{"id":3449,"date":"2007-05-15T19:01:56","date_gmt":"2007-05-15T18:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=3449"},"modified":"2007-05-15T19:01:56","modified_gmt":"2007-05-15T18:01:56","slug":"international-herald-tribune-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=3449","title":{"rendered":"International Herald Tribune Article"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Associated Press Thursday, May 10, 2007<\/p>\n<p>Kazakhstan&#8217;s small Hare Krishna community faces imminent expulsion from its property after the country&#8217;s highest court backed local authorities in a land dispute, the group said Thursday, claiming religious persecution.<\/p>\n<p>The community bought 48 hectares (118 acres) of land in 1999 near Almaty, Kazakhstan&#8217;s largest city, but authorities later said legal violations were involved in the purchase.<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the Krishnas could continue using the land, but on Friday it overturned that order.<\/p>\n<p>A statement from the Krishnas said the 2005 ruling had been the last barrier to the execution of a lower court&#8217;s confiscation order issued in January, and that &#8220;the land may be confiscated at any moment now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Last November, as a result of disputes over the privatization of houses on the land, workers under court order tore down all 13 of the group&#8217;s cottages.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, a government commission rejected the Krishnas&#8217; claims of persecution, saying the land purchase violated religious laws because the buyers did not specify it would used for religious purposes.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Embassy expressed concern about the legality of razing the houses, and urged Kazakh authorities to end what it called an &#8220;aggressive&#8221; campaign against Hare Krishna followers.<\/p>\n<p>The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has said it appeared the Krishnas were targeted because of their religious beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>Krishnas have said that another reason why local authorities sought their expulsion could be that their plot of land \u2014 near the country&#8217;s commercial center, Almaty \u2014 is prime real estate.<\/p>\n<p>Land and property prices in and around the oil-rich Central Asian nation&#8217;s biggest city have soared in recent years amid a construction boom fueled by a rapid economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>The mostly Muslim nation has long been tolerant of other religions, but in recent years the government has tightened laws on religious organizations, citing concerns about religious extremism.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iht.com\/articles\/ap\/2007\/05\/10\/asia\/AS-GEN-Kazakhstan-Hare-Krishna.php\">http:\/\/www.iht.com\/articles\/ap\/2007\/05\/10\/asia\/AS-GEN-Kazakhstan-Hare-Krishna.php<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ytne.jpg\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" alt=\"Hare Krishna\" \/><strong>By The Associated Press<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> Kazakhstan&#8217;s small Hare Krishna community faces imminent expulsion from its property after the country&#8217;s highest court backed local authorities in a land dispute, the group said Thursday, claiming religious persecution.<!--more--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iskcon-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}