishna devotees homes have been targeted. They own 66 homes in total, and it's feared that all of them will be demolished, including the one that is used for religious services.

An earlier attempt to demolish the homes was thwarted when human rights activists got involved and the publicity was embarrassing for the corrupt government officials. A brother of either the hakim or another high official reportedly is determined to get all the properties - plus some prime land that devotees acquired for a planned temple - for his personal use... High government officials (I posted the details last summer, but I can't get the search function to work...) have flatly stated that "there is no place for Hindus in Kazakhstan"...

This older article gives some sketchy legal details:

The government accuses the owners of the cottages that they have not privatized their plots of land and do not have necessary documentation for the cottages situated on these plots of land.

The owners of the land repeatedly approached the Hakim of the Karasai district with the request to issue the acts of private ownership for the cottages and the plots of land, but the Hakim rejected all their applications. It is not possible to receive the technical documentation for the cottages without the acts of private ownership.

On February 21, 2005 an initiative group of 29 people applied to the Hakim with the purpose of receiving permission for privatization. The answer of the Hakim came on April 23, 2005, wherein he ordered that the submission of the initiative group would be considered for one month more.
Then the Hakim informed the defendants about the extension of the term of considering their application until May 23, 2005.

After which he brought claims against them on April 15, 2005, after neglecting to consider their application.

The Land Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan maintains and protects the rights of the land users. The land laws do not impose limitations on the period necessary to receive the acts of private use of land.

The Hakim's motives are extraordinarily selfish, especially as he constantly accuses the cottage owners that their cottages were not privatized, and he is the only person authorized to give such permission for privatization.
http://www.palaceofthesoul.com/news/index.php?article_id=16

Here's another article about protests in India over the incident. (Note the large number of Indian people who identify with "Hare Krishna"...)
http://www.palaceofthesoul.com/news/index.php?article_id=16

[Rteacher]

Kazakhstan: More Homes At Hare Krishna Commune Destroyed
by Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service

Posted June 17, 2007

This article was published by F18News on: 15 June 2007

Workers and police arrived this morning (15 June) at the village near Almaty where the embattled Hare Krishna commune is based to demolish twelve more Hare Krishna-owned homes. "The houses were literally crushed into dust. By ten o'clock it was all over," Hare Krishna spokesperson Maksim Varfolomeyev - who witnessed the latest demolitions - told Forum 18 News Service. The temple, which the devotees have been ordered to destroy by today, has not been touched but the devotees fear it could be the next target. Human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis is outraged at the continuing destruction. "The authorities are showing that they will do what they want, despite the international outrage at the earlier demolitions of Hare Krishna-owned homes." He believes the local administration chief "doesn't care about the political damage to Kazakhstan's reputation - or to its desire to chair the OSCE." Asked to explain the latest demolitions, one local official told Forum 18: "Here in Kazakhstan the Hare Krishnas are considered to be non-traditional."

Human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis has expressed his outrage at the destruction this morning (15 June) of a further twelve Hare Krishna-owned homes in the devotees' embattled commune near Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty. "What the authorities are doing is terrible," he told Forum 18 News Service from Almaty on 15 June. "This is wrong from the point of view of justice - and of compromise. The authorities are showing that they will do what they want, despite the international outrage at the earlier demolitions of Hare Krishna-owned homes."

Hare Krishna spokesperson Maksim Varfolomeyev - who witnessed the latest demolitions - told Forum 18 that the local administration organised a group of workers the previous evening to prepare for the demolitions to begin at 5 am today. He said mechanical diggers arrived, as well as two buses, one full of workers and one full of police officers. An ambulance and a fire engine were also brought in. Police tried to bar access by outsiders to the village.

"The action started just before seven o'clock on several homes simultaneously," Varfolomeyev told Forum 18. "Workers threw personal belongings outside and then started attacking the houses with sledgehammers and crowbars. Then the diggers moved in, turning from side to side, and reduced the homes to rubble. The houses were literally crushed into dust. By ten o'clock it was all over."

Over the past three years, the authorities have been determined to destroy the Sri Vrindavan Dham commune, located in the village of Seleksia in Zhetisu rural area of Karasai district and named after the "beautiful forest of Vrindavan" in India where Krishna spent his youth. The commune originally had 66 Hare Krishna-owned homes, plus the 47.7-hectare (118 acre) farm. Amid an international outcry, the authorities bulldozed 13 of the 66 homes in November 2006 and have repeatedly threatened to resume demolitions, most recently in early May (see F18News 4 May 2007 Click Here).

Varfolomeyev said the devotees had prayed that the demolition would not take place of their temple, located in one room of the farmhouse. An order was issued on 5 June that the devotees should take down what the authorities claim are "illegally erected constructions" - which include the farmhouse - within ten days (see F18News 6 June 2007 Click Here). However, no moves against the temple were made. Yet the devotees fear that this could be the next target for demolition.

Forum 18 was unable to reach any officials who could explain why further moves have been taken to destroy Hare Krishna-owned property despite official claims that the authorities are seeking a resolution to the dispute. Officials of Karasai District Hakimat (administration) told Forum 18 on 15 June that neither the Hakim (administration chief), Bolat-bi Kutpanov, nor the deputy Hakim were in their offices. The telephone of Ryskul Zhunisbayeva, the Hakimat's religious affairs official who has been involved in the case, went unanswered on 15 June.

Serik Niyazbekov, the senior religious affairs official for Almaty region, was unable to explain why officials want to crush the Hare Krishna commune. "They should move to another location," he told Forum 18 on 15 June. "Here in Kazakhstan the Hare Krishnas are considered to be non-traditional." Asked why this was relevant to the case Niyazbekov went silent and did not answer. "Why did they choose to move here?" he eventually asked. "They're from India."

Zhovtis, the head of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, believes that Kutpanov, the Karasai district Hakim, is backed by people close to President Nursultan Nazarbayev. "The Hakim doesn't care what senior officials in the Foreign Ministry and the Religious Affairs Committee in Astana think," Zhovtis told Forum 18. "He doesn't care about the political damage to Kazakhstan's reputation - or to its desire to chair the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)." He added that the Foreign Ministry in particular is highly concerned. "They face strong international pressure."

Zhovtis told Forum 18 that the devotees' ownership documents do contain some inaccuracies. But he believes their documents are no better or worse than many home owners' documents and the inaccuracies could predate the devotees' ownership. "I don't believe the Hare Krishnas did anything wrong and I don't believe the presence of such minor inaccuracies makes their ownership illegal. Such inaccuracies could be corrected by anyone who genuinely wanted to seek to resolve this."

Zhovtis believes that economic reasons are behind the attempts to seize the Hare Krishna-owned property, but adds that religious discrimination is another factor in why they have been targeted. He points out that of the 200 or so home owners in the village, many of whom privatised their property just as the Hare Krishna owners have done, no-one else has had their ownership questioned, let alone had their homes destroyed. "Clearly they are attacking only the Hare Krishnas."

Zhovtis told Forum 18 that no similar moves against property owners have been seen elsewhere, except in the case of squatters who put up homes illegally near Almaty. "Even then the police decision to move against the squatters was I believe wrong."

Varfolomeyev of the Hare Krishna community points out that of the homes demolished last November, piles of rubble still remain today.

Official intolerance of religious minorities is rising in Kazakhstan. Fines on Baptists who choose not to register their religious communities are increasing, while a group of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Caspian Sea port of Atyrau were heavily fined in early June for meeting for worship without registration. They have tried in vain to gain legal status for the past six years. Officials repeatedly deny that this official intolerance exists, for example claiming at an OSCE conference last week that the country is an "oasis of stability and religious accord" (see F18News 7 June 2007 Click Here).

Government documents have attacked Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hare Krishna devotees and Ahmadi Muslims, sentiments often echoed by officials and commentators in the state-owned media (see F18News 3 April 2007 Click Here).

The authorities are planning to amend the country's already restrictive Religion Law (see F18News 21 February 2007 Click Here and forthcoming article). Every time the Law has been amended since its adoption in 1992 its provisions have become harsher. (END
http://www.chakra.org/news/newsJun17_07.html
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=975

[dogbert]

How do members of the RSS and BJP, including government officials, treat non-Hindoo religions and their adherents in India?

[Rteacher]

They treat them better than Muslim and Christian governments have treated Hindus. Since you're probably more concerned with how Christian missionaries have been treated (in areas controlled by Hindu fundamentalists) I'll just post this link - since I have to go to a class now...
http://www.christianaggression.org/item_display.php?type=ARTICLES&id=1180494701

[dogbert]

[On the other hand]

[Rteacher]

At least when I was closely associated with them, the Hare Krishnas mission was nonsectarian, educating people in general in the technical science of spiritual values. There was no emphasis on conversion: Christians were advised on how to become better Christians (mainly by giving up meat-eating and not supporting slaughterhouses...) and Muslims were advised to become better Muslims, etc...

There are fanatics within any religion - including so-called Hindus - but that is due to excessive material attachments (eg: nationalism) and deficient philosophical understanding of spiritual science...

[On the other hand]

[Rteacher]

Harvey Cox, Professor of Divinity at Harvard University and one of the most distinguished Christian theologians alive today, has stated the following in regards to the Krishna Consciousness movement:

�When I first met the Hare Krishna�s, I can remember thinking how surprised I was, and I wondered what this meant. The costumes, the chanting, and the shaved heads appeared a little strange to me. But as I came to know the movement, I came to find that there was a striking similarity in the essence of what they were teaching and in the original core of Christianity-that is, living simply, not trying to accumulate worldly goods, living with compassion towards all creatures, sharing, loving, and living joyfully. I am impressed with how much the teachings of one man and the spiritual tradition he brought impacted themselves into the lives of so many people. In my view Srila Prabhupada�s contribution is a very important one and will be a lasting one.�
http://www.gauranga.org/prabhupada.htm
http://www3.lehigh.edu/News/V2news_story.asp?iNewsID=2170

Here's the conclusion of a lengthy essay analyzing Christian and Jewish responses to ISKCON:

...The challenge of the Hare Krishna movement, from the perspective of dialogue, is not one of competition for converts. The presence of ISKCON in the West need not be seen as a fearful omen of the downfall of Judeo-Christian tradition necessitating a call to Christians and Jews to take up arms. History itself should assure us that this fear is unwarranted. Judaism and Christianity, as well as Hinduism, have survived for millennia in spite of the many problems they had to overcome and the persecutions they had to endure.
One would better start by looking at ISKCON as a spiritual venture, with all the risks this view involves. There are reasons to believe that most Hare Krishna devotees should be judged not as apostates from the religion of their upbringing but rather as young adults who are embarking on a religious journey for the first time. Krishna devotees, on the other hand, should judge Christianity not by the behaviour of those Christians who perhaps have not lived up to their outwardly acknowledged commitment but rather by the saintly lives and high aspirations which have been characteristic of many Christians throughout the ages.The challenge of other religions in general, and Hare Krishna in particular, can be seen positively as an opportunity for self-growth and self-understanding which would lead one to rediscover and build upon the richness of one's own tradition (Cox, 1983:60; Saliba, 1983:17 ff.). The depths of our own faith can only be grasped and the seriousness of our own commitment can only be fully apprehended when we come face-to-face with other people who have sincerely accepted a different theological framework and honestly made a different kind of personal religious commitment.

The presence of the new religious movements confronts us with the greatest challenge of all: Can we come to terms with religious pluralism without either compromising our religious identity or lapsing into religious bigotry and persecution? Can we learn to appreciate other religious beliefs and practices without necessarily doubting our own faith? Do we have the magnanimity to embrace the whole of humankind in our compassion and generosity, or will we allow our religious ethno-centricity to isolate us from the fellowship of sincere adherents of alternate paths? The genuineness of our own religious faith and commitment can only be evaluated in the light of the answers we give to these searching questions.

http://www.iskcon.com/icj/3_2/3_2saliba.html

Most popular forms of modern Christianity are a far cry from the original Christian religion ...