The former Soviet nation of Kazakhstan has been striving to enter to modern, developed world. They've even spent a fortune placing large advertisements in scholarly and foreign policy magazines, to inform the world how prosperous they've become. Fancy new downtown buildings are depicted, and industrial opportunities are touted. Unfortunately, they forgot one little thing: freedom. The government of Kazakhstan has returned to its bad old Stalinist days, and passed a harsh new law regulating religious organizations. Kazakh officials have boldly announced they have "too many religions" in their country, and they have launched a draconian effort to drive out or smash any that don't enjoy official approval, by meeting some arbitrary standard of "social unity" and "lack of divisiveness." But it is not freedom if only "comfortable" or "approved" ideas are allowed. On July 2nd, 2008 the Kazakh secret police arrested a young Unification...(Read Full Post)