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
26 July 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Further sentences for religious conscientious objection feared
On 3 August Jehovah's Witness Suleiman Udaev is due to go on criminal trial in the eastern town of Mary for refusing compulsory military service on grounds of religious conscience, Forum 18 News Service has learned. His trial will come two weeks after three young Jehovah's Witnesses were sentenced on the same charges in the capital Ashgabad. Two received suspended two year sentences. The third - Nuryagdy Gayyrov – had his eighteen-month prison sentence transferred to a one-year suspended sentence on 23 July after the prosecutor appealed against what he regarded as a harsh sentence. The three face tight restrictions. They cannot leave Ashgabad and must be back home each evening by 8 pm. One of those sentenced told Forum 18 he was beaten during pre-trial interrogation "for no reason". The Jehovah's Witnesses fear more trials will follow.
20 July 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Jailing for religious conscientious objection starts again
Turkmenistan's most recently sentenced prisoner of conscience is Jehovah's Witness Nuryagdy Gayyrov, sentenced to one and a half years in a labour camp, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. He was sentenced on 18 July for refusing, on grounds of religious conscience, to do compulsory military service. No alternative civilian service is permitted and this is the second time Gayyrov has been jailed for this "offence." The trial took place in secret and, Jehovah's Witnesses stated, "it was only when the police allowed one of us to see him in his cell to tell him his mother had died the night before the trial that anyone knew he'd already been sentenced." Two others - Bayram Ashirgeldyyev and Aleksandr Zuyev – were respectively given 18 month and two year suspended sentences. Gayyrov will serve his sentence in Seydi Labour Camp, where Baptist prisoner of conscience Vyacheslav Kalataevsky is on a three year term. Since the new President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov took over, violations of freedom of thought, conscience and belief have significantly increased.
20 July 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Old "offences" used to punish current religious activity
Jehovah's Witnesses are the latest religious minority in Turkmenistan to have noted to Forum 18 News Service the authorities' use of past "offences" to repress current religious activity. Baptists have also noted this trend as part of the authorities' increasing use of anti-terrorist police and MSS secret police raids, arrests, imprisonment and deportation to punish peaceful religious activity. Since the beginning of 2007, Jehovah's Witnesses have told Forum 18 that pressure on their members has increased. Meetings have been raided, literature confiscated and fines imposed. Jehovah's Witnesses still working in state agencies are being held up for harassment and ridicule in front of fellow workers and pressured to leave their jobs, while many have already been dismissed or had their contracts discontinued. The authorities have refused to discuss these cases with Forum 18 and local Jehovah's Witnesses "have not seen any indications of willingness on the part of state agencies to open a dialogue with them to resolve the difficulties."
18 July 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Another Baptist deported to Russia
Seven weeks after being arrested for religious activity, Baptist pastor Yevgeni Potolov has been deported to Russia, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Pastor Potolov's deportation separates him from his wife and seven children. While he was in prison, the MSS secret police gave the Migration Service a document declaring the Pastor to be a "dangerous person." Forum 18 has been unable to find out from officials why Potolov was deported and why arrests, raids and deportations in punishment for peaceful religious activity are increasing. Others deported in earlier years for their religious activity have not been allowed to return to their homes. After Baptist leader Aleksandr Frolov was deported in June 2006, his wife Marina, a Turkmen citizen, appealed for him to be allowed back to live with her and their two young children. But in the face of Turkmenistan's refusal of family re-unification, she has now joined him in Russia. "I hadn't seen my husband for a year and didn't want our family to be split," she told Forum 18.
4 July 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Conscientious objectors detained for trial
Two Jehovah's Witnesses - Nuryagdy Gayyrov and Bayram Ashirgeldyyev – have been arrested in Turkmenistan for refusing to perform compulsory military service on grounds of religious conscience, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. They are currently awaiting trial. Gayyrov was jailed in 1999 for one year for the same "crime." The cell where they are being held is "very crowded with 20-30 persons sharing a cell," Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18. "Between the overcrowding, the sweltering daytime heat, and the lack of adequate ventilation, the conditions in the detention unit are deplorable." There are three other known religious believers in jail for their religious activity, the former chief mufti Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah and two Baptists, Vyacheslav Kalataevsky and Yevgeny Potolov. No officials have been prepared to discuss with Forum 18 the growing numbers of people being detained and jailed for their religious beliefs.
3 July 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Baptist prisoner of conscience moved, another Baptist still held, a third Protestant still denied family reunification
Baptist prisoner of conscience Vyacheslav Kalataevsky – who is on a three year labour camp sentence – has been moved to a harsher labour camp in Seydi, Forum 18 News Service has been told. The camp is 1,200 kms (750 miles) away from his family home, and the family were denied the opportunity to see him in transit by armed guards with machine guns. Another Baptist, Yevgeny Potolov, remains in jail six weeks after his arrest. The MSS secret police appear to be indicating that he may be deported for his religious activity, local Baptists told Forum 18. Meanwhile Wendy Lucas, a US citizen whose husband Merdan Shirmedov has been denied permission to leave Turkmenistan since January, told Forum 18 there is no progress in his case. Turkmen Ambassador to the USA Meret Orazov has not answered her questions and has refused to answer Forum 18's questions. The exit ban means that Shirmedov has not yet seen his first child, a girl, who was born in the USA on 18 May.
25 May 2007
TURKMENISTAN: "It seems the bad times are coming back"
Sources within Turkmenistan have told Forum 18 News Service that they think that "the bad times are coming back." The latest indication of a growing crackdown on Turkmenistan's Protestants is the threats and public humiliation faced by a group of ethnic Turkmen Christians. Houses were searched by the MSS secret police, the hakim (head) of the district administration, the head of the collective farm and the local mullah. Two compulsory public meetings were then held, attended by hakimlik officials, the collective farm chairman, the MSS secret police, the ordinary police and the local mullah. At both meetings, Protestant parents were named and threats were made that electricity, gas and water supplies to their homes would be cut off, that their children would be expelled from school, and that they would not be given farm land to cultivate. Christians were accused of "conducting criminal activity and political activity against the government" and the meetings were told that the authorities "would do whatever it takes to crush and destroy them." The raid and threats coincided with a visit to the country by Ambassador Christian Strohal, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.
22 May 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Second Baptist arrested in Turkmenbashi crackdown
Days after a Baptist prisoner of conscience was sentenced to three years in a labour camp another Baptist, Yevgeny Potolov, from the same city was arrested by the MSS secret police on 19 May, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. No charges have been brought against him and the MSS is refusing to tell his wife Nadezhda why he has been held. Also, as well as jailing Vyacheslav Kalataevsky in a labour camp, the authorities are seizing two armchairs from his family after his wife Valentina refused to pay a fine for holding worship services in her home. "Had I been fined for committing a crime, that would have been fair," she told Forum 18. "But it's not right to be fined for worshipping God." Meanwhile, Merdan Shirmedov, a Protestant barred from leaving Turkmenistan to join his wife Wendy Lucas in the USA, missed the birth of their first child, a girl, on 18 May. "It was very very emotional not having Merdan there – he was so looking forward to being present at the birth," Lucas told Forum 18.
14 May 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Baptist prisoner of conscience jailed for three years
Turkmenistan has today (14 May) jailed a Baptist, Vyacheslav Kalataevsky, for three years in a labour camp, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The official reason for the jail sentence is illegally crossing the border, after being deported for "establishing a prayer house and by organising meetings of Christian Baptists". Before and during this month's trial, Turkmen authorities asked many questions about Kalataevsky's Baptist congregation, such as how many people attend, who they are and how many of them are children. While Kalataevsky's trial took place, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, was visiting Turkmenistan. "President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov told Louise Arbour that all conventions and human rights principles are respected," the family told Forum 18. "Our lawyer spoke up in court asking why, if this is so, Vyacheslav's case was now in court." Meanwhile, Merdan Shirmedov, who is also a Baptist, is still being denied permission to leave Turkmenistan to join his pregnant wife in the USA. The family's first child is due to be born on 25 May.
23 April 2007
TURKMENISTAN: May trial for imprisoned Baptist leader?
The criminal trial of imprisoned Baptist leader Vyacheslav Kalataevsky may begin very soon, his wife has told Forum 18 News Service. "The court will not tell me officially when the trial is due to start, but we have indications it could be on 2 or 4 May," Valentina Kalataevskaya told Forum 18. Kalataevsky was arrested at his home by the MSS secret police on charges of illegally crossing the border. His wife is convinced that "although officials don't mention it, I believe there is a religious motivation to the case." In 2001 he was expelled from Turkmenistan, where he was born and lives, during a campaign of expulsions of foreign passport holders engaged in religious activity. Since Kalataevsky's arrest on 12 March, his wife has been denied access to him. There has also been no progress in the case of Merdan Shirmedov, a Protestant denied permission to leave Turkmenistan to join his pregnant wife in the USA. Officials have refused to discuss these cases, and the case of the imprisoned former Chief Mufti Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, with Forum 18.
29 March 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Deportee faces criminal trial for "illegal" return
Summarily deported in 2001 in punishment for his religious activities with his local Baptist congregation, Vyacheslav Kalataevsky was forced to return to Turkmenistan "illegally" after being dumped with no money or food across the border in Kazakhstan. On 12 March, while he and his wife were trying to regularise his status in his native town of Turkmenbashi (formerly Krasnovodsk), he was arrested by the Ministry of State Security (MSS) secret police. His wife told Forum 18 News Service she has been denied access to him since his arrest. Kalataevsky faces criminal trial on charges of illegally crossing the border. MSS investigator Selbi Charyeva refused absolutely to discuss his case with Forum 18, declaring only: "He's guilty!" Another Protestant, Merdan Shirmedov, has been denied an exit visa to join Wendy Lucas, the American he married last August who is now expecting their first child. She told Forum 18 she believes the refusal to allow her husband to leave his homeland is retaliation for the prominent role his family has in a Protestant fellowship in their home town of Dashoguz, pointing to other official harassment of the family.
16 February 2007
TURKMENISTAN: Family concerned over imprisoned former Chief Mufti
Increasingly concerned about the fate of the imprisoned former Chief Mufti Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah is his extended family, who live in the northern region around Dashoguz [Dashhowuz], Forum 18 News Service has learnt. "We have never once been allowed a meeting, never once have they accepted parcels for him and we don't even know where he is being held," one relative complained. No verified information on the whereabouts or state of health of the 59-year-old Nasrullah has been received since he was sentenced to 22 years' imprisonment at a closed trial in Ashgabad in March 2004. Relatives say rumours he was freed at the time of last October's prisoner amnesty are not true. No officials have been prepared to discuss Nasrullah's case with Forum 18. Forum 18 knows of no other individuals currently imprisoned for their religious activity.