VZCZCXRO6477
OO RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW
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DE RUEHTA #0067/01 0141033
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 141033Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY ASTANA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4338
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE 1032
RUCNCLS/SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 0431
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 1137
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFAAA/DIA WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC 0605
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC 0520
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC
RHMFIUU/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ASTANA 000067 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN, DRL/IRF 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM KIRF KDEM KZ
SUBJECT:  KAZAKHSTAN:  UNIFICATION CHURCH MISSIONARY SENTENCED TO 
TWO YEARS IN JAIL 
 
¶1.  (U) Sensitive but unclassified.  Not for public Internet. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  On January 9, an Almaty court found Unification 
Church missionary Yelizaveta Drencheva guilty on charges of 
"instilling a sense of inferiority in citizens based on their tribal 
and social association," and sentenced her to two years in prison. 
Drencheva's lawyer and the Unification Church leadership ascribed 
the verdict to the government's broader campaign against 
non-traditional religious groups.  Human Rights Bureau's director 
Evgeniy Zhovtis was outraged by the decision, calling Drencheva 
"Kazakhstan's first prisoner of conscience."  END SUMMARY. 
 
CASE BASED ON RELIGIOUS LECTURES 
 
¶3.  (U) On January 9, an Almaty court sentenced Unification Church 
missionary Yelizaveta Drencheva to two years in jail on charges of 
violating Article 164, Section 2, of the Kazakhstani Criminal Code, 
by "instilling a sense of inferiority in citizens based on their 
tribal and social associations."  Drencheva, who is a citizen of 
Russia, was immediately taken into custody.  Her lawyer, Berikhan 
Idrisov, is appealing the ruling. The Secretary General of the 
Federation of the Unification Church Jacques Marion, who is based in 
Moscow but came to Almaty for the trial, said the Russian Embassy 
"was preparing a response to the ruling," but could not tell us 
anything more specific. 
 
¶4. (U) The case stems from several religious lectures Drencheva gave 
in April 2008 to a group of Unification Church followers and guests. 
 The lectures, which were based on the teachings of Unification 
Church founder Reverend Sun Myung Moon, covered such topics as 
creation, original sin, and resurrection, and were surreptitiously 
taped by undercover agents from the Committee for National Security 
(KNB).  The prosecution argued that by creating a distinction 
between those who devote themselves to the Unification Church, 
referred to by the Church as "complete persons," and those who do 
not, referred to as "incomplete persons," Drencheva's lectures 
effectively created a hierarchy of peoples and caused those who do 
not follow Church teachings to feel inferior. 
 
¶5. (U) One of the undercover KNB agents who attended the lectures 
testified in court that they "had clear signs of propagating 
citizens' inferiority," and that he himself "felt inferior" after 
having listened to them.  An expert witness for the prosecution, a 
Professor Burova, maintained further that the Unification Church's 
teaching that an "ideal family" is based on devotion to God 
undermines the secular nature of marriage in Kazakhstan and "throws 
doubt on the process of socialization in our society."  Burova 
argued that a person's identity is formed within the collective 
experience of society, and by throwing doubt on that collective 
understanding, Drencheva's teachings "could lead to full 
disintegration of a person's identity and loss of moral and social 
guideposts."  Several experts for the defense testified that all 
religions make some sort of distinction between believers and 
non-believers, but the court apparently did not accept the validity 
of their arguments. 
 
BROADER CAMPAIGN AGAINST SECTS 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Drencheva's attorney, Berikhan Idrisov, and the head of 
the Unification Church in Kazakhstan, Alma Dolgova, maintain that 
the trial was part of the government's campaign against 
non-traditional religious groups.  This is the only way to explain 
why the government prosecuted Drencheva, they claim.  The Church has 
been registered with the government since 1995 and has often invited 
Russian missionaries to come to Kazakhstan, but this is the first 
time they have encountered problems with the authorities.  Idrisov 
expressed concern that Drencheva's guilty verdict will create 
grounds for prosecuting the whole church. 
 
KAZAKHSTAN'S "WITCH HUNT"? 
 
¶7. (SBU) Human Rights Bureau head Yevgeniy Zhovtis, Kazakhstan's 
most prominent civil society activist, was outraged by the verdict 
and termed Drencheva "Kazakhstan's first prisoner of conscience." 
"We are back to Soviet practices," he told us, arguing that this is 
the first time a person has been convicted purely on the basis of 
faith.  He referred to the prosecution's expert witness, Professor 
Burova, as someone "who has spent all her life teaching scientific 
 
ASTANA 00000067  002 OF 002 
 
 
atheism and is clearly not aware that freedom of religion and 
consciousness is protected in Kazakhstan."  Zhovtis contended that 
the court set a legal precedent by defining "tribal association" as 
membership in the human race and "social association" as membership 
in a family.  In effect, Drencheva was tried for crimes against 
humanity, he contended, in a trial he called "a witch hunt" and a 
throwback "to the Middle Ages and the Inquisition."  This ruling 
"seriously harms" Kazakhstan's international image and throws doubt 
on its commitment to basic human rights, argued Zhovtis. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) COMMENT:  Drencheva was essentially convicted for teaching 
that her church provides the supreme path to human enlightenment -- 
which is something that many, if not most, religious groups maintain 
about themselves in some fashion or another.  Her case thus provides 
a disturbing precedent that the government could deploy to go after 
other religious organizations, should it choose to do so.  That 
said, this conviction is just the first round, and the appeals court 
may have a different take.  END COMMENT. 
 
HOAGLAND