Police officers have banned members of a Baptist
congregation in the town of Balkanabad in western Turkmenistan from meeting for
services and threatened that if they do so they will be fined for each meeting,
reports a statement from local Baptists reaching Forum 18 News Service.
The threats came in the wake of a raid during the Sunday service on 24 August.
All those present were taken to the 6th division of the regional police
department, the division that combats terrorism and religious extremism.
"There, over three hours, conversations were held individually in separate
offices with each one, demanding that they write statements," the 25
August Baptist statement declared.
The procurator for Balkanabad, Berdy Shirjanov, admitted that he was
"aware" of the incident. "I'm also aware of the similar press
releases issued by the Baptists after every police intervention," he told
Forum 18 from the town on 29 August.
He claimed that there is complete freedom of religion in Turkmenistan, but
added that according to the country's law on religion every religious community
has to register. "The Baptists refuse to be registered, citing the fact
that they are forbidden from having contact with the secular authorities,"
Shirjanov told Forum 18. "The law is the law. We have to fine the
Baptists. I understand perfectly well that they are absolutely harmless people
- they don't smoke or drink."
Despite Shirjanov's claims, the religion law makes no mention of any
requirement for religious organisations to register.
The Balkanabad Baptist church has suffered several raids this year, including
one on 11 May after which church members were threatened and insulted (see
F18News 23 May 2003). The church complains that in the course of July and
August, all its members were fined 250,000 manats each (363 Norwegian kroner,
44 Euros or 48 US dollars at the inflated official exchange rate).
The Balkanabad congregation belongs to the Council of Churches (or unregistered
Baptists), which split from the All-Union Council of Baptists in 1961 when
further state-sponsored controls were introduced by the then Baptist
leadership. It has refused state registration ever since. According to one of
its pastors in Moscow, it has 3,705 congregations throughout the former Soviet
Union.
Turkmenistan has the harshest religious policy of all the former Soviet
republics. No faiths except for the officially-sanctioned Muslim Board and the
Russian Orthodox Church have been allowed to register any communities. The
government treats all unregistered religious activity as illegal. Baptists,
Pentecostals, Adventists and other Protestants, as well as the Armenian
Apostolic Church, the Lutherans, the Jews, Hare Krishna communities, Jehovah's
Witnesses, Baha'is and others are thus denied the opportunity of worshipping
legally.
Since May, pressure on religious minorities has intensified with a series of
raids on various communities, including Baptist and Pentecostal churches, as
well as Hare Krishna communities (see F18News 10 June 2003). In all these
cases, the police burst into private apartments where representatives of
religious minorities had gathered and took them to the police station.