ASIA/KAZAKHSTAN - New social initiatives could give impulse to religious freedom

Thursday, 22 March 2018 religious freedom religious minorities civil society society politics human rights

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KAZAKHSTAN

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Astana (Agenzia Fides) - "The new social initiatives proclaimed by Kazakh President Nazarbaev have the potential to bring improvements, also in the religious sphere and have favorable repercussions for the religious freedom of Kazakh citizens. It should be remembered that in Kazakhstan, the communities of faithful are generally subject to restrictions, officially for security reasons": this is what Davide Cancarini, a researcher in Institutions and policies at the Catholic University of Milan, to Agenzia Fides, illustrating the plan of the new social initiatives launched by the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev. Among the announced reforms, the President talked about new mortgage loans, reducing the tax burden for citizens with low wages, increasing accessibility and quality of university education, expansion of micro-credit, further expansion of the country's gas production.
Cancarini notes: "If actually implemented, the five social initiatives will certainly bring benefits to the country, first of all for the Kazakh citizens: between 2014 and 2015, those classified as 'poor' have gone, in fact, from 1.1 million to 1.4 million. But the competitiveness of Kazakhstan and its global authority would also benefit". The five initiatives, explains Cancarini, are part of a long-term project launched in 2012 with the "Kazakhstan 2050 Strategy", which aims to making the country one of the top 30 world economies within the next 32 years, through a series of reforms in the political, economic and social context: "The regime led by Nazarbaev, firmly in power since the Soviet dissolution, has historically been characterized as a mix of political authoritarianism and relative openness from an economic point of view: in this context, the legitimacy of the President has always been linked to the economic growth guaranteed to the country, an element at the basis of social contract".
This policy worked smoothly until 2014: "In that year, due to the fall in the price of oil, GDP growth came to a halt, showing, in all its gravity, the dependence of Astana from the revenues guaranteed by the export of hydrocarbons. Economic diversification therefore plays an essential role in guaranteeing the regime's resilience, also in view to the succession of 77-year-old Nazarbaev: investing in training and the possibility of creating private companies, removing market shares from state ones, is fully in line with this objective", concludes Davide Cancarini.
In Kazakhstan, a country inhabited by communities of different nationalities and religious confessions, President Nazarbaev applied a moderate religious policy of prudent openness, faced with the problem of combating extremism and terrorism. In recent years the government enacted a series of measures that limit and control the activities of religious associations and communities.
According to official data provided by the Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs, out of 17 million inhabitants, 70% are Muslims, about 26% are Christians, 1% of whom are Catholic. (LF) (Agenzia Fides, 22/3/2018)