The Words of the Drenicheva Family
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The Words of the Drenicheva Family |
Dear Brothers and sisters,
Please use the link to sign the petition to free Liza. www.freelisa.org/248/letter_president/
Elizaveta Drenicheva is a prisoner of conscience, sentenced and convicted in Kazakhstan on Jan 9, 2009.
President of Kazakhstan Republic
Mr. Nursultan Nazarbaev
Your Excellency,
From the first days of Kazakhstan independence you have been steadily supporting and strengthening peace and reconciliation in your multinational and multi-confessional country. Kazakhstan successes in an international and inter-religious politics were accepted in an international level. It is approved by the fact that in 2010 you will take a post of OSCE chairman as a representative of your Republic.
However the events of the last year 2008 show that there are some forces in Kazakhstan that aimed to undermine a well-deserved international authority of the Republic and discredit the President. This can lead to Kazakhstan? loss of its leading role in a Central Asian region.
We are deeply indignant at the fact of criminal persecutions of our co-religionists in the Kazakhstan Republic. Unification Church is acting in Kazakhstan on legal grounds starting from 1992. During this time there were no complaints against it. Unification Church teaching condemns religious animosity, we are not religious extremists.
In January 9, 2009, by the decree of the Almalinsk district court of Almaty City, parishioner of the Unification Church, citizen of Russian Federation Drenicheva Elizaveta Evgenievna was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment in a general regime colony. She is accused of Art. 164 Part 1, Criminal Code (Promotion of the inferiority of citizens on the basis of their relationship to the tribal and social class).
All the accusations in Drenicheva's case are unfounded and come from the desire of certain political forces in Kazakhstan to limit religious freedom. By using legislation they are trying to destroy undesirable religious movements and to allow only selected religious organizations? activities.
Our religious practices, and organizational activities are similar to almost any new wing religious organization. It means that their followers are also subject to criminal liability under this article. However, all religions, including traditional, claim their exclusiveness and provide the advantage of life in faith over the life in unbelief.
Mr. President! We are asking you as a guarantor of the Constitution observance to keep Kazakh people right for religious freedom. We are asking to stop persecuting people for their faith. We demand to liberate our sister Drenicheva Elizaveta Evgenievna.