Uzbekistan is forced to live like the first ‘catacomb’ Christians in the Roman Empire, BosNewsLife learned Saturday June 8.
The underground meetings come at a time of reported harsh treatment of Christians throughout the former Soviet Union, including detention and torture of pastors.
The Keston News Service (KNS) said that about 50 members of a Protestant congregation in the town of Muinak, situated in Uzbekistan’s autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, are harassed by the local authorities.
SECRET MEETINGS
They are forced to held secret meetings in the nearby desert as their their Pastor, Salavat Seregabaev’s, is under surveillance. The police and national security service records who visits him at home, reported KNS.
These measures came after the town’s Mayor, Jarylkan Tursunbekov, warned pastor Seregabaev two months ago in a letter that an unregistered Christian congregation was not permitted.
"We will not allow any Christian agitation in Muinak," he told KNS. The news agency quoted Tursunbekov as saying that in view of the difficult social conditions in Muinak, Christian activity is not acceptable.
POOREST REGION
Muinak is seen as one of the poorest regions in Central Asia and a symbol of one of the twentieth century’s greatest ecological disasters. Thirty years ago it was a major port on the Aral Sea, but as a result of lower water levels, it is over 100 kilometres from the shore.
Almost the entire population of the town was involved in the fishing industry and is now unemployed, due to the drying-up of the sea. Christians are also facing difficult elsewhere in the impoverished region.
KNS said that persecution also continues in neighbouring Kazakstan, where police tied a local Protestant to a chair and threatened to cut out his tongue if he refused to deny Christ. He was recently sent for forced treatment in a psychiatric hospital was released only after international protests, the news agency reported.
