Uzbekistan--Christian Persecution in Uzbekistan

Asia: Uzbekistan Country Report Last Updated: July 2003 Code: A-3 (Click here for a code description.)
	(Click here for a list of ICC articles on Uzbekistan.) List of Articles Last Updated: April 1, 2003

Religious Atmosphere: 68.2% of this country's people are Sunni Muslim. 4.7% of the population is Christian with 90% of that being Orthodox. This segment appears to be decreasing.

Extremist Groups: No extremist groups have been cited for incidents of persecution in this country.

Government:

• Missionary activity and proselytizing are illegal.
    
• Any religious conversion is illegal. This is especially sensitive issue since Muslims claim all Uzbeks are Muslim and the Orthodox Church claims all those baptized as children as its members.

• All religious organizations must be officially registered with the government. To apply for registration, a religious organization must have one hundred members over the age of 18.
    
• Teaching religious doctrine on an individual basis is not allowed. Sunday school teachers will be forced to show proof of pedagogical training or face sanctions.

• Worship services cannot be held in people's private homes.
    
• In addition to registration papers, government officials can request access to any church document.
    
• A local church cannot produce, export, or import or spread any religious materials. These activities must be done at the religious organization's headquarters. The government also has the right to censor any imported religious material.
    
• A religious organization can only establish a headquarters if it has at least eight registered churches in eight different regions.
     
• No miners are allowed to be members of a religious group. This is likely due to the fact that the world's largest gold mine is found in this country.

Recent Actions:

• July 2002 - Adventist Christians in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan will go on trial this month. Charges against the Christians are unknown and stem from a raid on an Adventist church in Nukus in February. Church members have already been fined 22,660 sums (23 USD) - four times the minimum monthly wage - under Article 240, which punishes violations of the law on religious organizations. Authorities noted that literature confiscated from the church, including leaflets and a few Bibles, was printed in the Kazakh language, and was not acceptable for distribution. However, Kazakh-speaking people make up 30% of the population in Karakalpakstan. (ANS/F-18 News)
      

• March 2003 - Christian groups in the Karakalpakstan region of the country complained that they are being forced to meet secretly due to increasing pressure on the non-Muslim community. A Presbyterian church in Nukus has attempted to register three times since 2000 and has been denied. (F-18 News)
     
• December 25, 2002 - Kuralbai Asanbayev and Rashid Keulimjayev (see below) were sentenced to five days imprisonment under article 240 of the administrative code. Authorities denied that they had been tortured. (F-18 News)
     
• December 17, 2002 - Authorities in Muinak raided the home of Kuralbai Asanbayev, a Pentecostal Christian. Asanbayav and fellow believer Rashid Keulimjayev were taken into custody and tortured by police in an attempt to get them to confess to studying the Bible together. The following day the two men and their pastor were summoned to the police department. Keulimjayev was unable to attend due to the severe torture he received. The other two men reported being insulted and told that if they did not stop holding religious meetings they would be sent to prison where Islamic extremists would "use them like women." (F-18 News)
     
• December 2002 - Baptist pastor Boris Akrachkov was fined 6,000 som for leading an unregistered house church and showing "unlicensed" religious videos in Gulistan. The church has tried to register several times but was refused on the grounds that it did not have the minimum 100 people (ANS/Keston).
      
• November 19, 2002 - Nikolai Nikulin, a Baptist pastor from Navoi, was sentenced to 10 days in prison for holding an illegal religious meeting at his home. Nikulin's church refuses to register with the government (Keston).
     
• September 8, 2002 - Four people from the internal affairs department of Chirchik raided a Baptist worship service being held in a private home. All religious literature was confiscated and the identity papers of those in attendance were seized. The group was accused of "inciting religious hostility" because of the content of some Christian materials. (Keston)
      
• August 18, 2002 - Two Pentecostal church members were fined 40,000 som for attending an unregistered church in Gulistan. Tamara Dosova and Sanjar Jabarov were worshipping with other believers at a private home when it was raided by police on July 13. Mrs. Dosova's husband is the pastor of the church but was not in attendance the day of the raid. The church has tried to register three times, but officials have refused their applications. (ANS/Keston)
     
• August 9, 2002 - A Christian meeting near Nukus in the autonomous Karakalpakstan region, was raided by police. Religious literature, including Bibles, was seized from the 13 people present. (ANS/Keston)
      
• July 29, 2002 - In the town on Beruni, a Baptist pastor and his wife, Oleg and Natalia Bader, have been fined for leading a church for the deaf, and the unregistered church has been forced to stop its services. The Baders were fined 12,000 soms each, which is 3x the monthly minimum wage. They were not told which article of the administrative code they were sentenced under. Bader and his wife travel to the church, but now they have been warned not to travel back to Beruni. The church is no longer allowed to meet until it is registered. This, unfortunately, can be very difficult because of the harsh stance the authorities have taken against the Protestant Christian churches. (Keston)
  
• June 7, 2002 - Pastor Khym-Moon of the Mir Church (see May 25, 2002 below) was warned but church members were not fined for "conducting an unlawful service." The church has tried to register with the government but has thus far not received a response. (Keston)
     
• May 25, 2002 - A worship service in Nukus, in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan, was halted by officers from the Interior Ministry. People of local nationalities attending the Mir Church were forced to give statements as to what they were doing in a Christian church. A court hearing was scheduled for May 29 but was later postponed. It is believed that they will receive a fine, at the least. The church's registration was revoked in 2000 because the church offered a children's day camp. (Keston)
     
• May 13, 2002 - A meeting of the Novaya Zhizn (New Life) Church was interrupted by police, who interrogated all present. Two of the participants, foreign citizens, were released immediately. Four members the church, located in Nukus, Karakalpakstan, were threatened and later fined 19,000-27,000 sum ($26-37 USD) for holding an illegal church meeting. The church is not registered with the government. (Keston)
     
• June 24, 2001 – A church in Tashkent was raided during a worship service and 12 people were interrogated, including 2 children. The ten adults were charged, but charges against nine of them were later dropped. Pastor Nikolai Shevchenko was charged with leading an unregistered religious group.  The criminal charges were dropped, he says, “thanks to the support of international agencies such as the Baptist World Alliance and the Keston Institute.” Pavel Peychev, president of the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists of Middle Asia, told the Keston Institute, “Over the last year, we have not managed to register a single one of our churches.  The pressure on Baptists in Uzbekistan is growing.”
      
• March 30, 2001 – The book of Proverbs became the first ever portion of the Christian Bible in the Uzbek language to be legally printed inside Uzbekistan. At a special ceremony for the book’s release an official from the Committee for Religious Affairs hailed the Bible as a "priceless source of knowledge." The book of Proverbs, which was released by the Bible Society of Uzbekistan, is hoped to be the first of several books of the Old Testament to be published with governmental approval.
    
• September 29, 2000 – After pressure from abroad, Nicholai Rudinsky was released from prison.
     
• July 25, 2000 – Police disbanded a Christian youth camp and arrested Nicholai Rudinksy. Rudinsky had helped to organize the camp. When interrogated by police, however, he refused to reveal the names of other organizers. Because the camp was run by a registered church and legally funded, police could not bring a charge against Rudinsky. Thus, they claimed they had found 0.2 grams of opium in Rudinsky’s pocket and charged him with drug possession.
     
• August 1999 — In an amazing turnaround, the Christians mentioned jailed below were released from prison after receiving pardons from the Uzbeki government. Those receiving pardons included Rashid Turibayev, Parakhat Yangibayev, Eset Tanishev, Na’IL Asanov, Ibrahim Yusupov, and Leonty Lulkin. The legalities involved in the releases were uncertain. In some cases, those released have yet to have their civil liberties fully restored. It is felt by many that this move on the part of the Uzbeki government was tied with the annual presentation by the U.S. Department of State on the state of international religious liberty to U.S. Congress (September 1, 1999). Uzbekistan apparently wanted to avoid being branded as a state that flagrantly violates international religious liberty standards.
     
• July 13, 1999 — Appeals requests for Turibayev, Yangibayev, and Tanishev were denied thus sealing their fates to long terms in prison.
     
• June 24, 1999 — Ibrahim Yusupov, the head of a Pentecostal church in Tashkent received a one-year prison sentence for missionary activity.
     
• June 11, 1999 — Pentecostal bishop Leonty Lulkin along with two others in Chirchik were sentenced to a fine that was the equivalent of 100 months of salary for illegal religious activities.

• June 9, 1999 — Pastor Turibayev of Nukus was sentenced to 15 years in prison while Yangibayev and Issed Tanisheiv were handed down 10-year jail sentences and had their property confiscated. This has left their families destitute. A television reporter said that he was guilty of "deceiving ordinary people" and distributing materials "glorifying the society of Christ."
     
• June 3, 1999 — Lt. Sergei Danileiko, a Christian military officer, flew to Karakalpak as a crew member and handed out religious tracts to soldiers while there. His plane left but then was ordered to return when his distribution of the tracts was reported. He was then arrested after a search was conducted turning up more materials on his person.
      
• March 9, 1999 - Two members of the Full Gospel Church in Nukus were arrested on drug charges and imprisoned. Turibayev is the pastor of the church and Parakat Yangibayev is a member who had made a translation of the Holy Bible in the Karakalpak language. Pastor Turibayev was said to have suffered greatly at the hand of the Uzbek authorities. In December 1996 he was tried (charges unknown) and held in a psychiatric hospital where he was administered drugs that caused severe muscle pain. In addition, he was badly beaten and received death threats. He was sentenced to two years of forced labor for holding meetings not sanctioned by the authorities. He was kept under 24-hour surveillance up until the time of his latest arrest. Yangibayev was said to have required medicine for tuberculosis but was denied.
     
• March 8, 1999 - A Protestant Christian named Na’il was arrested at his home at 1:00 am on charges of drug possession. He was allegedly persuaded to sign a confession stating that he agreed with the possession charge but that he had "found" the drugs. His house was searched illegally and Christian materials were confiscated. Apparently, Na’il belonged to a Christian fellowship that was about to register with the authorities. He was eventually handed down a five-year prison sentence.
     
• 1998 - New laws and legislation were passed that have severely restricted religious freedom in this former Soviet republic (See "Government" above). This has led to the forced closing of Baptist churches in Gagarin, Chirchik, Vodnik and Yunus-Abad in Tashkent. The church in Urgench is under threat of closure. In May of 1998, a Christian fellowship called the "House of Prayer" was closed. This fellowship was formed in a prison and built by the prisoners. Throughout the year, evangelical Christians have been arrested and imprisoned in numerous areas throughout the country for holding religious gatherings in homes and teaching Sunday school classes. Persons arrested have included Ivan Starukhtas of the Tashkent Baptist Church, four Christians in Termez, and several members of a Pentecostal church in Shumanai.

Prisoners: ICC is not aware of any prisoners being held for their Christian beliefs at this time.

Suggested Actions You Might Take:

• Pray for the Christians of Uzbekistan that they may be better protected from harm and harassment and that the Christian message may be heard and received by all the people of this country.
• Pray that the harsh anti-religious legislation passed in 1998 is repealed.
• Write a respectful letter to one or more government officials at the address listed below. * Express your continuing concern for the safety and well being of the Christians in Uzbekistan mentioned above as well as for their right to practice their faith freely and without harassment and arrest. Commend them for the recent prisoner releases.
• Contact the elected national officials (Senators, Congressman etc.) for your area as well as the U.S. State Department and express concern for the well being of the Christians in Uzbekistan asking them to make an inquiry into the status of those Christians who have been arrested. Ask them to officially protest the harsh new legislation.
• Please keep us informed of any replies or results you may receive! Contact ICC by email at icc@persecution.org.

POSTED:  July 16, 2003

ICC Articles on Uzbekistan:

• April 2003 - Prayer - Indonesia, Muslim World, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Vietnam
• June 24, 2002 - Prayer - Belarus, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Uzbekistan, China, Jordan
• October 2000 - CONCERN - Recent News of Persecution Around the Globe (Uzbekistan)