after they were fined for meeting as an unregistered community, while a pastor in nearby Kazakstan narrowly avoided prison.
The fines followed a police raid on a private flat May 31 in the town of Abadan near the capital Ashgabad where Christian books were confiscated and all adults present were forced to go to the police station for interrogation", Forum 18 News Service (F18News) said.
After five days of "long interrogations" with officials and a senior local Muslim cleric, the local administration gave fines of $47 each on Nuri Berdiev and his wife Nabat Niyazova, the owners of the flat and Guzelya Syraeva, Lyudmila Galkina and Akgulya Niyazova.
"Nuri complained that the fines on himself and on his wife are a heavy burden for the family to bear," a church member told F18News. "They may try to make it lower," in a country where average monthly incomes are believed to be $50.
THREATS
Threats by the police and the National Security Committee, the former KGB, to confiscate Berdiev’s flat and deport Syraeva from the country while depriving others of earning a living seem not to have been carried through, F18 News reported.
During the interrogations, the five local Protestants were joined voluntarily by Radik Zakirov, a fellow Protestant from Ashgabad, who has written a protest letter to the country’s president Saparmurat Niyazov.
"The discrediting of the legal bases of Turkmenistan’s society which has taken place in recent days leaves us with no hope that the situation will change for the better without special intervention from you as head of state," he wrote.
Zakirov, who is a Turkmen citizen, quoted one police officer, Dortguly, as telling him: "In 1991 we gained independence, but until now you try to force your religion on us together with foreigners and spread your beliefs. Go back and meet together with your God there, at home. Here it is a Muslim country and a Muslim people and if you want to, go to the mosque and adopt Islam as your faith!"
RAIDS
At least seven Protestant churches across Turkmenistan have been raided in May in what F18News described as "a new crack-down." The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), based in the region, has so far refused to meet the Protestants saying its officials are "to busy," F18News reported.
Christians have called for sweeping changes to the religious policy of the mainly Islamic republic, which currently allows repression of believers and a system whereby an Orthodox clergyman can restrict the rights of other faiths and denominations.
Turkmenistan is not the only former Soviet republic where Christians complain about increased pressure. In Belarus news emerged this week that local evangelist Mikhail Balyk was fined after a night-time visit by police and a religious affairs official.
DISAPPOINTMENT
The latest set-backs came as a disappointment for Christians in the former Soviet Union, who just celebrated that a Baptist pastor in Turkmenistan did not receive a four months prison term for holding "unregistered church meetings."
Prosecutors dropped the case against Pastor Sergei Nizhegorodtsev, leader of an unregistered Baptist church in the village of Georgievka in Eastern Kazakstan after "prayers and protests" church officials said.
