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TURKMENISTAN: Religious prisoners of conscience
Although it is difficult because of the level of persecution to be precise, all the religious prisoners of conscience in Turkmenistan known to Forum 18 News Service are from the Jehovah's Witness and Islamic faiths. 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. The most high profile current prisoner is the former chief mufti, and Baptists have in the recent past also been imprisoned for their faith. It is also reliably believed that several other muftis have been sent into internal exile without trial.
There are currently six Jehovah's Witnesses in prison. Five of the six have been sentenced for refusing the compulsory military service (Turkmenistan has no alternative to military service), while the sixth prisoner – Kurban Zakirov - is serving an eight-year sentence on what the Jehovah's Witnesses insist are trumped-up charges. Forum 18 notes that, together with former chief mufti Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah (see F18News 8 March 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=271 ), sentenced to 22 years' imprisonment at a closed trial in the capital Ashgabad on 2 March, these are Turkmenistan's known religious prisoners.
It is believed several muftis have been sent into internal exile without trial.
The exiled human rights group Turkmenistan Helsinki Initiative reported in April that three unnamed Baptists who told the military conscription office that they were not prepared to conduct military service on religious grounds, but were refused any non-military service have now gone into hiding to avoid arrest.
Jehovah's Witnesses have told Forum 18 that the latest of their conscientious objectors is 23-year-old Aleksandr Matveyev, who received a two year sentence on 4 December 2003. The other four imprisoned conscientious objectors – all sentenced to one and a half years' imprisonment in May 2003 - are 23-year-old Rinat Babadjanov from the north-eastern town of Dashoguz [Dashhowuz], Shohrat Mitogorov (who turned 21 in April), Ruslan Nasyrov (who was 19 last November) and Rozymamed Satlykov (who will be 21 in June). All five are serving their sentences in the minimum security labour camp in the eastern town of Seydi.
"All these young men, some of them not yet baptised as Jehovah's Witnesses, have been put under enormous pressure to compromise their religious convictions and to give the oath of allegiance on the Koran," the Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18. "Currently they are totally isolated from the surrounding society and no visitors are allowed."
The 24-year-old Zakirov is being held in the strict-regime prison in the Caspian port city of Turkmenbashi [Türkmenbashy] (formerly Krasnovodsk). He was originally arrested in April 1999 for refusing military service. He was sentenced the following month to one year's imprisonment, but was given an extra eight-year sentence in spring 2000 accused of assaulting a prison guard (see F18News 9 February 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=247 ).
Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 that their prisoners are intimidated in an effort to get them to renounce their faith. They are mocked with: "You'll live your whole life in prison," and "we will taunt you until you die." They are also threatened with rape and other bodily injury and some of these threats have been carried out. "Insults and public beatings compound the existing poor conditions," they add.
More than two months after his trial, the authorities have still not made public the charges under which the former chief mufti, Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, was sentenced. Although previously loyal to Turkmenistan's autocratic president Saparmurat Niyazov (who calls himself "Turkmenbashi" or "Father of the Turkmens"), he fell out of favour after the mysterious assassination attempt on the president in November 2002. The president ousted him from his religious and his state job at the Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs in January 2003 (see F18News 8 March 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=271 ).
There are persistent rumours that a number of other muftis, who have fallen out of official favour, have been banished to remote places.
One of the most prominent religious prisoners of recent years was the Baptist Shageldy Atakov, sentenced in 1999 on fraud charges which the Baptists insisted were brought to punish him for his religious activity. He was freed early from his sentence in January 2002 after worldwide pressure. A less well-known Baptist prisoner, Geldy Khudaikuliev, who was arrested on 15 December 2003, was freed on 20 December after international pressure (see F18News 22 December 2003 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=219 ). No Christians are currently known to be imprisoned for their faith.
Meanwhile, the 78-year-old Muslim writer Rahim Esenov, released from prison on 9 March after 13 days' detention, hopes that threatened charges against him will quietly be forgotten. "They have not been dropped as far as I know and I've been told the investigation is continuing, but the case has gone quiet," he told Forum 18 from Ashgabad on 29 April. "They've gone quiet and I've been quiet."
In a bizarre case, the authorities were annoyed that in his historical novel on the sixteenth century regent of the Mughal Empire, Bayram Khan, he depicted him (correctly) as a Shia rather than a Sunni Muslim (see F18News 7 April 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=296 ). Esenov said the authorities' claims that he had aroused interethnic and interreligious hatred were based on quotations from his novel which had been assumed to represent his own viewpoint, something he denied.
For more background see Forum 18's latest religious freedom survey at
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=296
A printer-friendly map of Turkmenistan is available at
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=turkme
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7 April 2004
TURKMENISTAN: Religious freedom survey, April 2004
In its survey analysis of the religious freedom situation in Turkmenistan, Forum 18 News Service reports on the almost complete lack of freedom to practice any faith, apart from very limited freedom for Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodox Christianity with a small number of registered places of worship and constant interference and control by the state. This is despite recent legal changes that in theory allow minority communities to register. All other communities - Baptist, Pentecostal, Adventist, Lutheran and other Protestants, as well as Shia Muslim, Armenian Apostolic, Jewish, Baha'i, Jehovah's Witness and Hare Krishna – are currently banned and their activity punishable under the administrative or criminal law. Religious meetings have been broken up, with raids in March on Jehovah's Witnesses and a Baha'i even as the government was proclaiming a new religious policy. Believers have been threatened, detained, beaten, fined and sacked from their jobs, while homes used for worship and religious literature have been confiscated. Although some minority communities have sought information on how to register under the new procedures, none has so far applied to register. It remains very doubtful that Turkmenistan will in practice allow religious faiths to be practiced freely.
1 April 2004
TURKMENISTAN: Religious communities theoretically permitted, but attacked in practice?
Despite Turkmenistan now theoretically allowing minority religious communities to get state registration, Forum 18 News Service has learnt that in practice attacks have been renewed against the Jehovah's Witness and Baha'i minority communities. President Saparmurat Niyazov announced the changes on 11 March, the same day that a Jehovah's Witness was arrested and pressured by officials, including a Mullah, to renounce his faith and then fired from his job. There have also been at least three raids on Jehovah's Witnesses in the capital Ashgabad and reported raids in other towns. Also, a Baha'i has had his home raided and been pressured to renounce his faith. Believers from the country's banned minority faiths – including Catholics, a variety of Protestant groups, Shia Muslims, Jews, Adventists, Pentecostal and Armenian Apostolic Christians, Hare Krishna devotees, Jehovah's Witnesses and Baha'i – are unsure whether it is apply for state registration. Although some Protestants are optimistic about the situation improving, the NSM secret police told an arrested Baha'i that the new law "applies only to Sunni Islam and the Orthodox Church, while such dubious groups as yours will be thoroughly checked out with the aim of preventing any possible conflicts." And on 29 March President Niyazov banned Muslims from registering new mosques.
30 March 2004
TURKMENISTAN: Muslims barred from opening new mosques
Turkmenistan's largest religious community, the Muslims, appear to have been barred from benefiting from the promised easing of the harsh registration restrictions that have prevented most of the country's religious communities from registering since 1997. "Do not build any more mosques," President Saparmurat Niyazov told officials of the government's Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs on 29 March, insisting that its officials must continue to appoint all mullahs and control mosque funds. More than half the 250 registered mosques were stripped of their legal status in 1997, and only 140 have registration today. Shia mosques appear likely to remain banned. Forum 18 News Service has learnt that the only other current legal faith, the Russian Orthodox Church, is planning to try to register new parishes in the wake of this month's presidential decree and amendments to the religion law easing the restrictions.