Sunni Muslim Nariman Seytzhanov was convicted in Almaty, Kazakhstan, of “inciting religious hatred or discord” under the broadly framed Criminal Code Article 174, Part 1. He is the third of four Sunni Muslims who studied their faith together at Medina Islamic University before returning to Kazakhstan.
Seytzhanov was sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly “inciting religious hatred” for giving talks on Islam to Kazakh pilgrims to Saudi Arabia. He denied the accusations.
Seytzhanov worked in a travel agency in Astana, where he organized and led a group of pilgrims on the “UImra,” the pilgrimage to Mecca, in October 2016, and allegedly spoke negatively of schools of Islamic thought. These talks were recorded and published on the Internet.
In January 2017 he was arrested by Kyrgyzstan’s National Security Committee (NSC) secret police, who handed him over to Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee (KNB) secret police.
Criminal Code Article 174, Part 1 has also been used in the trial and conviction of Jehovah’s Witness and Seventh-Day Adventists.
