Will appeal suspended prison sentence and compensation
Despite his release, retired pastor Bakhytzan Kashkumbaev was sentenced to four years' suspended imprisonment on February 17 by a court in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana. He was found guilty of making a woman mentally ill, despite her repeated insistence to the authorities that her health had not been damaged.
Kashkumbayev must also pay the alleged "victim" compensation of 2 million tenge, equivalent to around 59,000 Danish kroner. However, as the authorities consider the woman, Lyazzat Almenova, to be a paranoid schizophrenic, it is uncertain whether she will receive the money.
Kashkumbayev will appeal the verdict.
Have the appeals worked?
In the summer edition of the Danish European Mission magazine, readers could sign and send an enclosed letter to the authorities in Kazakhstan, appealing for Pastor Kashkumbaev to be released and acquitted of the unjust charges. The Kazakh Christians asked the Danish European Mission to initiate this campaign.
We follow their wishes and are ready if they request that we take new steps to raise awareness so that he can be acquitted, we are ready to act.
Don't leave the city
In the courtroom he was released from prison, but Judge Ubasheva ruled that Pastor Kashkumbaev must sign a statement that he will not leave the city and that he must behave "appropriately". It is unclear what the judge considers "appropriate" behavior, and evangelism among Kazakhs, for example, would most likely be considered highly inappropriate.
Imprisoned without sentence for 8 months and involuntarily hospitalized
Kashkumbayev was arrested on May 17, 2013 and had to wait until January 22, 2014 for his trial to begin. In the meantime, he was forcibly hospitalized for about three weeks and forcibly medicated in a psychiatric hospital, even though he is a mentally healthy and law-abiding citizen.
Lawyer: A remarkable case
The church may lose its approval
The state Department of Religious Affairs (ARA), has announced that Grace Church's license may be under threat. ARA claims that it is only observing the case, but has also stated that the church's license may be reviewed once the verdict is issued. It should be noted that any religious activity that is not approved by ARA is illegal in Kazakhstan and can be punished.
Does drinking tea make you mentally ill?
Among other things, the woman Lyazzat Almenova allegedly became paranoid schizophrenic from a hallucinogenic drink that the church supposedly used in the sacrament. The church itself says that it uses local, red, non-alcoholic tea during communion.
Intelligence services have been hunting the church for a long time
The retired pastor's church has long faced hostility from the state. For example, after a raid on the church on October 12, 2012, some churchgoers noticed that police questioning had remarkably little to do with the damage to Lyazzat Almenova's health that they were supposed to be investigating. Instead, the authorities tried to find other material they could use to fabricate false accusations against the church.
Kashkumbayev will appeal
Right: Yerzhan and his family
Two lower courts had only listened to the KNB intelligence service and their witness, but the Supreme Court wanted to hear what the church's 50 members thought of the church. The members came forward to talk about how their lives had been transformed when they became Christians, for example that they had previously been addicts, but that God had helped them with their problems and that they had a whole new life.
In their assessment of the case, the Supreme Court chose not to accept the testimony of the false witness, but emphasized the statements from church members who spoke positively about the pastor. The Supreme Court acquitted Pastor Yerzhan in 2012, as described in the Danish European Mission magazine and on persecutedchristians.dkand in early 2013 he was awarded compensation.
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Perspective: Is the Christian faith Russian?
The trial of Kashkumbayev harks back to the days of the Soviet Union, when psychiatry was abused against Christians who were forcibly hospitalized despite being mentally healthy.
The whole process looks like a deliberate attempt to stigmatize Christians in Kazakhstan, especially ethnic Kazakhs converting from Islam to the Christian faith.
However, the testimony of the ethnic Kazakh pastor Yerzhan is encouraging. Yerzhan talks about the questions the judge had asked him: "The chief judge asked why I had become a Christian, that is, chosen the faith that in Kazakhstan is considered to be the faith of Russians, and why I had left Islam.
The judge said: We are 16 million people in Kazakhstan. We will lose our identity if people become Christians.
I replied: I have become more Kazakh after I became a Christian than I was before, for example, I learned the Kazakh language instead of only Russian" [which is partly the main language in the country, more than 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union]. Yershan says: "If it hadn't been for the trial, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to testify for so many people."
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