By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest
ASHGABAT/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)– Devoted Christians in three Central Asian countries are harassed and detained by authorities in ways resembling the Soviet-era, activists and local believers suggested Friday, September 9.
Especially members of Baptist and other Protestant churches in the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan reported incidentsof alleged police abuse, and imprisonment in recent weeks.
Additionally there is concern that Kazakhstan will pass new legislation that makes it more difficult for churches to worship freely, said Forum 18, a humanrights watchdog.
In one of the more violent incidents in the region, members of a Baptist Church in northern Turkmenistan said special police broke up their summer gathering in thetown of Avaza at the Caspian Sea.
The July 31 raid by plain-clothed police officers was reportedly supported by local officials and an imam who allegedly insulted and threatened the 40 visitorsof Path of Faith Baptist Church from the city of Dashoguz.
SUMMER HOLIDAY
After three days of tensions, Christians were forced to abandon their summer holiday and return home, Forum 18 said Friday, September 9.
There was no immediate comment from police officials.
Christians have also expressed concerns that none of the eight known religious prisoners of conscience, including one Protestant and seven Jehovah’s Witnesses, have been freed under a presidential-decreed late August amnesty.
Among them is Protestant Pastor Ilmurad Nurliev, who has spent a year in detention onwhat church members say are “trumped-up charges” to “punish him for leading his church.”
WIFE CRYING
Forum 18, which has close contacts with local Christians, quoted his friends as saying that the pastor’s wife is “so disappointed” that “she again sits at home and cries.”
Central Asian authorities are also cracking down on the distribution of Christian literature, including in neighboring Uzbekistan.
Seven months after a fine for “illegally” bringing Christian magazines into Uzbekistan was overturned on appeal, passport officers allegedly stopped TashkentBaptist Lidiya Guseva from leaving Uzbekistan, fellow Baptists said inpublished remarks.
She was allegedly taken off a late-night train September 3 and had to return toTashkent, the capital, by taxi.
FINE CANCELED
Officials blamed the court which allegedly had not informed authorities that it canceled the fine. Forum 18 countered however that this was at least the second casein September of an individual being denied permission to leave the country, afterbeing investigated by an administrative court for religious activities.
The incidents come as Christians in the region also follow Kazakhstan’s plans tointroduce a new Religion Law that critics say will ban “unregistered religiousactivity.”
Under the law’s complex registration system, Kazakhstan plans to impose compulsory religious censorship and require all new places of worship tohave specific authorization from the capital and local administration.
Other proposed legislation would reportedly also widen the range of “violations ofthe Religion Law” it punishes.
PRESIDENT PLEASED
President Nursultan Nazarbayev has defended the draft law.
He urged parliament topass the legislation, calling it a an important step in anti-terror efforts, local media reported.
Rights activists have linked the reported crackdown on Christian and other religiousgroups part of efforts by autocratic government’s in the region to increase theirpower-base.
By BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest
ASHGABAT/BUDAPEST (BosNewsLife)– Devoted Christians in three Central Asian countries are harassed and detained by authorities in ways resembling the Soviet-era, activists and local believers suggested Friday, September 9.
