Special Report by ICC
01/27/2013 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – While Christians are subjected to extreme levels of repression in Turkmenistan; news comes out only sporadically from this former Soviet nation. It is one of the countries where persecution “statistics” completely fail to bring out the suffering of minorities.
Especially since last July, the situation has become increasingly bad, with more than 20 Protestants being fined for their religious activity.
Authorities ordered 11 members of a Path of Faith Church (Baptist) in the northern city of Dashoguz to pay fines for participating in an unregistered religious community on Oct. 1, 2012, Norway-based Forum 18 News reported. They were each fined about $260 – which roughly amounts to two months’ average wage in that city. The youngest to be fined was a 17-year old school boy.
On Sept. 23, officials raided their church, which meets in a family’s home, and took 15 members to the local police station. All the Christian literature was seized. The mother in the family, a 68-year old woman identified as Kerime Ataeva, who was not taken for questioning, had her hands beaten until they bled.
Eleven of them were later summoned to appear again at the police station on Oct. 1, and taken straight to court without prior warning. They were tried separately without any witnesses, and questioned about why they didn’t go to a registered religious community. Despite their claims that applications for registrations had been lodged by them repeatedly, they were found guilty of “violating the law on religious organizations.”
Turkmenistan is not a country where the rule of law applies. Human rights enshrined in the Constitution, including religious freedom, exist only on paper.
The country has a notorious ban on unregistered religious activity that is ironically matched with a difficulty in acquiring such registration. As a result, the State often conducts raids on unregistered religious activity that result in unreasonable fines that have to be paid in installments, over long periods of time. Ironically, Christians are fined for the refusal of the State to do its job.
The abuse of religious and civil liberties is a systemic problem that leads to fines, arrest or imprisonment – without warning, fair trials or due legal process. In August 2010, Protestant Pastor Ilmurad Nurliev was sentenced to four years in jail, for his leadership in Light to the World Protestant Church in Mary Province. He was arrested on false charges of swindling money from two women, who were occasional visitors at the church, and two men he had never met before his trial. He was released in February 2012 under amnesty and spoke out against the abuse of religious freedom, expressing concern over his Muslim inmates whom he felt were imprisoned by the State to punish them for exercising their freedom of belief.
Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses are also among those targeted and oppressed by the State. As of early March 2012, five Jehovah’s Witnesses had been jailed for refusing military service. Three former ‘prisoners of conscience’ stated that solitary confinement and beatings were part of the routine treatment they had to endure.
For their faith, Christians have lost their jobs and been evicted from their homes. Their children have been publicly humiliated and even threatened with expulsion from school. A Christian youth summer camp, organized by two registered churches, was raided by authorities in July 2010. Members were insulted, pressured and threatened for their faith and some of them lost their jobs for their participation.
The Christian minority population suffers regular psychological intimidation from some of the Muslim majority as well. Ethnic Turkmen Protestants are often summoned before the community, accused of betraying their “ancestral faith” and pressured to renounce Christianity.
Since 1991, after its independence from 69 years of Soviet rule, Turkmenistan has had only two Presidents, both Communist leaders who have ruled with an iron fist. After the death of its first leader in 2006, the new ruler, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, continues to imitate the absolute dictatorship of his predecessor and further the nation’s legacy of a disastrous human rights record.
But the scant and sporadic information from the ground doesn’t tell the whole story of the persecution of religious communities, particularly Protestants, in a country where independent journalists have to operate secretly, under the looming threat of arrest, detention and even torture.
According to the 2011 World Press Freedom Index, by Reporters Without Borders, Turkmenistan was ranked 3rd among nations with the worst conditions for the freedom of the press, behind only North Korea and Eritrea. All media is government-controlled, editors are appointed by the President and access to independent news websites is blocked.
Technology offers some hope for the people. The internet was permitted in 2008, although broadband connections are outrageously priced at $6,000 a month, in a country where the average monthly salary is less than $200. The 1 percent of the people who have access to the Internet are required to register their identity and internet history, despite only having access to something called Turkmenet, a highly censored sort of national Intranet.
But after an explosion took place outside the capital in July 2012, citizens with mobile phones were able to spread images and share information, despite the government trying to impose a news blackout. Although many were arrested in the aftermath, it signaled the slim but possible chances of change for a country that is trying to hide its sins in the shadows.
The church and the international community must be united in their concern for the future of this overlooked nation that lies in the vice-like grip of a merciless ruler. The intercession of the Church and concentrated pressure from the international community are both required to see the first light of dawn in one of the darkest places on earth.