TURKMENISTAN: Mass fines for unregistered religious worship
ICC Note:
Eleven Baptists, one as young as 17, were fined two months of wages for holding a worship service at the end of last month. Turkmenistan has made meetings between Protestant Christians illegal.
By Felix Corley
10/2/2012 Turkmenistan (Forum 18)- Eleven members of a Baptist church in the northern city of Dashoguz were fined yesterday (1 October) for participating in an unregistered religious community, Protestants have told Forum 18 News Service. Two of the judges – one of whom sent a Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector to prison in March – refused to discuss with Forum 18 why they were punishing individuals for exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief. The fines bring to more than twenty the number of Protestants known to have been fined since the summer amid an upsurge in raids.
The victims are planning to seek the assistance of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Centre in the Turkmen capital Ashgabad [Ashgabat], Protestants who asked not to be identified for fear of further state reprisals told Forum 18. Ironically, the fines came on the day the OSCE discussed religious freedom at its Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw.
Forum 18 was unable to find any official at the national level in Ashgabad prepared to comment on the raids, threats and fines. The man who answered the telephone of Gurbanberdy Nursakhatov, Deputy Chair of the government’s Gengesh (Council) for Religious Affairs, put the phone down on 2 October as soon as Forum 18 called. Subsequent calls went unanswered.
Exit ban lifted
Meanwhile, the Turkmen authorities allowed a Turkmen-born Protestant who now lives in Russia, Oleg Piyashev, to leave the country to return to his family in Russia, fellow Protestants told Forum 18. He crossed the border from Dashoguz to Uzbekistan on 1 October, and from there flew back to Moscow, arriving in the early hours of the following morning.
Caught in a police raid on a religious meeting in a private flat in Dashoguz on 5 September while on a short return visit to his homeland, Piyashev had been among three Protestants fined on 14 September for their participation in the meeting. The Migration Service then prevented him from boarding his return flight to Russia at Ashgabad Airport on 23 September without giving any reason, despite his valid ticket.
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