In its survey analysis of the religious freedom situation in
Turkmenistan, Forum 18 News Service reports on the complete lack of freedom to
practice any faith except for Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodox Christianity in
a limited number of registered places of worship. 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 de facto banned and their activity punishable under the
administrative or criminal law. Religious meetings have been broken up (with a
spate of raids on Protestants and Hare Krishnas since May), believers have been
threatened, detained, beaten, fined and sacked from their jobs, while homes
used for worship and religious literature have been confiscated. Religious
activity is overseen by the secret police's department for work with social organisations
and religious groups, which recruits spies in religious communities.
Turkmenistan has enacted one of the harshest systems of state control over
religious life of any of the former Soviet republics which makes barely any
pretence of its rejection of religious freedom. Under the highly restrictive
1996 religion law, only two religious faiths have been able to gain
registration: communities of the state-sanctioned Sunni Muslim Board and the
Russian Orthodox Church. The government treats all other religious activity as
illegal. Baptist, Pentecostal, Adventist, Lutheran and other Protestant
churches, as well as Shia Muslim, Armenian Apostolic, Jewish, Baha'i, Jehovah's
Witness and Hare Krishna communities are among those whose activity is de facto
banned and punishable under the administrative or criminal law.
Religious meetings have been raided (with a spate of raids against Protestant
and Hare Krishna communities since May), places used for worship have been
confiscated or demolished and believers have been beaten, fined, detained,
deported and sacked from their jobs in punishment for religious activity the
government does not like. Some believers have been given long prison sentences
in recent years for their religious activity (all the current known prisoners
are Jehovah's Witnesses) or have been sent into internal exile to remote parts
of the country.
Jehovah's Witness sources have told Forum 18 that three of their young men were
sentenced in August to one and a half years' imprisonment for refusing
compulsory military service on grounds of religious conscience (Turkmenistan
has no provision for alternative service). The three new prisoners, who were
from towns around the country and at least one of whom has served an earlier
sentence on the same charges, bring to five the number of Jehovah's Witnesses
now in prison.
Jehovah's Witnesses are worried about the health of another of their imprisoned
conscientious objectors, Nikolai Shelekhov, who is nearing the end of his
second sentence. "He has problems with his kidneys and is suffering from
arthritis in his legs," one source told Forum 18. "But his spirit is
good." Sentenced in July 2002 to one and a half years in prison, Shelekhov
is currently being held in a labour camp in the eastern city of Turkmenabad
(formerly Charjou).
The restrictions on religious activity come despite constitutional guarantees
of freedom of religion and Turkmenistan's obligations to maintain such freedom
of religion as a member of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) and a signatory to international human rights conventions.
With an authoritarian ruler, President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov (who likes
to call himself "Turkmenbashi" or Father of the Turkmens),
Turkmenistan already suffers from an absence of political and social freedom.
State control was tightened even more in the wake of a failed assassination
attempt on the president last November. Niyazov's rule is characterised by a
grotesque cult of personality, with ever-present statues and portraits. Works
he allegedly wrote – especially the Ruhnama (Book of the Soul), which officials
have likened to the Koran or the Bible – are compulsorily imposed on schools
and the wider public.
Turkmenistan's deliberate isolation from the outside world and the punitive
measures taken against those engaged in unauthorised religious activity make
religious freedom reporting very difficult. Believers fear retribution for
reporting their difficulties, and so Forum 18 is unable to give the names or identifying
features of sources within the country.
Religious activity is overseen by the secret police's department for work with
social organisations and religious groups. This department, formerly the sixth
department of the National Security Committee (KNB), is one of the six or seven
main departments of the State Security Ministry (MSS) and was created when the
KNB was restructured late last year. The social and religious affairs
department is believed to have 45 officers at the headquarters in the capital
Ashgabad, with a handful of officers in each local branch.
Local MSS officers regularly summon Muslim and Orthodox clerics to report on
activity within their communities. Some believers have told Forum 18 that the
MSS also runs "spies" in each Muslim and Orthodox community,
sometimes as many as half a dozen. In addition to their spies – who attend the
religious community solely at MSS behest to gain information – there might be
another ten or fifteen believers who are regularly interviewed by MSS officers
and forced to reveal details of the community's religious life.
The MSS and the police also try to recruit spies in unregistered religious
groups, such as with the attempted recruitment of a member of a Baptist church
they had detained in June in Turkmenabad. "They tried to talk Yeldash
[Roziev] into co-operating with them, hoping for information about the internal
life of the church," the Baptists complained (see F18News 18 June 2003).
The government's Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs – which is headed by
Yagshimurat Atamuradov – has nominal responsibility for religious affairs, and
has a headquarters in Ashgabad and branch offices in each of Turkmenistan's
five velayats (regions). The Gengeshi's main job appears to be approving
clerical appointments in the Sunni Muslim and Orthodox communities. "Imams
are chosen by the Gengeshi and are then approved by the president," one
source told Forum 18.
The Ministry of Justice officially registers religious organisations, although
has little work to do on this as so few applications are approved anyway.
Unregistered religious communities face regular raids by MSS officers, backed
up by police officers, officials of the local administration and local
religious affairs officials, who work closely together in suppressing and
punishing unregistered religious activity.
Even the two officially-recognised faiths – the Sunni Muslim Board and the
Russian Orthodox Church – face government meddling and require government
approval for the nomination of all officials. In January President Niyazov
ousted the Chief Mufti, Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, an ethnic Uzbek who had led
Turkmenistan's Muslims for the previous ten years, and replaced him with the
35-year-old Kakageldy Vepaev, someone widely believed to be more pliant (see
F18News 17 March 2003).
Vepaev's dual role – as a Muslim leader and a state official (he is also one of
the deputy chairmen of the Gengeshi for Religious Affairs) – became all too
apparent during the crackdown on Protestant and Hare Krishna communities this
spring: he personally took part in raids on Protestant churches in Ashgabad and
in follow-up meetings at hyakimliks (local administrations) when church members
were questioned and threatened. In a similar move, local mullahs have frequently
been involved in raids on local religious minorities elsewhere in the country,
threatening them and calling them to renounce their faith and, if they are
ethnic Turkmens, to "return" to their ancestral faith.
Sunni Muslim mosques are reported to have seen attendance slump as, in response
to government orders, imams placed copies of the Ruhnama in mosques with equal
prominence as copies of the Koran. The grand mosques constructed on the
president's orders – and with state funds – are likewise reported to be largely
empty, as Muslims decline to regard them as places of worship. Imams are, at
least in theory, required to recite the oath of loyalty to the president and
country at the end of the namaz (daily prayers). President Niyazov told Muslims
in 2000 that they were to renounce the hadiths, sayings attributed to the
Prophet Muhammad which do not appear in the Koran.
Devout Muslims have expressed concern about the government-sponsored ousting of
imams who have theological education in favour of those who have never been
formally educated in Islam. In the past, imams were educated in neighbouring
Uzbekistan, but that appears to have come to a halt. One source told Forum 18
that the decline in the level of education among practising imams has led to a
growth in respect for the artsakal, a traditional religious leader. "They
have preserved their authority and people go to them for weddings and
funerals," the source reported. "The authorities don't attack
them."
Government tolerance of Sunni Islam has not extended to Shia Islam, which is
mainly professed by the ethnic Azeri and Iranian minorities in the west of the
country who are traditionally more devout than ethnic Turkmens. Shia mosques
failed to gain re-registration during the compulsory round of re-registration
in 1997 after the adoption of the much harsher law on religion.
The Russian Orthodox Church, which is nominally under the control of the
Church's Central Asian diocese led from the Uzbek capital Tashkent by
Metropolitan Vladimir (Ikim), is in fact under the direct control of the
Ashgabad-based priest Fr Andrei Sapunov, widely regarded with suspicion by
members of the Orthodox Church and other Christian faiths who have suffered
from his actions.
"Formally Fr Andrei is not the 'senior priest' in Turkmenistan," the
Moscow-based researcher on Central Asia, Nikolai Mitrokhin, told Forum 18. He
said the secretary of the Central Asian diocese for Turkmenistan and dean of
the country is Fr Georgy Pobylovsky, priest of Sts Peter and Paul church in
Turkmenabad. "Fr Andrei is just an ordinary priest, whose influence is
based on his personal contacts with President Niyazov."
Some Orthodox question his background. A famous cyclist during the Soviet
period, Fr Sapunov was not then known for any religious adherence. It is only
since the Soviet period he has become a priest. "No-one recalls him
praying before," one Orthodox believer told Forum 18. While sources in
Ashgabad close to Sapunov claimed to Forum 18 that he had studied at the
Orthodox seminary in Tashkent, Mitrokhin maintains that he has no theological
education. Relations between Fr Sapunov and the Tashkent diocese are reported
to be bad, and Fr Sapunov is known to want Turkmenistan to form an
autocephalous (independent) Orthodox jurisdiction.
In an echo of the practice in Sunni Muslim mosques, Orthodox priests reportedly
received instructions from the end of 2000 to quote from the Ruhnama in sermons
and to "preach to us about the virtues of living in Turkmenistan and of
the policies of Turkmenbashi," one parishioner complained.
Close to President Niyazov, Fr Sapunov frequently deploys the extravagant
personal praise of the president required of all officials. Many Orthodox
regard such statements as close to blasphemy. Some Orthodox told Forum 18 they
have evidence he passes information received in the confessional to the secret
police.
In addition to his duties in the Church, Fr Sapunov is also one of the deputy
chairmen of the Gengeshi for Religious Affairs, with particular responsibility
for Christian affairs. This gives him an official power of veto over the
affairs of other Christian denominations. He is also well-known in the secret
police, even to local officers outside Ashgabad. During numerous raids on
Protestant churches in different regions, secret police officers have told the
Protestants that they must gain permission from Fr Sapunov before they can
operate.
The 1996 religion law specified that an individual religious community needs
500 signatures of adult citizen members before it can apply for registration.
Officials have repeatedly declared (although it is not specified in the law)
that these 500 must live in one city district or one rural district. This makes
it all but impossible for any new religious community to register, even if the
government wished to allow it to. Most religious communities – including many
mosques – lost their registration and had to close down in the wake of the new
law. Most Islamic schools were also closed.
Article 205 of the Code of Administrative Offences, which dates back to the
Soviet period, specifies fines for those refusing to register their religious
communities, with typical fines of 250,000 manats (363 Norwegian kroner, 44
Euros or 48 US dollars at the inflated official exchange rate). Fines can be
doubled for repeat offenders. Many believers of a variety of faiths have been
fined under this article, including a series of Baptists and Hare Krishna
devotees this spring and summer after the series of raids on unregistered
religious meetings (see F18News 1 September 2003).
One of the biggest religious communities that has been denied registration is
the Armenian Apostolic Church. An estimated fifteen per cent of those who
attend Russian Orthodox churches are said by local people to be Armenians, although
the Armenian Church is of the Oriental family of Christian Churches, not of the
Orthodox family. "Sapunov told parish priests to accept Armenian
believers," one local Orthodox told Forum 18. However, the Orthodox Church
would stand to lose a sizeable proportion of its flock were the government to
allow the Armenian Church to revive its activity.
The one surviving pre-revolutionary Armenian church – in the Caspian port city
of Turkmenbashi – is said to be in a "sorry state of repair". The
Armenian ambassador to Turkmenistan has repeatedly sought permission for it to
be restored and reopened as a place of worship but in vain. When the Armenian
priest last visited from neighbouring Uzbekistan he had to conduct baptisms and
hold services in the Armenian embassy in Ashgabad.
Religious parents – Muslim, Christian and members of other faiths - face a
dilemma over whether to send their children to state-run schools. With the
Ruhnama playing a major role in the school curriculum from the very first year,
together with recitation of the oath of loyalty to the country and president,
many religious parents do not wish to subject their children to what many
believe are blasphemous practices.
After the adoption in July 2002 of the law on guarantees of the rights of the
child, the unregistered Baptist Church complained bitterly about Article 24
part 2 which declared: "Parents or the legal representatives of the child
are obliged … to bring him up in a spirit of humanism and the unshakeable
spiritual values embodied in the holy Ruhnama." Pointing out that
officials are promoting the Ruhnama as "the last word of God to the
Turkmen people", the Baptists declared: "In practice this law is a
direct infringement on the freedom of conscience of citizens professing faith
in Jesus Christ or another faith not recognised by the state."
Orthodox Christians echo the Baptists' concerns, telling Forum 18 that the
issue has put Russian Orthodox priests in a difficult position. "Worried
parents have come to their priests," one Orthodox Christian reported.
"The priest can't tell his parishioners not to send their children to
school. All he can do is tell them to do as their conscience dictates."
Some parents have begun to teach their children privately at home.
Believers who want to receive information from fellow-believers abroad face
virtually insurmountable obstacles. Access to the Internet is possible only via
state providers that exert strict control over what information can be
accessed. The majority of international religious websites are simply not
accessible by an Internet user in Turkmenistan. Moreover, a special computer
program searches emails for coded words that could be used to send
"unreliable information", while "a suspicious message" will
simply not reach the addressee.
Religious literature is no longer published in Turkmenistan. Mosques and
Russian Orthodox churches often have small kiosks where a limited quantity of
literature is available. A typical Orthodox church bookstall might have a few
prayer books, small icons and calendars, with the Bible available only
erratically – and often, at about 12 US dollars, too expensive for the
badly-paid local people. Supplies of religious literature and articles to
Orthodox churches are equally erratic, with no official distribution of books,
icons, candles and baptismal crosses.
Orthodox believers trying to receive alternative information are in a more
difficult situation than Sunni Muslims. Under a September 2002 presidential
decree, direct subscription to Russian newspapers and magazines, including
religious publications such as the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, is
banned in Turkmenistan. Even Orthodox priests do not receive the Journal
regularly, being forced to rely on old copies they pick up when they are visiting
Moscow or Tashkent.
Of the Russian television channels, only a few hours a day of the ORT channel
are broadcast, and then only with a day's delay after programmes have been
approved by a censor. Currently there are a number of broadcasts on Russian
television covering Orthodox issues. The broadcast of Russian cable programmes
is forbidden in Turkmenistan, so that unlike in other Central Asian states,
local Orthodox believers cannot use this as an alternative source of religious
news.
Officials have not simply restricted themselves to banning the receipt of
political information from the former metropolis. Purely religious
communications between local Orthodox believers and Russia have inevitably also
been obstructed. As Turkmenistan has become even more isolated from Russia,
individual Orthodox believers have become more isolated from the Moscow
Patriarchate.
Religious literature is routinely confiscated from members of unregistered
religious minorities during police raids on their homes or as they return to
the country from foreign travels.
With sweeping measures against religious groups in the wake of the harsher
religion law in 1996, the denial of registration to most religious communities
in the 1997 re-registration drive, the expulsion of hundreds of foreigners
engaged in religious activity (including Muslims, Baptists, Pentecostals,
Jehovah's Witnesses and Hare Krishna devotees), the confiscation or demolition
of unauthorised places of worship, the sacking of believers from their work
(especially Jehovah's Witnesses and Protestants) and a growing climate of fear,
the Turkmen authorities have succeeded in all but wiping out public religious
activity except in a small number of registered Sunni Muslim and Russian
Orthodox places of worship.
All other religious activity must of necessity be shrouded in secrecy, with
believers having to hide their faith and worship from intrusive officials. In
response to the pressure, all unregistered communities have seen the numbers of
their active members fall. Yet despite the severe controls and the threat of
punishment, the remaining believers continue to insist on practising their
various faiths as best they can while waiting for better times.