ABSTRACT
On October 6, 2006, the local Justice ministry in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, placed the Missionaries of Charity, originally founded by Mother Theresa in Calcutta, under state control. The investigation into the activities of this Catholic mission, universally praised for its help for the poor, came as part of a larger crackdown on other foreign missionaries and NGOs who might be bearers of potentially corrosive Western ideas. The focus of the investigation was on their activities, and not on their legal status, because the Missionaries of Charity have been registered in Uzbekistan since 1995, and the organization was reregistered in March 2004.
