Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rteacher]

Nov 22, NEW YORK (IANS) � In a surprise move, 11 homes owned by members of ISKCON, a religious minority group in Kazakhstan, have been demolished by the local police, leaving the families homeless in freezing temperatures and winter snow, the organisation has alleged.

Incidentally, the bulldozing began even while a state special commission - appointed to investigate allegations of religious harassment against Hindus in Kazakhstan - had promised that no government action would be taken until the commission made its findings public.

The dispute began a few months ago when ISKCON members stared developing a cultural center on a piece of land owned by them on the outskirts of the capital Almaty.

The governor of the region however, wanted the court to evict the members from the site, according to reports appearing in the ISKCON website.

At a recent meeting held in Almaty and chaired by A.M. Muhkashov, the deputy director of the Kazakh government Religion Committee, the ISKCON delegation was clearly told that Hindus do not have a place in Kazakhstan ...

http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/news/11-06/news848.htm

[Green Tea]

Who cares?

[Rteacher]

People concerned about human rights?

[Bulsajo]

Yes, I can't wait for that Green Tea boy to get over to Korea and start molding impressionable young minds- yet again fortunate Korea is blessed with more shining wisdom of the west...

[canuckistan]

Where's that reporter Borat when you need him!!!

[On the other hand]

Green Tea opined:

[Rteacher]

Here's YouTube video of one of the demolitions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSxq1wjF3g4

This is going on while the Kazakhstan President is in London trying to make the case for Kazakhstan to chair the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)

Baptists and other Protestant Christians have also been harassed a lot for their religious activities in Kazakhstan. There's even a Korean connection:

Last week, South Korean Pastor Kim U Sob, who had been resident in the country and leading a Presbyterian church for 8 years, was expelled on 14 November for "missionary activity without registration." Ironically, the expulsion took place shortly after Pastor Kim was an invited official speaker at a state "Day of Spiritual Unity and Conciliation" ceremony, marking the official claim that "religious people and communities" have "full rights" (see F18News 15 November 2006http://www.chakra.org/news/newsNov23_06_02.html

[Nowhere Man]

Make no mistake, Rteacher.

I'm very sorry to hear that and I think it's wrong.

[VanIslander]

[Rteacher]

I personally like most all Krishna devotees - having been one myself for a long time and accepting the philosophy of Bhagavad-gita as the most likely to be the absolute truth.

I also sympathize with the Christian evangelists who I think may be less intelligent yet have a sentimental (and often confused...) belief in Jesus and God.

I have no sympathy for governments that - strongly influenced by Marxist or other atheistic philosophies - have very little religious tolerance and deny their citizens religious freedom.

Also, some established religious sects with exclusivist attitudes and government connections (and sometimes affiliations to organized crime...) support the oppression of other religious groups to maintain their influence and priveleged positions. In Armenia, the orthodox Armenian church hired mobsters to destroy a Krishna temple and savagely beat up its members - including pregnant women...

We've taken religious freedom for granted in America, and now that so many people are fed up with fanatical violence and sectarian conflicts, and as more educated people turn to ("scientifically proven"...) atheism, there's likelihood that a lot of religious freedom will increasingly be stamped out here too... What needs to be demolished out is sectarian spirit, and the government should promote religion in a non-sectarian way - while weeding out bogus and/or corrupt groups claiming to be religious.

Temples, churches and mosques are meant to be centers for glorifiying and disseminating information about God. In Kazakhstan, some government officials became very envous of Krishna devotees' success and their plan to develop a temple complex. The President's brother reportedly wants the land for himself so the devotees' religious rights have been crushed by materialistic greed, envy and corruption...

[Nowhere Man]

[Rteacher]

Actually, the U.S. governments siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas (1993) was tantamount to murder of 82 members - including women and children - of a relatively harmless church group (a splinter sect from the Seventh Day Adventists)...

Although the government - after engaging in round-the-clock pyschological warfare and putting out false propaganda about the sect based on info from disgruntled former members - claimed that the group was responsible for killing themselves, it's very doubtful that was the case...

Here's part of the account given in Wikipedia:

...The government's siege on the Branch Davidians ended April 19 when the complex was completely consumed by fire after the highly concentrated C.S. gas and pyrotechnic "flash-bang" grenades ignited the gasoline stockpiled inside the building; killing seventy-six Davidians, among whom were twenty-seven children and Koresh himself. It has been claimed that Federal agents held fire trucks and emergency vehicles outside the perimeter of the area of operations at Mt. Carmel, preventing them from coming to the aid of the Branch Davidians.

Skeptics of the government's version of the event, citing physical evidence found at the scene, charged from the beginning that the FBI intentionally started the fire by shooting pyrotechnic grenades into the building. The federal agencies, laying siege to the Davidian compound, had state-of-the-art listening and imaging devices and may have known the location of the gasoline stockpile.

The government conducted an investigation of itself, launching a special inquiry before the Danforth Committee, and during official testimony the FBI denied the use of, or even access to, pyrotechnic devices of any kind. The Danforth Committee issued a report concluding that the fire was started on the inside by Davidians. However, in 1999 the FBI was forced to admit that the testimony they gave before the Danforth Committee was false. The FBI now admits to using Flite-Rite pyrotechnic grenades on the day of the fire; the timing of their use remains in dispute. The FBI's admission of false testimony before the Danforth Committee brings into question the validity of the committee's conclusions, and no new government inquiries have been conducted...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_Davidian

[flotsam]

[Adventurer]

Well, Borat is probably laughing at this. The intolerance both Russia and Kazakhstan have towards non-Orthodox, non-Catholic, and non-Muslim groups is appalling. Anyone outside of those groups is not tolerated, it seems.

[Rteacher]

Here's another video of news coverage of it as shown in India.
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/27030/temple-razed-in-almaty-row-starts.html

And a couple more articles giving the not surprising details of how the Kazah officials sealed off the entire village while the men were away at work and moved in with young thugs hired to demolish the houses while women and children tried to resist. All press and human rights people were kept from the scene or had their cameras confiscated (except for whoever shot the brief video...)http://www.chakra.org/news/newsNov25_06.html http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/news/11-06/news857.htm