magazines, including the church journal of the country’s only legal Christian denomination, the Keston News Service (KNS) reported Friday, September 13.
The Russian Orthodox Church in Turkmenistan is now barred from subscribing to its main journal, the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, and other church publications from Russia, KNS said.
Reports from Turkmenistan say that subscribers stopped receiving Russian publications from July 17 and that those who have already paid subscriptions will be refunded.
Customs officials have been instructed to confiscate all Russian publications from those entering Turkmenistan, including Christian publications. It was not clear what an effect, if any, this could have on Russian Bible imports.
RUSSIAN NEWSPAPERS
"The Turkmen people now, apparently, have no means of acquiring or reading Russian newspapers and magazines," the journalist Chemen Ashirova complained in the Russian news agency Prima on September 6, KNS reported.
He suggested that banning imports of Russian publications into Turkmenistan was designed to prevent the spreading of what President Niyazov sees as "libellous fabrications about himself and the reforms which he carries out almost every day of his life."
The head of the distribution department of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, Vera Semenova, told Keston from the Russian capital that the journal has only 10 subscribers in Turkmenistan.
BAD DEVELOPMENT
"Most Turkmen residents buy our journal when they come to Moscow." However she made clear news about the ban was a bad development in the former Soviet Republic. Orthodox Church officials expressed hope that the authorities will live up to previous agreements about imports of religious literature.
News about the ban comes amidst international concern about actions against Churches and Christians across the former Soviet Republic.
