Uzbekistan's authorities continue to punish peaceful religious believers with fines, physical abuse and court-ordered destruction of religious literature, ASSIST News Service reports. Police in eastern Fergana Region allegedly raided the home of a Protestant couple in late July and are preparing an administrative case against them. The police inspector who led the raid said that police found and confiscated “banned” religious literature. Asked what literature found in their home was banned, he identified the Bible and the New Testament. Also in July, courts in the capital of Tashkent and eastern Syrdarya Region have handed down fines of up to one hundred times the minimum monthly wage to ten Protestants to punish them for unregistered activity. In both cases, the courts ordered that confiscated Christian literature - including Bibles and New Testaments – be destroyed. Another court in central Samarkand Region fined a member of an officially registered Baptist Church for “illegal” religious teaching.
