Soviet Atheism and the 2011 Registration Law

Seventy years of official atheism produced a distinctive result in Kazakhstan: a population that identifies as Muslim in overwhelming numbers while observing at rates far below those of neighbouring countries, and for whom Islam functions substantially as ethnic identity. Independence in 1991 was followed by a decade of near total religious freedom, during which foreign missionaries of every description arrived, and then by a sharp reversal. The religion law of 2011 required every religious association to re register under raised thresholds, fifty members for a local group, five hundred across at least two regions for a regional one, and five thousand across all regions for a national one. The number of registered religious organisations fell by roughly a third, and the number of registered denominations fell from dozens to seventeen. Unregistered religious activity is an administrative offence, missionaries must register annually, and religious literature may be sold only in approved outlets and must pass state expert review.

The state also maintains the Spiritual Administration of Muslims, which appoints imams and controls mosque registration, and has prosecuted Salafi teaching as extremism. Jehovah's Witnesses and unregistered Baptists appear repeatedly in fine and detention records. The government presents the framework as a response to the flow of fighters to Syria and Iraq and to attacks in Aktobe in 2016; critics observe that most of those prosecuted are quietist believers rather than militants.