FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway http://www.forum18.org/

The right to believe, to worship and witness The right to change one’s belief or religion The right to join together and express one’s belief

20 July 2005 KAZAKHSTAN: METHODIST ORDERED TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY “OR THERE WILL BE SERIOUS TROUBLE” http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=611 An Uzbek pastor of a Kazakh church, Rashid Turebaev, has been told by police to leave the city of Karaganda “immediately or there would be serious trouble,” Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Turbaev has in the past been told by officials that he does not need to re-register his place of residence, but in a sudden reversal has now been fined for not re-registering. He is pastor of the registered Living Water Methodist Church, and the National Security Service secret police has pressured him to pass on information about foreign citizens – especially Americans – who belong to his congregation. The police have accused Turbaev, without any evidence, of doing unregistered missionary work and struggled to reply to Forum 18’s questions as to how Turebaev’s work could under the law be seen as missionary activity, and why their has been a sudden change in the official attitude. Turebaev told Forum 18 that he “will be forced to go back to Uzbekistan where I may be arrested again.”

20 July 2005 KAZAKHSTAN: RELIGIOUS MINORITIES FACE INCREASING STATE PRESSURE http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=612 Baptists, other Protestants, Ahmadiya Muslims, non-state controlled Muslims and Hare Krishna devotees have all come under increasing pressure in the wake of Kazakhstan’s breaking of international human rights standards with its harsh new “national security” law, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Amongst current cases known to Forum 18, a Protestant church has had its rental contact cancelled by a local authority; a Baptist pastor is on trial for refusing to register his church; the head of the minority Ahmadiya Muslim community has fled the country for fear of arrest; attempts are being made to close down the independent non-state controlled Union of Muslims of Kazakhstan (UMK); and a local authority has refused to allow a Hare Krishna festival to be celebrated.

21 July 2005 MOLDOVA: WHY ARE MUSLIM REGISTRATION APPLICATIONS REJECTED? http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=613 An application for state registration from the Spiritual Organisation of Muslims in Moldova has once again been rejected, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Without registration, religious communities cannot have a bank account, publish literature, or build a prominent place of worship. The Muslim community has been trying since 2000 to gain legal status, and has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad – also denied state registration – has also appealed to the ECHR. The Bessarabian Orthodox Church, which is under the jurisdiction of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate, was only registered after the ECHR fined the government for arbitrarily denying registration. Talgat Masaev, who leads a Muslim community in the capital Chisinau, told Forum 18 that the latest application was lodged on 28 June and rejected on 11 July. Officials have refused to tell Forum 18 the reason for the rejection.

18 July 2005 RUSSIA: LARGEST TUVAN PROTESTANT CHURCH DISBANDS TO AVOID LIQUIDATION http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=609 During a January check-up by the religious affairs department in the traditionally Buddhist Russian republic of Tuva, officials complained the charismatic Sun Bok Ym church in the regional capital Kyzyl had violated its charter by sending its pastor to a neighbouring region and failed to inform the department of its new address. Officials of the Justice Ministry’s Federal Registration Service, set up last October, began moves to liquidate it through the courts, so the church decided to disband to avoid this fate. Pastor Bair Kara-Sal told Forum 18 News Service he believes a promise by local justice department officials in court that they will not oppose a new registration application. Both Catholic and Salvation Army leaders have complained to Forum 18 that the Federal Registration Service has made nit-picking objections to terminology in their documents and refused to allow them to make simple corrections.

22 July 2005 TURKMENISTAN: “VIRTUAL CATASTROPHE” FOR MUSLIM THEOLOGICAL FACULTY http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=614 President Niyazov has ordered “a virtual catastrophe” for Turkmenistan’s only official institution for training Muslim imams, a local staff member has told Forum 18 News Service. All Turkish staff members must return to Turkey, 20 students are being expelled, and the Muslim Theological Faculty’s status is to be downgraded. Forum 18 has been told that “many staff don’t want to work with the new teachers and would rather leave the university.” The move is possibly part of an overall government attempt to tighten the already harsh controls over the country’s officially registered religious communities, as there have recently been attempts to increase Turkmen state control over the Russian Orthodox Church and isolate the church. Other officially registered religious communities, such as the Baptists, Seventh day Adventists, Pentecostals and Hare Krishna devotees, also face strong official pressure and restrictions, as do the unregistered – and de facto illegal – communities. * See full article below. *

19 July 2005 UZBEKISTAN: CHARITY WORKER FACES SECRET POLICE DEATH THREATS http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=610 After a secret police raid on her home, interrogations, death threats and a large fine in June, and a 15 day prison sentence for her father, Tashkent-based Protestant Marina Kalinkina told Forum 18 News Service that secret police pressure has not let up. On 11 July, secret police officers again interrogated her about what they claim was illegal religious activity as part of her work for Bridge of Friendship, a registered charity she leads. One officer told her that if she dared to complain about her treatment to international organisations it would only make things worse for her. Begzot Kadyrov of the government’s religious affairs committee defended the secret police actions, claiming that Kalinkina is using her charitable work as an opportunity to preach. “In other words, she is doing the work of an unregistered religious organisation, and that is forbidden under Uzbek law,” he told Forum 18.

22 July 2005 TURKMENISTAN: “VIRTUAL CATASTROPHE” FOR MUSLIM THEOLOGICAL FACULTY

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=614 By Igor Rotar, Central Asia Correspondent, Forum 18 News Service

President Saparmurat Niyazov’s instruction to remove Turkish teachers, reduce the number of students and downgrade the status of the Faculty of Muslim Theology at Magtymguly Turkmen State University in the capital Ashgabad [Ashgabat] is “a virtual catastrophe for us”, a local staff member at the faculty who preferred not to be named told Forum 18 News Service on 21 July. “The theological faculty was built using money from Turkish charitable foundations. The Turks treated students like members of their own family. Now that all of them are having to return to Turkey, many staff don’t want to work with the new teachers and would rather leave the university.”

Since the closure of a madrassah (Islamic college) in the north-eastern city of Dashoguz [Dashhowuz] in 2001, the faculty has been the only institution in Turkmenistan authorised to train imams. In 2002 the president set limits on the number of students who could study there.

The staff member told Forum 18 that, under a decree passed by President Niyazov on 30 June, the Theological Faculty will merge with the History Faculty in the next academic year and will be merely a sub-department with 55 students. Under a decree issued by the education ministry on 5 July, 20 students are being expelled from the preparatory department of the Theological Faculty. “We used to operate the Turkish system, under which a student had to study for a year in a preparatory department before entering the faculty,” the staff member reported. “Now undergraduates will enter the theological faculty straight away. But because of this innovation, the 20 students from the preparatory department now appear to have been studying pointlessly.”

Disdog Akif Keten, the Turkish rector of the Theological Faculty, told Forum 18 on 21 July that, “unfortunately,” he could not answer Forum 18’s questions because, under the president’s 30 June decree, no Turkish teachers will have their contracts renewed in the next academic year. They are to be replaced by Turkmen teachers. Keten said the Theological Faculty has been operating for 11 years and throughout this time most of the teachers have been Turkish citizens who graduated in theology from Uladag University in the Turkish city of Bursa.

As part of official Turkmen policy to cut as many ties as possible with the outside world, those who wish to become imams cannot study at foreign Islamic schools. As the Theological Faculty is the only place in Turkmenistan able to train imams, the reduction in its status and in the number of students will further reduce the quality and extent of Islamic education.

President Niyazov complained, at an extended meeting with the Cabinet of Ministers on 1 July, that too many students are studying at the theological faculty and proposed that numbers be reduced. “Because an exceptionally high number of specialists are graduating from the theological faculty, they can’t find work when they finish their studies,” he stated.

Niyazov also said that “we have one religion and unique traditions and customs, and there is no need for people to look beyond these”. “Otherwise,” he continued, “there will be self-styled mullahs, each one of whom will interpret religious rituals in his own way, which could in the end lead to feuds.” Because of this, the president ordered the closure of the Theological Faculty, leaving just a small group of students, as well as the publication of a list of common religious rituals for all Turkmens.

Forum 18 tried in vain on 21 July to find out from officials their reasons for the Theological Faculty cut back, and why President Niyazov was interfering in the number of students who wished to study Islamic theology. Officials at the government’s Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs put their phones down, as soon as they found out that it was a journalist calling them. Forum 18’s attempts to ask Turkmenistan’s Chief Mufti, Rovshan Aleberdiev, also proved unsuccessful. He replied rudely that “he did not have time to talk to any journalists”.

A campaign to uncover Islamic dissidents has begun in Turkmenistan, according to a human rights activist in the town of Khiva, in Khorezm region of north-western Uzbekistan, which borders Turkmenistan. “Officials from the Turkmen National Security Ministry secret police are going around mosques identifying Muslims who perform religious rites in a way that differs from Turkmen practice,” Khaitbai Yakubov told Forum 18 from Khiva on 21 July.

Yakuubov said that, during this campaign, at least two Muslims have been arrested, Mukhamad Nurmukhamedov and Yager Kurbanov, both of them from the city of Dashoguz, which has a large ethnic Uzbek population. “The two are accused of being Wahhabis,” Yakubov added. The word “Wahhabi” is a slang term in Central Asia, loosely and inaccurately used to mean Muslims who do not defer to state control of Islam, or those whose interpretation of Islam differs from local regional custom. Only very rarely does it actually refer to adherents of the purist strain of Islam that predominates in Saudi Arabia.

From about 2003, the authorities removed all ethnic Uzbek imam-hatybs from all the main mosques in Dashoguz region and replaced them with Turkmen imams (see F18News 4 March 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=268 ). The Turkmen government directly controls the Islamic community throughout the country, President Niyazov personally removing the last two chief muftis – Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah in 2003 (he has since been imprisoned) and Kakageldy Vepaev in 2004 – while the Gengeshi for Religious Affairs names and removes all imams (see F18News 10 September 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=408 ).

The move is possibly part of an overall government attempt to tighten the already harsh controls over the country’s officially registered religious communities, as President Niyazov has also stepped up pressure on the Russian Orthodox patriarch to cut ties between Orthodox congregations in Turkmenistan and the Central Asian diocese, whose headquarters are in the Uzbek capital Tashkent. Niyazov would like Turkmen parishes to be directly under the patriarch’s jurisdiction, and some in the Orthodox Church told Forum 18 that they fear this was an attempt to create an “independent” Turkmen Orthodox diocese. Patriarch Aleksy diplomatically refused the proposal (see F18News 11 July 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=603 ).

Whenever Turkmen official newspapers mention the head of the Orthodox diocese, whose official title is Metropolitan Vladimir of Tashkent and Central Asia, they always describe him as “Metropolitan Vladimir of Ashgabad and Central Asia”. However, Russian Orthodox seminarians are still able to study at the seminary in Tashkent.

Other officially registered religious communities, such as the Baptists, Seventh day Adventists, Pentecostals and Hare Krishna devotees, also face strong official pressure and restrictions (see F18News 10 June 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=582 ), as do the unregistered – and de facto illegal – communities.

For more background, see Forum 18’s Turkmenistan 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 (END)

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