Kyrgyzstan's religious policies and religious institutions

Kyrgyzstan gained its independence in August 31, 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR. After its independence, the state drew its own path and declared it to be a democratic, legal, unitary and secular state. Thus, it shifted from totalitarian-atheist state to a democratic-liberal state, and gave its citizens many rights. The most important of these is the granting of freedom of conscience, belief and religion and they are recognized as an important part of human rights. After these developments, the society started to follow religion; religious community, religious organizations, religious institutions, missionaries etc. came to Kyrgyzstan from different foreign countries. In this process, the state has taken the laws, regulations and decisions about the religious field and tried to regulate the religious space. These regulations have led to the functioning of religious institutions in the legal framework. But, from the early years of the independence of the state of Kyrgyzstan until the last years there have been some mistakes in religious policies, inexperience in the organization of religious institutions, inadequacy of religious experts and the lack of enough attention to religious education. However, Kyrgyzstan initiated serious work on the religious field in 2008 and 2013-2014, and many documents were adopted in this context, and the deficiencies in legal regulations were tried to be eliminated. The research reveals what factors and actors play a role in the establishment of Kyrgyzstan's new religious policies, and the ways in which these main problems in these developments can be addressed. Within this framework, the development of the religious situation in Kyrgyzstan in the last decade, general information on religious institutions and the direction of the new religious policies are examined. To this end, Kyrgyzstan's change and development of religious policies between the years 2008-2018, the general nature of the religious institutions, the goals and expectations of the new religious policies, the results of the religious reforms are evaluated and suggestions for the future are presented.