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Tuesday, November 25, 2003

TURKMENISTAN CHRISTIANS MORE OPPRESSED THAN EVER

 

Penalty for Good Works:
New religious law gives labor camp and fines to Christian believers

 

By: Stefan J. Bos
Eastern Europe Correspondent,
ASSIST News Service

ASHGABAT / BUDAPEST (ANS) -- Evangelical Christians and other religious groups in Turkmenistan are facing more oppression than ever after the adoption of a new controversial religion law, a human rights group suggested Tuesday, Nov. 25.

The revised legislation, which came into force earlier this month, "will entrench the oppression of all religious communities apart from Sunni Muslims and (the) Orthodox" Church, said The Barnabus Fund, which assists persecuted Christians.

Under the law all "unregistered religious" activity is forbidden and punishable by a year of "corrective labor" or fines of up to 30 times average monthly salaries, ASSIST News Service (ANS) established.

"As before, registration of a given group requires that 500 adult followers live inside the country," said Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which also broadcasts to the region.

"However, in practice these 500 believers must all live in one district, which has made it impossible for religious groups other than the majority Sunni Muslim or Orthodox Christians to register," commented RFE/RL.

TOUGHEST COUNTRY

Turkmenistan, a former Soviet republic of over 4 million people, was already among the world's toughest countries for Christians, according Open Doors, an international ministry supporting the suffering church world-wide, with North Korea topping the list.

"The government has incorporated some aspects of the majority religion, the Islamic tradition, into its effort to redefine a national identity. The Turkmen society is characterized by the personality cult around President Saparmurat Niyazov," said Open Doors recently.

Having re-named himself 'The Father of all Turkmen', the country's president runs an oppressive regime, Open Doors added. "Those who refuse to bow down to his portrait are harshly punished," including school children forced to say his name in an oath, the well informed organization explained.

CHURCHES RAIDED

Analysts say the increased pressure comes after Christians have continued to refuse to obey these orders and are meeting secretly for worship.

"Unregistered Christian churches have been raided and had their literature confiscated," even before the new legislation was enforced, said The Barnabus Fund in a statement send to ANS. "Their members have been imprisoned, beaten, tortured, thrown out of their homes and pressurized to convert to Islam."

"Churches have been closed and buildings confiscated. Hundreds of Protestant Christians have been fired from state jobs. Religious education can be given by Sunni Muslim or Orthodox Christian teachers, but only registered mosques are allowed to teach outside school hours, " the organization added.

Analysts have linked the timing of the adoption of the new religious legislation to the first anniversary of a November 25 alleged assassination attempt against Niyazov.

"POLITICAL ENEMIES"

Khudaiberdy Orazov, a former senior Turkmen official who now heads the Vatan opposition political movement, told a Russian newspaper earlier this year that he is confident that no attempt was made on Niyazov's life.

He said Niyazov staged the incident "to provide a pretext for cracking down on his political enemies," RFE/RL reported Tuesday Nov. 25.

Erika Dailey, director of the Open Society Institute's Turkmenistan Project based in Budapest, said in an interview that the new anti religion measures are consistent with a larger government effort to bring Turkmen society even further under its control.

REVISED LAW

"It's worth noting that this new revised law on religion and religious organizations in Turkmenistan was signed into law at exactly the same time that a parallel law on NGOs, on nongovernmental organizations, was also signed into law," she explained.

"And the spirit of both new laws is very similar. It is to provide administrative oversight headed by the president himself of nongovernmental activities, whether they be religious or civic in nature."

Yet President Niyazov has defended his human rights record saying his country has never had religious prisoners of conscience and cooperates fully with international human rights bodies, news reports said.

But organizations such as Open Doors and Forum 18 have established that many Christians have been imprisoned, including Baptist Shagildy Atakov who was released after four years in jail in 2002 after meetings between President Niyazov and diplomats.