Religious Freedom

Yesterday, I received a prayer request from Central Asia. It came from a small church in the former Soviet Republic of Tajikistan. Apparently, the government is working on a new law of "religious freedom". With the new laws a church must have at least 1200 people in order to be officially registered. Unfortunately, there are no churches that have that many people. According to the pastor, all churches will be required to re-register with the government and that means all churches will be closed.

After doing a little research online I discovered the following blurb: (and it is a year old)

If passed in its current form, the law would be the most repressive of all the Central Asian religion laws. Among the violations of international human rights standards that the law proposes are: a ban on unregistered religious activity; the highest threshold for the numbers of citizens to register a religious community (1200); restricting the numbers of mosques; banning evangelism or proselytism; banning the teaching of religion to all children under 7; state control over who can teach religion within religious communities and their education; state control of organising Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca; and a ban on foreigners – such as Catholic priests – leading religious communities. from forum18.org

Your prayers are greatly appreciated.