Religious Registration and the Law in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan's constitution declares the state secular and guarantees freedom of religion, but in practice the State Committee on Religious Affairs (SCRA) requires every religious group and every religiously affiliated school to register before it may operate lawfully, and unregistered activity, including private home worship, is formally prohibited. Minority communities have long described the registration process as cumbersome, citing among other requirements a rule obliging a congregation to collect two hundred signatures from local adherents before the SCRA will consider its application.

The clearest test of the system has involved Jehovah's Witnesses, whose congregations the SCRA has repeatedly denied registration in several regions. Kyrgyzstan's own Supreme Court found the denials unconstitutional in 2016, and the United Nations Human Rights Council reached the same conclusion in 2019, yet registration has not followed either ruling. Enforcement against unregistered premises has continued elsewhere too: in August 2023 the government closed thirty nine mosques and twenty one madrassas in the Osh region for lacking registration or construction permits, a reminder that Kyrgyzstan's comparative openness among its neighbors coexists with a registration regime its own courts have found wanting.