A Special Report by ICC
5/15/2013 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – A new form of persecution seems to be emerging in Kazakhstan through staged attempts to frame and discredit Christians. In at least one such case, a pastor was forced to take his case public and speak out against the perpetrators.
On March 30, Pastor Igor Andreikin, along with seven other men, arranged to visit a sauna facility. Later, they found out that unidentified men from an unnamed “law enforcement agency” had tried to draw the sauna staff into a conspiracy to frame the Pastors by allowing two prostitutes to enter the sauna while the men were alone, so that the police could catch them in the act and discredit their ministry, nullifying their work in the country.
One of the men with Andreikin, Pastor Medvedev, later discovered that someone approached the sauna staff before their arrival, asking them to allow two young women into the sauna when the church members were alone, according to Forum 18 News.
“This officer several times stressed that a very important operation was underway,” Pastor Medvedev told Forum 18. “He said he knew who had booked the sauna for this time and that he knew that only men would be there. He gave the names and nicknames of the prostitutes.”
When the staff told the man that children would be there and that the sauna’s clients could lodge a complaint to the police, they were simply told, the “most important thing was to let the girls in and that they should be able to take off all their clothes. And after that, two police officers will arrive.”
Two young women were on the street outside when the church members arrived, but the sauna staff did not let them in. The women telephoned someone and gave the phone to the sauna staff through the window, but the staff insisted on refusing them the right to enter.
‘Third Forces’
Although it was a failed attempt to discredit Pastor Adreikin’s ministry, and any involvement of the police or secret police has been officially denied, the incident has shocked the church and drawn attention to the lengths that the authorities will go to in order to stifle the influence of Christianity in a country that supposedly upholds religious freedom for all.
Corey Bailey, ICC’s Regional Manager for Central Asia, says, “It is instances such as this which give Kazakhstan the reputation of being a country that has religious freedom in word, but not in action. While the government continues to claim freedom of religious speech and freedom of religion the continued harassment of religious minorities, including Christians, makes it clear that this is not actually the case.”
“I believe there are certain ‘third forces’ who are seeking any possibility to discredit us before the public of Kazakhstan and the international society,” Pastor Medvedev insisted to Forum 18. The possible presence of these faceless ‘third forces’ raises great concern within the church.
“If there are in our country certain ‘third forces,’ as many eye-witnesses have told us, I have a great fear for my own safety and the safety of other church leaders,” Pastor Andreikin told Forum 18. He fears that given “boundaries have been crossed,” there is nothing to stop officials planting drugs on church leaders or using other methods of framing them. He stated that he was going public on this case to try to prevent such methods be used in future.
This incident marks the lowest form of harassment against Pastor Andreikin and the New Life Pentecostal Church, who have repeatedly been targeted with unauthorized raids, interrogations, warnings and interruptions of the service.
Church Raid
On March 31, during the Easter service, four police officers raided the church, led by Captain Uvaideldinov of Stepnogorsk Police’s Criminal Investigation Department. They were accompanied by Orynbasar Beisenbina, head of the Internal Policy Department at the town’s Akimat (local administration).
“Beisenbina began to accuse me of being a missionary and conducting illegal missionary activity,” Pastor Andreikin told Forum 18. He rejected the accusation, saying he is a duly accredited pastor of his church and that Stepnogorsk New Life Church’s charter allows it to invite visitors to preach.
However, the police did not listen to his arguments and insisted that he and the church’s pastor, Yevgeni Medvedev, had to come to the town police station to write statements, even though there was no legal requirement to do so. “But so as not to inflame the situation, Pastor Medvedev and I were forced to submit to the demands of the police Captain and go to the police station and write statements there,”  he told Forum 18.
After the raid, Pastor Andreikin looked at the website of Sana Centre, a member of the government-backed Association of Centres for Work with Victims of Destructive Religious Movements. He was shocked to discover that Sana’s Director Gulnara Orazbayeva, wrote an article where she described Pentecostal Christians as a “destructive new religious movement.”
Kazakhstan’s actions appear to be speaking louder than its words. To reverse this growing perception, a strong judicial response in favor of Pastor Andreikin’s public statements would send a clear message to the authorities and bad elements in the system that such manipulative ways to discredit a legitimate and law-abiding community of Christians will not be tolerated. The Kazakh leadership will be well-advised to actively discourage such methods because they will only serve to ruin its own reputation in the international community.