Turkmenistan: Deportee Faces Criminal Trial for “lllegal” Return
4/3/2007 Turkmenistan. Forum 18 News. 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 State Security Ministry (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.
