FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway http://www.forum18.org/

The right to believe, to worship and witness The right to change one's belief or religion The right to join together and express one's belief

9 March 2004 AZERBAIJAN: SENIOR OFFICIAL "SLANDERS ADVENTISTS" http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=272 Adventists and Muslims have rejected as "slander" accusations by Azerbaijan's senior religious affairs official that an Adventist pastor, Khalid Babaev, tried to gain converts through bribery, that the Adventist relief organisation ADRA is seeking to attract converts "at all costs" and that religious liberty group IRLA is an "Adventist organisation" funded by the United States "special services". Rafik Aliev made the claims in television interviews, but Forum 18 News Service has been unable to reach him to find out why he made the allegations. Babaev was forced to flee the Nakhichevan exclave after receiving death threats. IRLA's secretary general in Azerbaijan, Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, imam of Baku's Juma Mosque, is awaiting trial while a court has ordered the community expelled from the mosque.

11 March 2004 MOLDOVA: MUSLIMS VOW TO DEFY "ILLEGAL" WORSHIP BAN http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=273 Police banned a Muslim community in the capital Chisinau from meeting for worship after raiding the place where they meet after Friday prayers on 5 March. They detained several Muslims and three Syrian citizens were expelled from the country. "The situation is getting worse, with the police arriving at least every other week," community leader Talgat Masaev told Forum 18 News Service. He and a colleague have been repeatedly fined for leading a community which does not have state registration, although the fines so far have been overturned. Forum 18 has been unable to find out from officials why police raid the Muslim community and have refused it registration for the past four years. "They have the right to meet without registration, provided they do not break the law," human rights activist Stefan Uritu insisted.

8 March 2004 TURKMENISTAN: WHY WAS FORMER CHIEF MUFTI GIVEN LONG JAIL TERM? http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=271 Reliable sources in Turkmenistan have told Forum 18 News Service that they believe the country's former Sunni Muslim chief mufti, Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, was sentenced to a long jail term for his opposition to tight presidential control over the Muslim community. Government prosecutors claimed he was part of an assassination attempt against the president. Although previously known for his obedience, Ibadullah began to oppose the cult of personality around the president by reportedly obstructing the use in mosques of the president's moral code Ruhnama (Book of the Soul). Imams are forced to display this book prominently in mosques and quote approvingly from it in sermons, as are Russian Orthodox priests in their churches. Ibadullah is also believed to have been targeted as an ethnic Uzbek, Forum 18 having noted the government removing ethnic Uzbek imams to replace them with ethnic Turkmens.

12 March 2004 TURKMENISTAN: SCEPTICISM AND OPTIMISM GREET SURPRISE PRESIDENTIAL DECREE http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=274 Despite a surprise 11 March decree from President Saparmurat Niyazov lifting the requirement that a religious community must have 500 adult citizen members before it can register, officials have insisted that unregistered religious activity remains illegal. Bibi Agina of the Adalat (Justice) Ministry told Forum 18 that the decree does not mean that unregistered religious communities can start to meet freely in private homes. Some believers are optimistic that the decree might be a signal of a relaxation of Turkmenistan's harsh restrictions on religious communities - which have seen all Protestant, Armenian Apostolic, Shia Muslim, Jewish, Hare Krishna, Baha'i and Jehovah's Witness communities banned. "The authorities have tried up till now to use repressive measures and have understood this is unsuccessful," one Protestant told Forum 18. "They seem now to be trying to bring religious communities under state control - perhaps a cleverer policy." * See full article below. *

8 March 2004 UZBEKISTAN: UNIVERSITY ATTACKS HARE KRISHNA FOLLOWERS, ALONG WITH SECRET POLICE http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=270 Claiming without evidence that Hare Krishna followers were terrorists, had tried to stage a putsch in Russia and are now trying to stage a coup d'etat in Uzbekistan, Razumbai Ischanov, dean of Urgench University's Natural Sciences Faculty, has reportedly said he will expel all students who are Hare Krishna followers. Since the speech by the Dean, which had the support of University authorities, rumours have been spread that female Hare Krishna students are prostitutes, causing several planned weddings to be cancelled, and a lecturer in the natural sciences faculty forced a student Krishna devotee, against their religion, to eat meat and drink vodka. The NSS secret police have also started monitoring Hare Krishna students since the speech.

12 March 2004 TURKMENISTAN: SCEPTICISM AND OPTIMISM GREET SURPRISE PRESIDENTIAL DECREE

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=274 By Igor Rotar, Central Asia Correspondent, Forum 18 News Service, and Felix Corley, Editor, Forum 18 News Service

Religious believers of the many illegal faiths - including all Protestant, Armenian Apostolic, Shia Muslim, Jewish, Hare Krishna, Baha'i and Jehovah's Witness communities - have been taken by surprise by an 11 March decree from Turkmenistan's authoritarian president Saparmurat Niyazov allowing religious communities to gain official registration regardless of how many members they have or what faith they belong to. Some have told Forum 18 News Service they are optimistic that conditions will improve, though others - especially from groups that have regularly suffered fines, beatings and threats - are sceptical. Under the country's harsh religion law, communities have previously needed five hundred adult citizen members (a requirement almost impossible for religious minorities to achieve), while since last November unregistered religious activity has been a crime. The new decree makes no mention of decriminalising unregistered religious activity.

Bibi Agina, an official of the department that registers social organisations at the Adalat (Justice) Ministry, told Forum 18 that the decree does not mean that unregistered religious communities can start to meet freely in private homes. "As before, religious communities can only function after they get registration," she told Forum 18 from Ashgabad on 12 March. "The decree simply gives religious communities like the Baptists and others the possibility to work legally."

Officials at the government's Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs were, as usual, reluctant to talk, putting down the phone when Forum 18 telephoned. Eventually Forum 18 managed to speak to Mukhamed (who refused to give his last name), an aide to the deputy chairman Murad Karriyev, who said the same as Agina that the decree does not entitle unregistered religious communities to begin to function. "They still need registration," he insisted to Forum 18.

Radik Zakirov, a Protestant from Ashgabad, said his community is not preparing to register under the new decree. But he believed it might mark a change of policy. "The authorities have tried up till now to use repressive measures and have understood this is unsuccessful," he told Forum 18 on 12 March. "They seem now to be trying to bring religious communities under state control - perhaps a cleverer policy."

One immediate welcome for the decree came from Armenia's Ambassador to Turkmenistan, Aram Grigorian, who has been seeking the return to the local Armenian community of their church in the Caspian port city of Turkmenbashi (formerly Krasnovodsk), which was confiscated during the Soviet period. "This is a very progressive decree," he told Forum 18 from Ashgabad on 12 March. "We will try to make use of it."

The government has not allowed any Armenian Apostolic churches to reopen or open in Turkmenistan and, if they wish to attend services, Armenian Apostolic believers are forced to go to the only legal Christian denomination, the Russian Orthodox Church, although the Armenian Church is of the Oriental family of Christian Churches, not the Orthodox.

Vasili Kalin, chairman of the ruling council of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, who maintains close ties with fellow believers in Turkmenistan, was cautiously optimistic over what he regarded as perhaps the start of a process of improvement. "We welcome the guarantees of freedom of religion and registration in the decree," he told Forum 18 from St Petersburg on 12 March, "but experience teaches us to look at what happens in practice." Anatoly Melnik, a Jehovah's Witness leader from Kazakhstan with contacts in Turkmenistan, was more pessimistic over whether the decree will improve life for their communities, believing the decree might be simply a "propaganda measure".

Kalin said their communities in Turkmenistan are ready to register, but pointed out that several Jehovah's Witnesses remain in prison for their faith. "It would be a good gesture that Turkmenistan is ready to abide by its international human rights commitments if these innocent people would be freed. We hope to see that soon." He said the new decree might be a signal that Turkmenistan is changing "just as in the Soviet Union when the situation changed". He pointed out that moving from illegality in the Soviet Union to a position where Jehovah's Witnesses could register their communities took time.

One Protestant, whose church has had numerous problems from the authorities and has to meet in secret to try to evade state control, was sceptical about whether the decree would make a lot of difference. "We know about the decree," the Protestant - who preferred not to be identified - told Forum 18. "But are we optimistic? Not so much."

A Christian representative outside Turkmenistan with close links in the country told Forum 18 that "if the decree becomes a reality, it will be good". The representative noted that without registration the church has faced a number of problems, including the impossibility of acquiring property for services.

Most sceptical were leaders of unregistered Protestant churches. Viktor Makrousov of the Pentecostal church (who had not yet seen the decree) and Vladimir Tolmachev of Greater Grace both separately believed the situation is unlikely to improve on the ground. "Our main problem has not been the 500 signatures required for registration - we could achieve that," Tolmachev told Forum 18 from Ashgabad on 12 March. "The problem is that people signing the registration application would get problems - they would be sacked from their work, especially those who are ethnic Turkmens. It is a problem of people's safety."

Niyazov's decree, reported on state television on 11 March and published in Russian on the pro-government website turkmenistan.ru, claims that the country "carries out fully" its commitments under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief "while securing the harmony of the religious confessions functioning in Turkmenistan". In reality, the government has flagrantly violated these international commitments amid the heaviest controls on religious life of all the former Soviet republics.

The decree - which comes into force today (12 March) - sets out three provisions:

"1. To secure the registration on the territory of Turkmenistan of religious organisations and groups in accordance with generally-accepted international norms and procedures.

"2. To register on the territory of Turkmenistan according to established procedure religious groups of citizens independently of their number, faith and religion.

"3. The Adalat Ministry of Turkmenistan is to put into effect the current decree from the day of its publication."

The decree was published at the same time as a decree ordering the lifting of exit controls on Turkmenistan's citizens. Both this and the denial of religious freedom have been heavily criticised by foreign governments and human rights activists. Religious believers within the country are generally too frightened to speak out openly against the restrictions on their religious activity.

For more background see Forum 18's report on the new religion law at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=180 and Forum 18's latest religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=151

A printer-friendly map of Turkmenistan is available at

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=turkme (END)

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