FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
========================================== =======
Thursday 21 December 2006
TURKMENISTAN: AFTER NIYAZOV, WHAT HOPE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM?
Following today’s (21 December) death of Turkmenistan’s dictator,
Saparmurat Niyazov, victims of his policies have told Forum 18 News
Service that, in the words of an exiled Protestant, "the transition
leaders have already praised Niyazov and his policies and vowed to
continue them." The country’s Foreign Minister and other officials refused
to comment to Forum 18. Exiled human rights activist Farid Tukhbatullin, of
the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, noted that hostility to religious
freedom was a "personal instruction" of Niyazov. But "this does not mean
though that his subordinates were merely implementing his will," he said.
"Almost all of them shared his views on this entirely." He pointed out
that "the overwhelming majority of officials of the police and secret
police have a vested interest in preserving the current situation, under
which they enjoy unlimited rights." It is unclear whether Niyazov’s
invented Ruhnama religion will continue to be state-imposed.
TURKMENISTAN: AFTER NIYAZOV, WHAT HOPE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM?
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <;
In the wake of the death of Turkmenistan’s veteran dictator, President
Saparmurat Niyazov, this morning (21 December), observers and victims of
his anti-religious freedom policy have told Forum 18 News Service that
although it was the late president who personally instituted the policy,
it has wide support among the country’s leaders. Such observers fear this
policy could continue. "The transition leaders have already praised
Niyazov and his policies and vowed to continue them," one Protestant who
had to flee Turkmenistan to escape persecution told Forum 18 on 21
December. "If the government is only going to continue the same policy I
don’t think there will be many chances, including in the area of democracy
and religious freedom."
Most observers are holding off from immediate predictions as to whether
Turkmenistan will continue its autocratic, isolationist course. "The whole
country is in mourning," one analyst told Forum 18 from the capital
Ashgabad [Ashgabat] on 21 December. "I believe it is too early to predict
what will happen. A junta will come to power, but in a milder form. I
don’t think believers will face serious pressure – officials will all be
engaged in intrigues about power and gas."
Forum 18 reached Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov by telephone on 21
December, but he declined to speak about the country’s future course.
Officials at the Registration Department of the Justice Ministry also
declined to comment, as did the official who answered the phone of Murad
Karriyev, deputy head of the government’s Gengeshi (Committee) for
Religious Affairs.
Although harassment of religious communities has eased in the past year or
so, between 1997 and 2003 no religious communities apart from some
state-approved Muslim and Russian Orthodox communities were allowed to
function. Police raids and harsh punishments on those conducting religious
activity without state permission were the norm. But the structure of state
control – including complete control of Islam from the inside and control
on all other faiths from outside – remains.
The exiled Protestant believes the anti religious policy came from the
president. "He instituted this policy because he was afraid of any
movement in society."
The Protestant said that religious believers in Turkmenistan want the
authorities to provide all the rights to religious freedom set out in the
country’s Constitution and in international agreements. "We want the
government to guarantee that registration will not be used as a
restriction on religious freedom," the Protestant insisted, echoing
long-standing complaints from religious leaders within Turkmenistan that
the government’s insistence that religious communities must register and
thereby submit themselves to burdensome and intrusive state scrutiny (see
a commentary by a Protestant within Turkmenistan at
< id=728>).
"I don’t know if any improvement is now likely, though we hope for the
good," the Protestant added, saying it was too early to consider returning
to Turkmenistan while the threat of being punished for peaceful religious
activity remains.
Like the exiled Protestant, exiled human rights activist Farid
Tukhbatullin, who heads the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, agrees
that the anti-religious policy was instituted on the "personal
instruction" of President Niyazov. "This does not mean though that his
subordinates were merely implementing his will," Tukhbatullin told Forum
18 on 21 December. "Almost all of them shared his views on this entirely.
And if the current authorities continue in the same way, then the
anti-religious policy will carry on."
Tukhbatullin saw a small hope in the possibility that the future President
– whoever they may be – will have to soften the government’s policies to
consolidate power both domestically and internationally. "However, the
overwhelming majority of officials of the police and the National Security
Committee (KNB) secret police have a vested interest in preserving the
current situation, under which they enjoy unlimited rights."
Jehovah’s Witnesses have told Forum 18 that, throughout 2006, their
members across Turkmenistan have been detained for up to 48 hours –
especially while talking to others about their faith on the street or at
people’s doors – and meetings in private homes have been raided.
Following previous long-standing practices against religious minorities,
local imam I. Janmedov joined police officers and an official of the local
administration during a 15 May raid on a Jehovah’s Witness meeting in a
private flat in the northern town of Konye-Urgench [Koneürgench]. After
being taken to the local police station, all the Jehovah’s Witnesses were
interrogated, insulted and threatened before being released. Religious
literature confiscated from them was not returned. In late June, R.
Nasyrov, a Jehovah’s Witness from Turkmenabad (formerly Charjou
[Charjew]), was forcibly held for five days at a drug-treatment centre in
Atamurad (formerly Kerki) in southern Turkmenistan, where he became
seriously ill.
In early June, military conscription officers from the northern Lebap
region forcibly took Jehovah’s Witness Serdar Satlykov to the detention
centre for those refusing to perform compulsory military service,
Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18. After refusing pressure from the head
of a military unit to accept military service, Satlykov was taken to
deputy defence minister, Kurban Muhammednazarov, who then ordered that he
be held in a psychiatric unit. Satlykov – who refuses military service on
grounds of his faith – was detained there from 6 to 20 June before being
freed. He has not been harassed since his release. Fellow Jehovah’s
Witness Aga Soyegov was held in psychiatric hospital in late 2005 to try
to pressure him to accept compulsory military service (see F18News 10
February 2006 < 725>).
Even the Russian Orthodox Church – one of only two legal faiths between
1997 and 2003 – faces restrictions on its activity. The Turkmen Initiative
for Human Rights (TIHR) reported in October that final construction work on
the women’s convent next to St Nicholas’ Church in Ashgabad had to come to
a halt in late 2005, after President Niyazov warned the Orthodox clergy in
a private conversation that if they carried on with the building work he
would order the demolition of all the country’s Orthodox churches.
Other places of worship – such as those of the majority religious
community Islam, the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Armenian
Apostolic Church have also been demolished (see F18News 23 May 2006
< e_id=786>).
"The walls of the future convent were put up with the funds of
parishioners and by their own efforts," TIHR quoted Russian Orthodox
parishioner Svetlana M. as declaring. "Unfortunately the powers that be
don’t understand that the prayers pronounced within the walls of a convent
– just as those in mosques – call for peace and harmony."
Unclear at present is whether the new government will continue to impose
the cult of personality around Niyazov that was imposed during his
lifetime. Niyazov’s two-volume Ruhnama (Book of the Soul) has become
compulsory reading in schools and other institutions and has been imposed
on religious communities. Quotations from it have even – in an action that
is for devout Muslims blasphemous – been carved around the interior of the
dome of a vast new mosque built in Niyazov’s home village of Kipchak near
Ashgabad, where he is due to be buried (see F18News 1 March 2005
< e_id=522>).
Turkmenistan’s cult of the leader’s personality and state-imposition of an
invented religion is far closer to North Korea’s Juche, or self-reliance,
than it is to Stalin’s personality cult. North Korea’s Juche is – in a
similar way to Turkmenistan’s Ruhnama – synonymous with the cult of the
deceased North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung, or Kimilsungism (see F18News 29
March 2006 < 752>).
"Although religion here is separate from the state, imams and ordinary
believers appealed to the government and the local authorities to be
allowed to quote from the Ruhnama in mosques," one Ruhnama teacher – who
preferred not to be identified – insisted to Forum 18 back in October.
"This was the initiative of imams and believers, who wanted to do so out
of respect for the President." The teacher alleged that imams only read
parts of the work connected with religion. He said mosques hold Ruhnama
days each Saturday, but said he did not know if communities of other
faiths do the same. "For Christians and others it’s their affair – they
have their own rituals."
The teacher denied that the presence of copies of the Ruhnama in mosques
on a par with the Koran was an insult to Muslims’ faith. "If you want to
read the Ruhnama you can – you’re free to do so or not." He also denied
that Muslims are offended by quotations from the Ruhnama at the Kipchak
mosque. "People are calm about this," he told Forum 18. "They come to the
mosque to worship Allah – it doesn’t matter if the quotation is from the
Koran or the Ruhnama, as the Ruhnama also speaks of Allah."
The teacher explained that each local administration across the country
has an official or officials who "help" local Muslims and other faiths. He
was unable to explain to Forum 18 why communities wanted such help. He
claimed initially that "ordinary believers" choose their imams, but when
pressed explained that the leading imams in each region and district are
named by the local authorities in agreement with the Gengeshi for
Religious Affairs. He said the government had issued an instruction that
the hundred or so regional and district imams should not ask believers for
money as they are already paid by the state, a subsidy no other faith gets.
The teacher made no comment on the cases of mosques destroyed for,
apparently in some cases, failure to honour the President Niyazov’s books
of alleged "spiritual writings" (see F18News 4 January 2005
< e_id=481> and 19 November 2003
< e_id=187>).
He said he did not know the background to the removal by Niyazov of
successive chief muftis, and declined to discuss the case of Nasrullah ibn
Ibadullah, removed as chief mufti in 2003 and sentenced in 2004 to 22
years’ imprisonment on charges the government has persistently refused to
make public (see F18News 8 March 2004
< e_id=271>). Despite rumours that
he had been freed in the October 2006 prisoner amnesty, it is believed
Nasrullah is still being held.
The teacher defended the government’s controls on the number of pilgrims
going on the haj to Mecca, currently set at 188 annually. He said lists of
applicants are held by the religious affairs officials in each local
administration, adding that he is 3,000th on the list. Turkmenistan still
imposes the strictest controls in Central Asia on haj pilgrims (see
F18News 5 January 2006
< e_id=711>).
In early November 2006, the Turkmen government announced that, as in
previous years, only 188 pilgrims will be permitted – only enough to fit
on one aeroplane of the state-run Turkmenistan Airlines – far below the
quota allocated to Turkmenistan by the Saudi authorities.
The teacher claimed that local imams – who are also part of the local
administration – play no role in evaluating whether religious minorities
are allowed to register religious communities in their area. "In the case
of non-Muslim communities, they merely pass on the applications to the
local administration before it goes to the justice ministry in Ashgabad.
Usually religious people don’t say No to others who believe in God," he
claimed, but could not then explain why imams have taken part in recent
years on raids on religious minority communities and threatened them at
interrogations at local administrations.
The teacher also claimed that local authorities cannot refuse to allow a
religious community to function, if the Justice Ministry has given it
registration.
While many ordinary residents of Turkmenistan fear potential instability
in the wake of Niyazov’s death, religious believers have told Forum 18
they hope their ability to practice their faith freely will improve. But
they remain cautious, as the new leaders have so far indicated they will
continue the current course.
Before President Niyazov’s death, many within religious communities
doubted whether limited access to state registration – trumpeted by the
regime as a "liberalisation" – made any real improvement to their
situation in practice (see F18News 24 May 2006
< e_id=787>). Unregistered
religious activity remains – against international human rights standards
– illegal. Despite regime claims of the abolition of exit visas, and exit
ban against those the state dislikes is still in place (see F18News 31 May
2006 < 790>).
In June this year, a Baptist, Aleksandr Frolov, was deported solely for
his religious activity. This was despite the fact that the deportation
separated him from his wife, their three year old son, and their five
month old daughter (see F18News 14 June 2006
< e_id=799>).
Turkmenistan has not been able to explain to Forum 18 News Service why
requests by Asma Jahangir, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of
Religion and Belief, to visit the country have gone unmet (see F18News 25
January 2006 < 718>). (END)
For a personal commentary by a Protestant within Turkmenistan, on the
fiction – despite government claims – of religious freedom in the country,
and how religious communities and the international community should
respond to this, see < 728>
For more background, see Forum 18’s Turkmenistan religious freedom survey
at < 672>
A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at
< id=806>, and of religious
intolerance in Central Asia is at
< id=815>.
A printer-friendly map of Turkmenistan is available at
< s/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=turkme& gt;
(END)
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