ICC Note:
Pastor Makset, a Pastor who was recently released from prison in Kazakhstan, shares his harrowing story of imprisonment, release and escape to Europe where he was granted asylum. When he was first arrested, and threatened with extradition to Uzbekistan he told his wife, “This is very serious. Call everyone you can. Tell them what is happening to me.” His wife did, and it is in part because of pressure from the international community that they are free and safe.
01/28/2013 Kazakhstan (WWM) -For 90 days last fall, Makset Djabbarbergenov lived in a Kazakh prison cell, under threat of deportation to his native Uzbekistan to face almost-certain years of harsh jail time.
His alleged crime: Leading small Christian communities in house churches without official registration. By 2007, this had made “Pastor Makset” a wanted criminal, and he fled across the border into Kazakhstan to escape arrest. By 2009, he and his family had won refugee status there from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR. So far, Kazakhstan has refused to recognize the family’s refugee status.
Last year, Uzbekistan bumped up the convert pastor’s “criminal accusations” to charges of terrorism, and demanded the Kazakh government send him back home to face trial and a potential 15-year prison sentence.
His pregnant wife, Aygul, and their four young sons were left watching wide-eyed as the Kazakh police arrested him in their Almaty home at noon on Sept. 5. It would be three months before they saw each other again.
In late December, a few weeks after they had flown to safety and a new life in Europe, they told the story of their family’s faith ordeal in a series of interviews with World Watch Monitor. Their location is being withheld to preserve their security.
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“Now we need your husband,” they announced. Quickly, she called Makset before the police escorted her back home.
She broke into tears as the police took him away. “Oh, we just want his fingerprints!” they said, sounding glib. For the rest of the day, she said, “Our oldest son kept calling me during every break at school, worried and asking if his Dad had come back yet.”
At 5 p.m., her phone rang again. This time, it was Makset.
“This is very serious. Call everyone you can. Tell them what is happening to me.”
Then, nothing. The police took his phone. It was the last Aygul would hear from her husband for six days.
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