49er Online, California State University, Long Beach
May 13 2004

Senate approves Beach Pride resolution
By Gerry Wachovsky
On-line Forty-Niner

The final A.S. Senate meeting of the semester saw an approval of a
resolution authorizing a new agreement on the distribution of student
fees.

Executive director of Associated Students Inc., Richard Haller,
detailed the plan to the Senate and broke down how, exactly, the
funds would be distributed. The sports operating budgets, according
to Haller, were reduced 5 percent, and he also said that A.S.I. will
be responsible for annually auditing the sports, athletics and
recreation department’s agreement with the new terms. Haller said he
believes this will create more student involvement within S.A.R.

In other news, A.S.I. President Danny Vivian, in his weekly report to
the Senate, discussed the deal that Charles Reed, chancellor of the
Cal State University system, California Education Secretary Richard
Riordan and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger came to regarding the
budget crisis and its relation to higher education.

According to Vivian, they agreed not to increase the General Fund
this year and they will not cut the Educational Opportunity Program.

Vivian also noted that while undergraduate fees could go up by 14
percent and graduate fees by 20 percent, next Wednesday the board of
trustees would be meeting to vote to further increase the fees.
Vivian urged the Senate body to “Support the legislators that are
[angry] about this,” and to fight to preserve quality higher
education.

While several of the Senate members will be returning next year to
continue representing the students, certain senators will be moving
on in their professional lives. Over the course of the year, the
Senate intent on many conflicts and enacted numerous resolutions that
affect a myriad of students on campus. It also resolved what proved
to be a controversial issue brought forth by the Armenian Student
Association alleging Turkish involvement in the genocide of
Armenians. In the end, the two groups “agreed to disagree” and the
Senate diffused what might have become a sticky situation. In
addition, they debated about issues relating to fees students have to
pay, and fought for campus organizations.

The senators collectively agreed that they accomplished a large
amount this year and a number of members expressed how honored they
are to have served on the Senate.

Palestine Chronicle
May 13 2004

An Evening with Bernard Lewis: Terrorists, Tea and Hatred

“The only solution, Lewis concludes, is the Western recolonization of
the Arab world, starting with Iraq ..”

By Sarah Whalen
The Palestine Chronicle

I wonder.

What is a terrorist?

Saudis, Wahhabis, Muslims who follow the shariah, and suicide
bombers, Orientalist Bernard Lewis told a rapt audience of mostly
Jewish Americans in New Orleans last week.

Lewis, a British Jew who studied law but failed to finish, apparently
hates the sharia only slightly less than he hates Saudi Arabia
generally and Wahhabism specifically. “A lunatic fringe in a marginal
country,” he sneers. The West’s present troubles, Lewis avers, arise
from “an unholy combination of two events:” the creation of the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the discovery of oil there.

The audience titters at the word “unholy.”

Encouraged, Lewis warms to his subject. “Imagine,” he offers, “if the
Ku Klux Klan obtained the oil wells of Texas, and had all that
money…a pale approximation” of what happened with Saudi Arabia.
“Imagine,” Lewis urges, “that the KKK used all this money to
establish a network of well-endowed schools and colleges all over
Christendom, peddling their particular brand of Christianity.”

The audience gasps and shudders at the thought of Christianity being
spread. Or is it a “KKK” brand of Christianity? Or Islam? Lewis is
unclear, but on a roll.

Suicide bombing also has Islamic origins, Lewis insists. He admits
Islam “clearly forbids suicide.” But this doesn’t stop Muslims from
doing it, says Lewis, who shifts to the Assassins, spinning lurid
tales of the dagger-wielding, supposedly hashish-smoking Ismaili
sect’s practices in the 11th and 12th centuries that terrorized
Crusaders and most of “Persia and Palestine.” The Assassins, Lewis
claims, were “eventually suppressed” only to “reappear in the late
19th and early 20th centuries.”

And their heirs, ignoble, modern suicide bombers, Lewis warns, may
soon become a metaphor for the whole Middle East, locked into “a
downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and
oppression.”

The only solution, Lewis concludes, is the Western recolonization of
the Arab world, starting with Iraq.

But why stop there?

An American-Israeli Ottoman empire awaits.

The audience wildly applauds.

Lewis takes questions from lesser beings, all of whom bask in his
genial but insulting answers. Then, the audience storms the table
laden with The Crisis of Islam, and What Went Wrong, manifestos that
made Lewis the Bush Administration’s chief neocon ideologue.

Lewis graciously signs purchases.

I stand in line and wonder: Do these new Lewis fans, many of whom
descend from Holocaust victims and survivors, know that a French
court once fined him for denying the Armenian genocide? Do they know
that today’s date–April 24–marks the Armenian genocide’s 89th
anniversary?

It is my turn: “You claim the Ismaili Assassins are the precursors of
modern Palestinian suicide bombers. I wanted to ask about Masada–”

Lewis jumps, as though poked with a pin. “Masada!” he says
emphatically. “Damn! I meant to say something about that.”

I nod.

“I wonder whether this tradition actually started much earlier in
Palestine with the Jewish tradition of the Sicarii.”

Lewis’s eyes narrow suspiciously. The Sicarii, Lewis knows, were
Jewish Zealot assassins specializing in murder by “sicae,” small
daggers.

During the 66 CE Jewish rebellion, some Sicarii fled to Masada, King
Herod’s fortress, slaughtered the Roman garrison stationed there, and
plundered nearby settlements, including Jewish villages. The Masada
group eventually numbered 960 men, women, and children.

In 72 CE, the Roman governor Silva besieged Masada with the 10th
Legion. Jewish historian Josephus recorded the testimony of two
Jewish women and five Jewish children, the sole survivors of what
happened next, on Passover Eve, 73 CE, when the
Sicarii announced that rather than surrender, the Jewish men would
murder their wives and children, then “cast lots to choose ten men to
dispatch the remainder,” with the lone surviving Jew then running
“his sword entirely through himself.”

This they did.

Lewis glares. “Well,” he says, “Judaism so abhors suicide that there
is not a word about Masada in any Jewish history or rabbinical period
text, only by Josephus.” And he chuckles and remarks that in writing
down the truth, Josephus became a despised Roman collaborator.

I nod. But I ask: “Why do we ignore murder-suicide’s place in ancient
Israeli-Palestinian culture? Modern Israelis made murder-suicide into
a national shrine at Masada. But there’s nothing heroic about
murdering your wives and children and all your male friends, and then
killing yourself, which is what the Sicarii did. So why glorify them,
as Israel does?”

Lewis does not blink.

So I press on.

“Israeli Army recruits take oaths of allegiance at Masada. And since
every Israeli serves some time in the armed forces, they’re all
indoctrinated into this view. Zionist youth groups hike to Masada,
there promising to support the Israeli state unto death. How can you
blame 11th century Ismaili Assassins for inventing suicide bombings,
when the Sicarii predated Islam by hundreds of years?”

“At least,” Lewis snaps, “the Jews only killed themselves at Masada,
and not anyone else.”

But surviving Sicarii groups fled to Alexandria and Thebes. Scholars
say Ismaili fringe traditions originated out of Egypt. And Egypt is
the home of the Muslim Brotherhood. So who taught who how to be a
suicide bomber?

Is recolonizing Israel an option?

Lewis turns away.

I wonder.

From: Baghdasarian

No need in new deals on truce in Nagorno Karabakh – Aliyev

ITAR-TASS, Russia
May 13 2004

NAKHICHEVAN (Azerbaijan), May 13 (Itar-Tass) – Azerbaijani President
Ilkham Aliyev believes “there is no need in the signing of new
documents on the maintaining of truce in the zone of the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict”.

President Aliyev told reporters that the truce, introduced in the
mostly Armenian populated Azerbaijani enclave on May 12, 1994,
“continues and is observed by the sides”.

Speaking at a parliamentary session in the southwestern autonomous
republic of Nakhichevan, Aliyev expressed hope that the sides in the
conflict will reach a peaceful agreement, based on the principles of
“justice and international law”.

He also stressed that Azerbaijan “sticks to several principles”
in the solution of the Karabakh conflict, “and will never renounce
them”. “Territorial integrity must be restored, and refugees must
get back to their homes,” Aliyev stressed.

“We can conduct negotiations basing on those principles, but
no peaceful agreement is possible outside their framework,” the
Azerbaijani president emphasized.

Festival celebrates Armenia

La Cañada Valley Sun, CA
May 13 2004

Armenian Relief Society SHOWCASING CULTURE – A trio plays traditional
Armenian music during the Armenian Relief Society’s 93rd anniversary
festivities in 2003.

The Armenian Relief Society (ARS) Western Regional Executive will
launch its third annual festival in celebration of the organization’s
94th anniversary at the Glendale Civic Auditorium on May 15 and 16.

The festival will bring Armenian music, art, dance, history and
culinary heritage under one roof.

Be transported to an era when women sewed their own clothing and
household items. See what they prepared before their weddings. Enjoy
traditional wedding festivities and an Armenian costume show. Have
your picture taken in traditional Armenian costume. Dance to Armenian
music with a group of beginners. Learn how to make string cheese or
other culinary delicacies. Listen to lively stories with a group
of children. Enjoy roaming around exhibits of local and Armenian
products such as books, arts and crafts, drinks and food. Listen and
dance to live music. Meet old friends and make new ones. Let your
children spare no energy in the kid’s zone.

ARS was founded in New York in 1910. The establishment of the first
two chapters in the Western Region (west of the Mississippi) followed
in Fresno (1915) and Hollywood (1918).

The Western Region has held a weekend festival to celebrate ARS’s
anniversary during the last two years at the Glendale Civic Auditorium.

In 2003, the cultural festival attracted 10,000 visitors. Encouraged
by the increasing interest by Armenians and non-Armenians alike, this
year’s program and exhibits will be expanded in order to accommodate
even more visitors and greater variety of activities.

“We intend to create a little Armenia in Glendale with expanded
programming for children and interesting exhibits for adults,” said
Nova Hindoyan, president of the ARS Western Regional Executive.

The proceeds of the weekend event will be used to fund ARS activities
including counseling the youth, awarding scholarships, supporting
orphans, helping the aged, and providing other social and educational
services to local communities. The ARS Child Youth and Family Guidance
Center is an example of the multidisciplinary approach to help find
solutions to complex family situations.

The ARS is an independent, non-governmental and non-sectarian
organization, which serves the humanitarian needs of the Armenian
people and seeks to preserve the cultural identity of the Armenian
nation. The Western Regional was founded 20 years ago and has 27
chapters, with 16 of the chapters located in Southern California.

The Glendale Civic Auditorium is located at 1401 N. Verdugo Road in
Glendale. Admission is $5 for the public (children admitted free).

Those interested in participating or sponsoring the program, may
contact the ARS regional executive at 500-1343.

Cape Codder, MA
May 13 2004

Coming to America

By Bill Barnes / [email protected]

Artist seeks asylum in West Yarmouth

Stuck in the middle of Europe, wedged amidst Poland, Lithuania and
Russia is a little country called Belarus, just 10 million people in a
place the size of Kansas. It is one of the Soviet republics that won
independence after the collapse, but as is the case in many of the
former republics, independence for the country did not mean freedom
for its people.

The State Department’s annual human rights report on Belarus are
dismal. Human Rights Watch is constantly documenting cases of abuse.
Last year, The Committee to Protect Journalists cited Belarus with
a place on its list of the 10 “worst places to be a journalist.”

The way Alexandr Lukashenka, president since 1994, runs Belarus
reminds many of Stalin and people who don’t like that tend to wind
up in jail, or, in some cases, simply disappear. Elections are a
mockery. Dissenting newspapers are shut down.

Out of that climate comes Kseniya Kudrashova, a 23-year-old artist and
former university student. She expressed her views through her art,
on canvases that were sold clandestinely and in cartoons that were
published in an opposition paper.

She demonstrated with her fellow students from the University
in Minsk. She was hauled in by the police and threatened with
worse. Her apartment was raided and all her paintings were seized. She
disappeared, but she disappeared voluntarily.

Last June she escaped to Cape Cod, where she lives in a small house
in West Yarmouth with the man she plans to marry. She is not here
legally anymore, but she says she has nothing to go back to but fear.
With the help of friends she hopes to persuade the U.S. government
to grant her asylum.

On a recent evening, in the company of friends Vahan Hambardzumanyan
and Sergei Mahtesyan, she met with a reporter in a coffee shop in
the Cape Cod Mall to tell her story.

The young men are both from Armenia, legal residents working as
building contractors. Mahtesyan came to Starbucks to translate.
Hambardzumanyan is her fiance. They too come from a former republic
of the USSR, so Russian is their common language.

Kudrashova is an ethnic Russian who moved to the White Russian SSR,
now Belarus, with her parents as a baby. Her father was in the Soviet
military and had been ordered to work in a military aviation factory
in the republic. After the breakup the family became Belarus citizens
and lost the right to return to Russia, as did many others in their
situation.

In her hometown, an hour north of Minsk, Kudrashova studied painting
at the local academy and regularly showed her works in home-town
shows. When she went on to university in Minsk, where she studied
economics, she kept painting.

“In my free time I painted. I had regular customers who bought my
paintings. That is how I paid for my education and living expenses,”
she said. Along with the abstracts and the landscapes, there were
political paintings as well.

She also worked as an artist for the opposition newspaper Shag (meaning
“step”) and she was also involved with a group of young people called
the Youth Front who opposed the president. She did posters for the
demonstrations they held.

On April 14, 2003, she joined the Youth Front in a demonstration
which was broken up by police swinging batons. “They fractured her
collarbone when police were beating the crowd to get them into the
vans,” according to Mahtesyan. The medical papers from the hospital
are part of the evidence she will be putting into her application
for asylum.

Kudrashova could be considered one of the lucky ones that day. Forty
of the demonstrators were tried and sentenced to prison terms. Others
were expelled from the university. She was released without charges,
but the secret police soon visited her apartment.

“They warned me that if I do anything more against the president I
would have big problems. They confiscated all my paintings, including
those not concerned with politics,” she said, adding it was not her
role in the demonstrations that bothered the police as much as her
cartoons in Shag.

Last June, she did what so many Eastern Europeans have been doing
and joined the “Work and Travel USA” program to come to the United
States to work for the summer. She had no idea of where she was going,
but another girl on the plane suggested Cape Cod and she wound up
working at a McDonald’s in Hyannis.

Under the program, she was supposed to return in October, she said,
“but because so many students had escaped this way, the government
said that anyone who had not returned by Sept. 4 would be excluded
from the university.” She did not comply.

Over the summer the government shut down the newspaper Shag.

Since October, Kudrashova has been out of work. She spent a month
in New York trying to hook up with the arts community, but couldn’t
afford to stay. She has joined Belarusian dissident groups in the
United States and has been invited to submit cartoons for an exile
paper in New York.

According to Mahtesyan, she spends most of her time at home, monitoring
Belarusian affairs on the Internet and painting. She says she has
made no contacts with the arts community here and has no outlets for
her work, so the paintings are rapidly piling up.

They are an odd collection of protest and beauty. One of Minsk’s
main square enclosed in a prison cell faces a painting of a Cape
Cod lighthouse.

“Being in Cape Cod, I can freely create. Besides American freedom,
Cape Cod is a good environment for an artist,” she says. “I get a
lot of emotions from Cape Cod to put on canvas.”

Now she an the two Armenians are hard at work putting together her
application for asylum. Mahtesyan says the application is only three
pages, but the instructions are a book. They have no lawyer to help,
and the documentation is sometimes hard to get.

The rules for the granting asylum are strict and more are denied than
are accepted. But she and her friends are convinced it’s worth a try.
I have nothing to go back to. If I continued what I was doing there,
my family would be in trouble,” Kudrashova says.

PanArmenian News
May 13 2004

PRAGUE, WARSAW, STRASBURG…

Next round of Karabakh talks may be more important.

The second meeting of the FMs of Armenia and Azerbaijan took place in
Strasbourg within the frames of the session of Foreign Ministers of
the Council of Europe member-countries. No information available
about the results of the meeting.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ We shall remind that the Azeri Minister said
recently that the most important issue to be discussed in Strasburg
was the possibility of exchange of territories for communications.
The matter concerns an idea according to which the Armenian forces
will cede to Azerbaijan seven regions that make a security zone
around the NKR, in exchange Baku removes the blockade. It should be
clarified that the activation of the communications is more important
for Azerbaijan and not so much for Armenia because the railway
passing via Meghri is the only way to have links with the enclave of
Nakhichevan. Thus, proposing such an interesting ”exchange”, in
Baku they should not expect any result.

However, President Aliyev confirmed on the eve of the meeting that
the idea would be discussed in Strasburg. The Russian co-chair of the
OSCE Minsk group Yuri Merzlyakov clarified the issue. He said that
the agenda of the meeting would be ”free”. Parties and co-chairs
may propose everything they want, according to him. However, if
Mamedyarov proposes the idea of the security zone in exchange for
restoration of railway communications, it does not mean that the
discussion will take place. The Armenian party has always stated it
is not going to discuss such proposals. The issue will be closed as
soon as Vartan Oskanyan voices the official position of the Armenian
party. So, there is an impression that Mamedyarov’s statement was
supposed only for the local audience.

And what was discussed in Strasburg? We shall remind that according
to Merzlyakov, the ideas proposed by mediators during the Paris
meeting of Ministers and discussed further on by Kocharian and Aliyev
were the subject of discussion. He said only that it was an attempt
to find a ”compromise variant between the package and stage-by-stage
versions” of the conflict settlement.

The approaches of the parties to the proposed ideas may become clear
during the next round of high level talks. And if a progress is
achieved, Kocharian and Aliyev will commission their delegates, Tatul
Margaryan and Araz Azimov, to continue the negotiations. By the way,
according to the press, the delegates did not meet separately in
Strasburg which means that the parties are not sure that Margaryan
and Azimov will have to continue the interrupted contacts.

KOCHARIAN RECEIVES IRANIAN MINISTER

ArmenPress
May 13 2004

YEREVAN, MAY 13, ARMENPRESS: President Kocharian received today members
of an Iranian delegation who have arrived here, led by Iran’s oil and
gas minister, Bijan Zanganeh, to sign the basic treaty on construction
of a gas pipeline from Iran to Armenia, expected later today.

Kocharian’s press office said the minister conveyed the cordial
greetings of president Mohamamd Khatami to his Armenian counterpart.
The minister said also the to be signed agreement is coming after
years of fruitful work of both governments. The high level of diverse
bilateral relations, emphasized as a key condition for an overall
stabilization in the region, was commended by both sides.

The project provides for laying down a 100-kilometer gas pipeline along
the Iranian territory and 41 kilometers in Armenia. The pipeline will
pump daily 1.5 million cubic meters of Turkmen gas. The approximate
cost of the project is 96 million U.S. dollars.

The pipeline’s construction is planned to be started in several months
to be finished in 2006.

The gas pipeline from Iran is to be built only to meet domestic needs
of Armenia. Armenian authorities said previously any other direction
of the pipeline, for instance to Europe, is not under discussion.

“We regard this project as a serious question for Armenian energy
security,” the president underlined today.

23 MILLION EUROS NEEDED FOR UPGRADING ABOVIAN GAS STOREHOUSE

ArmenPress
May 13 2004

YEREVAN, MAY 13, ARMENPRESS: A 23 million euros worth project for
upgrading an underground natural gas storehouse in the town of Abovian,
some 20 off the capital Yerevan, developed by HayRusGazArd company,
the sole supplier of Russian gas to Armenia, was praised highly
by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and
participants of a round table, held on the sidelines of a ministerial
meeting of INOGATE program.

Edward Nersisian, head of HayRusGazArd’s department for external
relations, told Armenpress the underground storehouse is of key
importance for Armenia in terms of its safe gas supply and energy
independence and “is no less important than the Iran-Armenia gas
pipeline the construction of which is supposed to start later this
year.

The upgraded storehouse will be able to store some 200 million cubic
meters of gas, while today it can contain only 80 million. In case
of securing the necessary funds the upgrading will be over in 2-3
years. Nersisian said a mobile station for quick repair of breaks
on the pipeline is expected to come to Armenia as part of INOGATE’s
2004 program.

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 13 May 2004
TURKMENISTAN: RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION’S LATEST DISGUISES

In his latest attempt to disguise Turkmenistan’s de facto criminalisation
of religious belief, President Saparmurat Niyazov has today (13 May)
revoked the de jure criminalisation of unregistered religious activity.
Believers were, before the de jure criminalization, treated as de facto
criminals and fined, detained, beaten, threatened, sacked from their jobs,
had their homes confiscated, banished to remote parts of the country or
deported in retaliation for unregistered religious activity. Niyazov has
also cancelled a secret decree requiring registered religious communities
to subject themselves to tight financial regulation by the state –
but has imposed tight financial regulation in a different way, through an
official model statute for religious communities. Forum 18 News Service has
obtained a copy of this, and religious leaders in Turkmenistan have told
Forum 18 that they find these restrictions unacceptable. Many prefer to
continue to exist in the underground.

TURKMENISTAN: RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION’S LATEST DISGUISES

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service

Under intense international pressure over its repression of religious life,
Turkmenistan’s president Saparmurat Niyazov has today (13 May) revoked the
punishments introduced into the Criminal Code last year on those involved
in unregistered religious activity. Before these punishments were
introduced, Turkmenistan already had tight controls -which it still
maintains – on unregistered religious activity. All Shia Muslim, Baptist,
Pentecostal, Adventist, Armenian Apostolic, Lutheran, Hare Krishna,
Jehovah’s Witness, Baha’i and Jewish activity was de facto if not de jure
treated as illegal. Believers were, even before the de jure criminalization
of unregistered activity, fined, detained, beaten, threatened, sacked from
their jobs, had their homes confiscated, banished to remote parts of the
country or deported in retaliation for involvement in unregistered
religious activity. De jure decriminalisation is not expected to change the
established pattern of de facto criminalisation.

President Niyazov also cancelled a secret decree he had issued on 23 March
which required registered religious communities to subject themselves to
tight financial regulation by the state. However, Forum 18 News Service has
also received a copy of the six-page model statute handed out to religious
communities by the Adalat (Fairness or Justice) Ministry which requires all
religious communities to pay 20 per cent of their income to the
government’s Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs and imposes other
tight controls. This imposes tight financial regulation in a different way,
as well as forcing registered communities to provide the state with
information helpful to its continued persecution of religious believers
(see F18News 10 May ).

The pro-government website turkmenistan.ru claimed that the president
cancelled the criminal penalties and the secret decree “with the aim
of creating the necessary legal guarantees to secure freedom of religion
and belief, as well as to complete the laws of the country on religious
organisations”. Turkmenistan has for the last seven years refused to
register all communities of the Shia Muslims, Armenian Apostolic Church,
all Protestants (including Pentecostals, Lutherans and Baptists), Jews,
Baha’is, the Hare Krishna community and the New Apostolic Church.

The president’s moves are the latest in an embarrassing series of
conflicting legal moves designed to head off international criticism
sparked by last October’s amendments to the religion law and the criminal
code which tightened even further restrictions on registered religious
communities and criminalized unregistered religious activity.

In March this year, the president also announced an apparent paper
relaxation of persecution, apparently allowing religious communities to
gain official registration regardless of how many members they have or what
faith they belong to (see F18News 12 March
). However, it became
clear that this apparent relaxation masked moves to impose stringent
controls on any community that registered, such as a requirement that any
worship service or other event needs state permission to take place (see
F18News 10 May ).

The change in bureaucratic requirements also did not signal any respite in
persecution, being apparently intended to allow religious communities to
exist in theory but be persecuted in practice. Secret police raids
continued and on the same day the March announcement was made, a Jehovah’s
Witness was arrested and pressured by officials, including a Mullah, to
renounce his faith and then fired from his job (see F18News
). As Forum 18 has
documented, persecution continued since then unabated, Muslims, for
example, being barred from building new mosques on 29 March (see F18News 30
March ). It is highly
unlikely that today’s announcement marks any actual relaxation in
persecution.

The registration regulations issued by the Adalat Ministry on 10 March,
which appear still to be in force despite the latest legal moves, come in
the form of a model statute which religious communities appear required to
follow very closely if they are to get registration. Article 13 defines the
first aim of a religious organization, ahead even of “jointly
confessing and spreading their faith”, as “respecting the
Constitution and laws of Turkmenistan”.

Services would be allowed in property owned by religious organisations and
in private homes “in cases of ritual necessity”. It remains
unclear if regular services in private homes or elsewhere would be
illegal.

Only adults citizens of Turkmenistan would be allowed to belong to
religious organizations, according to Article 16, leaving it unclear
whether foreign citizens living in the country would even be allowed to
attend religious services of registered organizations.

Although registered religious communities would be able to teach children
on their own premises, teachers would have to be approved in advance by the
Gengeshi.

Article 15 of the statute requires the payment of 20 per cent of income to
the Gengeshi every quarter, while all donations from abroad have to be
registered at the Adalat Ministry.

Leaders of religious organizations have to be Turkmen citizens, making it
difficult for faiths like the Catholics or the Armenians which do not have
native clergy. The model statute also defines how the administration of
each faith must work and how often its governing body must meet.

The model statute also states that leaders of religious organizations are
also expected to have higher religious education, a concept which is not
defined. This concept may be a further restriction on the clergy who can be
appointed, possibly related to Niyazov’s decree dismissing from state
employment, with effect from 1 June, anyone who holds higher education
decrees awarded outside Turkmenistan since 1993.

Article 38 allows courts to liquidate religious organizations for
“repeated or gross violations” of the country’s laws, while the
Adalat Ministry can also terminate an organisation’s registration (for
which the statute gives no further explanation).

Religious leaders in Turkmenistan have already told Forum 18 that they find
the restrictions in the model statute unacceptable. Many prefer to continue
to exist in the underground, as the latest apparent relaxations mark no
change in the continued de facto criminalisation and persecution of
religious believers.

For more background see Forum 18’s latest religious freedom survey at

A printer-friendly map of Turkmenistan is available at
s/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=turkme
(END)

© Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved.

You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to
F18News

Past and current Forum 18 information can be found at

=================================================

YENI SAFAK SAID: HARIRI: TURKEY, AN EXAMPLE FOR ISLAMIC WORLD

Turkish Daily News, Press Scanner
May 12 2004

Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said Turkey, which is a bridge
between Europe and Asia, was an example for the Islamic world with
its efforts for modernization.

“This enhances the importance of Turkey’s role,” said Hariri.

The Lebanese premier will pay a visit to Ankara in the upcoming days
and before his visit to Turkey, daily Yeni Safak held an interview
with Hariri at his house.

“Turkey is an important country in the region and has historic
ties with Lebanon. There is no doubt that the AK Party government’s
policies have pushed the Arabs and us for new initiatives in Turkey.
That’s why, we support the AK Party’s efforts to improve its relations
with its neighbors and the Arabs,” said Hariri.

Asked about whether the European Union would open its doors to Turkey,
the premier said Lebanon supported Turkey’s EU aspirations.

“Through the reforms, Turkey proved that it is very serious and sincere
on the issue. The EU should respond to Turkey with a similar serious
and sincere way and open its doors to Turkey,” added Hariri.

Asked about whether he was thinking about acting as a mediator between
Armenia and Turkey since his country enjoyed friendly relations
with Armenia, Hariri said his visit’s primary goal was to improve
and strengthen the relations between Lebanon and Turkey and also
expressed the hope that all of the disagreements and problems in the
region would be resolved in a way that would contribute to peace.

In reply to a question concerning the U.S.-led Middle East Initiative,
Hariri said he opposed the fact that the United States launched such
an initiative without asking the peoples of the region.

The Lebanese premier is known to oppose the U.S.-led initiative.

“None of us are against democracy, reforms and freedoms but all of
them should be done in accordance with our own will and peoples’
expectations and interests. The power that will determine the future
of a region is the people of that region,” said Hariri.

Asked about the inhuman treatment in Iraq, the premier said the Arabic
world was shocked by the brutal torture against the Iraqi captives
and condemned the torture.

Hariri went on to say that the methods adopted by Britain and the
United States were not enough to control Iraq and said: “There is no
need for more troops or weapons. The only thing that Iraq needs is
a political solution.”

Hariri said that the United Nations should play a major role in the
transfer of Iraqi administration to the Iraqis and formation of a
political structure and should support the efforts to establish a
new government.

The Lebanese premier said that Arabic countries were in contact with
the big states and friendly countries for a solution that would help
Iraq’s stability and territorial integrity.