Kazakhstan’s lower house of Parliament approved controversial legislation Wednesday to increase government control over religious groups, drawing criticism from a major international group Kazakhstan is to lead in 2010, according to the AP.
Rights groups say the amendments to the country’s law on religion will hinder religious minorities in the sprawling Central Asian country and could force some of them out of existence.
Kazakhstan, where Muslims and Christians each make up about 45 percent of the population, has sought in recent years to cast itself as an active promoter of religious tolerance. But some Christian communities — including Baptists and Lutherans, largely from the ethnic German population — have come under government scrutiny.