Turkmenistan: “Ilmurad will pray and praise God at Christmas in the labour camp”
By Felix Corley
12/22/2010 Turkmenistan (Forum 18 News Service) – Turkmenistan has not released any of its nine known religious prisoners of conscience in its latest prisoner amnesty, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The latest prisoner of conscience sentenced for exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief – Protestant pastor Ilmurad Nurliev, given a four year jail term with forcible “medical” treatment in October – is amongst those excluded. Among the other prisoners of conscience also excluded is Ahmet Hudaybergenov, a Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector sentenced to one and a half years in September. Pastor Nurliev’s wife Maya – who is under MSS secret police surveillance – told Forum 18 that her husband has been sent to Seydi Labour Camp. Previous Baptists and Jehovah’s Witness prisoners in the Camp appear to have been tortured with psychotropic [mind-altering] drugs, and a former prisoner of conscience described conditions in the Camp as “like something from the Middle Ages”. Maya Nurlieva told Forum 18 that “Ilmurad will pray and praise God at Christmas in the labour camp – he has composed hymns and songs in Turkmen and Russian”.
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