life Saparmurat Niyazov died suddenly of an apparent heart attack.
The 66-year-old leader ruled the impoverished Central Asian nation with an iron fist for more than 20 years when religious minorities were among those being persecuted, Turkmen Christians and human rights groups said.
Saparmurat Niyazov’s death was announced by Turkmen state television Thursday, December 21, saying the president died, during the night, "of cardiac arrest." The authoritarian leader has long had a heart condition, although full details of his illness were not made public.
Widely known as "Turkmenbashi" or "Chief of the Turkmen", Niyazov established an elaborate personality cult and allowed no political opposition, independent media and religious freedom in this mostly Muslim country of five million people.
CHRISTIANS TARGETED
Under his rule, especially devoted Christians refusing to worship him and other religious minorities were often singled out for persecution, according to local Christians and several human rights.
Christians were reportedly harassed and sometimes detained and mistreated, and could not worship inside their homes or build a new church in a residential area or on an industrial estate. Potential locations for churches were subject to many limitations, Turkmen Christians said.
In a statement distributed by Christian rights group Open Doors an unidentified pastor described how special security forces, known locally as the ‘Security police’, would even break up secret open air meetings. "One evening we arrived in a town at about 10 p.m. to meet with our brothers and sisters there. Not one of them knew that we had arrived. The next morning we all went out of town and had a service on a riverbank. Within 20 minutes three Security police officers arrived on the scene and started to register everyone’s name," he recalled.
"As we had come from a different town, they took us to their office where we had to stay until the evening. Afterwards we got a police escort who took us back home. At every checkpoint on the road details of the car were registered and orders were given that we were never allowed to return."
RENTING ROOM?
Renting a room or a building was one of the options but was "often too expensive," said
investigator Esther Amado, Open Doors coordinator for Central Asia. "One group of Christians rent a former café, but they had to pay" barely $900 a month. "That is a fortune for people in Turkmenistan, I expect they will be forced to move soon," she added.
At the same time Niyazov built a golden statue of himself, erected huge palaces and even renamed the months of the year after members of his family. Earlier this year he promised each of his ministers a gift of a Mercedes Benz car to mark the 15th anniversary of his country’s independence.
Regional chiefs "only" qualified for a jeep, but would be upgraded to a Mercedes if they were to bring in their cotton harvest early, Niyazov said on national television. In 1992 Niyazov unveiled a program called "a decade of prosperity" which, he said, would give every family their own home and a car. Many still have neither and live in poverty, despite their country’s fast resources of oil and gas. "Grinding poverty is widespread. That’s why many people are open to Christianity," Amado confirmed.
A book Niyazov wrote had become the core of the educational curriculum and his cult atatus was synonymous of that of the deceased North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung, who introduced the Juche, or ‘self-reliance’ ideology.
"The spiritual emptiness is deep in the country. Everybody was expected to study Ruhnama, [‘The Book of the Soul],a spiritual guidebook written by him, and live by the ideology of President Niyazov," Amado said. However the persecuted Turkmen pastor cautioned that "spiritual emptiness" didn’t mean everyone was open to the Christian Gospel.
WITNESSING CHRIST
"The president once told us in a television broadcast, to adhere to our faith. Islam. As a result, people were very hesitant to listen to us as soon as we witness about Christ. The government implemented a plan to close down all our church buildings. Their first step was to register all the details of church attendees: surname, telephone number, address, place of work," he recalled.
He said authorities linked to the president were also "confiscating and demolishing" church buildings. "First they came for the Baptists In the middle of the night a group of about 15 people forced entry into the courtyard. They beat up the guard, handed him an axe and made him demolish the door. They confiscated the building, expelled the Ukrainian pastor and took the guard to the police station where he was abused even more," the pastor stressed.
"The next step was the destruction of the church buildings of the Seventh Day Adventists. That happened in full daylight. Next victim was the Full Gospel house of prayer. After 5 lawsuits the building was confiscated," he added.
Even the Russian Orthodox Church – one of only two legal religions between 1997 and 2003 – apparently faced restrictions on its activity. The Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights (TIHR) reportedly said recently that final construction work on the women’s convent next to St Nicholas’ Church in the capital Ashgabad was halted last year, after President Niyazov warned Orthodox clergy that if they "carried on with the building work" he "would order the demolition of all the country’s Orthodox churches."
During his reign, President Niyazov did now allow criticism regarding his tough policies and
severely punished those refusing to serve in his army, including Baptist Christians. "Some Baptists are currently in hiding from the danger of imprisonment for their faith as, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they have refused on religious grounds to perform military service," explained human rights group Forum 18, which investigated their situation.
"Baptists have in the recent past also been imprisoned for their faith," the group added.
MUSLIMS IMPRISONED
Even Muslims, including a former chief mufti were jailed. "It is also reliably believed that several other muftis have been sent into internal exile without trial," said Forum 18. The most high profile current prisoner is the former chief mufti…It is also reliably believed that several other muftis have been sent into internal exile without trial," the group added.
On Thursday, December 21, the former Soviet republic’s future was still uncertain as there was no clear successor to replace the now dead ‘president-for-life’. Foreign Ministry and other officials refused to discuss with reporters the next chapter in Turkmenistan’s politics, but state-run television already described Niyazov’s death as "a great loss to the Turkmens."
However the Turkmen pastor suggested there was hope that at least some security officials loyal to the late leader would be open for the idea of a more peaceful change in the nation. "Once a [Christian] father and his son were called into the police station and one of the Security people started to hit the father in his face with an iron bar. It started to bleed and that startled him," the pastor explained.
"Suddenly the father thought, "blood?" God has said that all mankind has issued from one person, from one bloodstream. "So", the father told the security officer: "You friend, may be hitting me right now, but in a sense you are my brother. For about 20 minutes he then had the opportunity to witness [about Jesus Christ] to the Security officer…"
The security officer apparently stopped the hitting, got a handkerchief, some water and started to help him. (With BosNewsLife Research and reports from the region).
