Pray for the World

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Pray for the World

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ September 17, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

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

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14 September 2007 BELARUS: BAPTIST FINED FOR CHURCH FAMILY HOLIDAY

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1018

A state official has defended as lenient a fine of almost two weeks’ average wages imposed on the Baptist Viktor Orekhov for organising a church summer holiday. “What European country would tolerate a group of people doing what they like, completely ignoring the state and law, not responding to the authorities’ comments?” religious affairs official Vasili Marchenko told Forum 18 News Service. Baptists in the south-western Brest Region were denied permission to rent leisure facilities they had used in earlier years. After they went ahead in June with a camp on private land, police invaded the camp to question the children and threatened to close it by force. Orekhov was fined on 24 August for the creation or leadership of a religious organisation without state registration. “We are to blame, it seems, for being believers,” Orekhov pointed out. “This is why I was prosecuted and fined.” This is the first significant fine in over a year to be handed down to a member of the Baptist Council of Churches in Belarus. In July an ideology official tried to break up a charismatic church’s summer camp.

12 September 2007

KAZAKHSTAN: TREASON CHARGES AGAINST GRACE CHURCH LEADERS?

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1016

Four members of the Grace Presbyterian Church – including its leader Igor Kim – are being investigated on treason charges which the National Security Committee (KNB) secret police have refused to explain to Forum 18 News Service. KNB officers in Karaganda told Forum 18 that the cases are being handled from the capital Astana, but no-one at the national KNB would talk to Forum 18. Church members are still being summoned for questioning. Pastor Vyacheslav Vorobyov of the church in Karaganda told Forum 18 that 12 church members began a hunger strike on 7 September to protest against the raids and investigations. He said the tax authorities are checking up on many of their 250 congregations across Kazakhstan, while computers and documents confiscated in 24 August raids have not been returned. Amanbek Mukhashev of the Justice Ministry’s Religious Affairs Committee refused to answer Forum 18′s questions by telephone. Kazakhstan’s Human Rights Ombudsperson Bolat Baikadamov told Forum 18 that he has asked the KNB about the case.

13 September 2007

TURKMENISTAN: FIFTH JEHOVAH’S WITNESS SENTENCED IN THREE MONTHS

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1017

Jehovah’s Witness Begench Shakhmuradov has rejected the two year suspended sentence handed down yesterday (12 September) by an Ashgabad court for his refusal to perform compulsory military service. “I believe I have the right to freedom of thought and religion and the court should have respected this,” he told Forum 18. Shakhmuradov does not yet know the conditions to be imposed on him, but he is likely to have to report regularly to the police and to need permission to leave Ashgabad. Suleiman Udaev, one of the four other Jehovah’s Witnesses sentenced in the past three months, has had his 18-month prison term commuted to a two-year suspended sentence with compulsory labour and was allowed home on 12 September. Meanwhile, the wife of imprisoned Baptist pastor Vyacheslav Kalataevsky told Forum 18 she does not know if he will be included in October’s mass prisoner amnesty. Nurmukhamed Gurbanov of the government’s Religious Affairs Committee refused to discuss any of these cases with Forum 18. * See full article below. *

13 September 2007

TURKMENISTAN: FIFTH JEHOVAH’S WITNESS SENTENCED IN THREE MONTHS

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1017

By Felix Corley, Editor, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

Yesterday (12 September), Begench Shakhmuradov became the fifth Jehovah’s Witness to be sentenced in Turkmenistan in the past three months for refusing to perform compulsory military service on grounds of religious faith. After several postponements of his trial, he was given a two-year suspended sentence at Azatlyk District Court in the capital Ashgabad [Ashgabat]. However, as Shakhmuradov told Forum 18 News Service in the wake of the trial, he does not yet know the conditions that will be imposed on him. “They still haven’t informed me. But it’s likely to include regular reporting to the police, a ban on leaving the house at night and a requirement to get permission if I want to leave the city.”

Shakhmuradov said he does not agree with the verdict, though he has not yet decided whether to appeal. “I believe I have the right to freedom of thought and religion and the court should have respected this,” he insisted to Forum 18. “God gave me these rights and they are also enshrined in Turkmenistan’s Constitution. If the Constitution recognises these rights the law should also back them up. Before God I can’t fulfil laws which go against my conscience.”

Turkmenistan does not offer a civilian alternative to compulsory military service, making young men who cannot serve in the armed forces on grounds of conscience liable to punishment. All five of the Jehovah’s Witness young men sentenced this year, including Shakhmuradov, were prosecuted under Article 219, Part 1 of the Criminal Code, which punishes refusal to serve in the armed forces with a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment.

Shakhmuradov has already served one sentence on the same charges. He was given one year’s imprisonment in February 2005, but was among several Jehovah’s Witnesses freed early from their sentences in April 2005 in the wake of a presidential decree (see F18News 22 April 2005 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=548>).

Shakhmuradov was called up for military service again in May 2007 despite suffering from tuberculosis contracted during his imprisonment (see F18News 31 August 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1013>).

“I told the court I am of course prepared to do any alternative service,” Shakhmuradov told Forum 18. “I told the authorities this two years ago when they first sentenced me. It would be just if a civilian alternative to military service existed.” He said that without such an alternative, other Jehovah’s Witness young men will “certainly” be sentenced.

Forum 18 has been unable to find out from officials why they are not prepared to consider introducing an alternative civilian service, why five Jehovah’s Witnesses have been sentenced for refusing military service in the past three months and why the Baptist pastor Vyacheslav Kalataevsky has been imprisoned.

Reached on 13 September at his office at the Gengeshi (Committee) for Religious Affairs in Ashgabad, deputy chair Nurmukhamed Gurbanov refused to answer any questions. “I don’t answer to you,” he told Forum 18. “Your questions don’t appeal to me.” Asked again about the recent cases he responded: “No religion is oppressed here – everyone can practice their faith freely.” He then referred Forum 18 to the Foreign Ministry, although it does not have competence in internal affairs, before putting the phone down.

Forum 18 was unable to reach Shirin Akhmedova, director of the government’s National Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, between 10 and 13 September. Her secretary told Forum 18 that she was out at meetings. The secretary said each time that no-one else at the institute was present, even though it is reputed to have about fifty staff. On other occasions the phone went unanswered

Meanwhile, fellow Jehovah’s Witness Suleiman Udaev was suddenly freed from imprisonment on 12 September, family members told Forum 18 that evening. His 18-month term of imprisonment for refusing military service on grounds of religious conscience was commuted to a two-year suspended sentence with compulsory labour. They told Forum 18 he is back at his home in a village 100 km (60 miles) from the south-eastern town of Mary. However, they said Udaev must pay twenty percent of his wages to the state, he will not be able to leave his home village without permission and other restrictions will be imposed. He is likely to be assigned to work in the local collective farm.

Udaev, who was sentenced by Mary District Court on 7 August, had been held at the labour camp in the town. On 13 August his parents filed a complaint against his sentence to the Supreme Court, which was accepted only when they sent it by mail. Udaev’s family was able to pass on food parcels and medicine to him only after paying the prison guards.

The three other Jehovah’s Witnesses – Aleksandr Zuyev, Bayram Ashirgeldyyev and Nuryagdy Gayyrov – were given suspended sentences in July (see F18News 31 August 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1013>).

Meanwhile, Baptist pastor Kalataevsky remains in labour camp in the eastern town of Seydi. A Baptist leader from the Caspian port city of Turkmenbashi [T�rkmenbashy, formerly Krasnovodsk], he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on 14 May for illegally crossing the border six years earlier. His family has insisted to Forum 18 that the sentence was imposed to punish him for his activity with the unregistered Baptist congregation in Turkmenbashi. A family visit to him in labour camp on 14 August was cut to just 40 minutes (see F18News 31 August 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1013>).

Kalataevsky’s wife Valentina said she intends to travel to Seydi for the next scheduled labour camp visit on 18 September. “We were so upset last time that the visit was so short,” she told Forum 18 from Turkmenbashi on 12 September.

She said she does not know if her husband will be included in the prisoner amnesty due in October to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The government has said that more than 9,000 prisoners are due to benefit from the amnesty this year.

Kalataevsky’s family have again written appeals in September to President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and other officials asking for his case to be reviewed. “So far we have had no response to these latest appeals,” family members told Forum 18. (END)

For a personal commentary by a Protestant within Turkmenistan, on the fiction – despite government claims – of religious freedom in the country, and how religious communities and the international community should respond to this, see <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=728>

For more background, see Forum 18′s Turkmenistan religious freedom survey at <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=672>

A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806>, and of religious intolerance in Central Asia is at <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=815>.

A printer-friendly map of Turkmenistan is available at <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=turkme> (END)