Members of a Baptist church in the town of Balkanabad in
western Turkmenistan are now seeing their fines doubled for participating in
"illegal religious meetings", local Baptists complained in a 3
October statement reaching Forum 18 News Service. In July and August, each
church member was fined 250,000 manats (363 Norwegian kroner, 44 Euros or 48 US
dollars at the inflated official exchange rate, four times the street rate),
but heavier fines are now being imposed. "At present the local authorities
of the town of Balkanabad are prohibiting the Baptists from meeting for
worship, in violation of the rights guaranteed in Turkmenistan's Constitution
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," church members complained.
"And they have increased the level of fines to 500,000 manats."
Forum 18 reached the regional and town procurators' offices, as well as
officials of the regional and town khyakimliks (administrations) but no
officials were prepared to tell Forum 18 why such heavy fines were being handed
down on the Baptists for meeting for worship in private homes.
The Balkanabad church - most of whose members are people surviving on
invalidity benefits - has seen a wave of raids and threats this year, beginning
in the spring. The fines in July and August came amid increased police action.
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. They were threatened with fines
every time they met for worship.
The procurator for Balkanabad, Berdy Shirjanov, tried to justify the fines on
church members to Forum 18 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. He insisted that as
the church refuses to do so, they had to fine the Baptists (see F18News 1
September 2003).
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 in all the post-Soviet
republics where it operates. According to one of its pastors in Moscow, it has
3,705 congregations throughout the former Soviet Union.
Turkmenistan has enacted one of the harshest systems of state control over
religious life of any of the former Soviet republics. 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.