Christians Threatened in Turkmenistan

(Forum 18) – Protestants in north-eastern Turkmenistan have been threatened for holding services and preaching Christianity, Forum 18 News Service has learned. “The head of the village administration, the police, the National Security Ministry (NSM) secret police and Muslim clergy in the person of the mullah started to put pressure on them,” local believers who wished not to be named told Forum 18. As well as threatening to deport the Protestants from their village if they continue to hold services, local officials threatened to cut off gas and electricity supplies to the family home and withhold pensions, a serious threat in impoverished Turkmenistan .