Sunday morning a favoured time for raids

Sunday morning worship services have recently been a favoured time for police to raid Protestant churches, Forum 18 News Service has noted. On 24 September, one Baptist church in the capital Tashkent was raided mid-way through the sermon and two church members subsequently fined. On 1 October in the nearby town of Angren, nearly fifty members of a registered Pentecostal church were taken to the police station after their Sunday service was raided. On 8 October the same Tashkent Baptist church was again raided, as was a Protestant church in the north-west of the country in Nukus, the capital of the Karakalpakstan [Qorakalpoghiston]

The Karakalpak authorities have long adopted a harsher policy towards religious minorities than the authorities elsewhere in Uzbekistan. The Karakalpak ordinary police and local branch of the National Security Service (NSS) secret police regularly conduct raids on Protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses. On 8 October, 25 Protestants were arrested at the end of their Sunday church service in Nukus, Protestant sources told Forum 18. Police came and filmed the church members, then took them all to the police station.

Zhamolov admitted that all the Protestant churches in Karakalpakstan have been closed down. "Currently, apart from the mosques, there is only one Orthodox church functioning on Karakalpak territory," he told Forum 18. "That means that the Protestants who were reportedly arrested on 8 October were acting illegally. However, I have not heard anything about the incident you speak of."

Protestants are also experiencing persecution in other parts of Uzbekistan. On 1 October, a group of police officers in the town of Angren, 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Tashkent, burst into the officially registered Pentecostal church during its Sunday service and arrested 47 people. Officials are now gathering documentation to charge the church's pastor Askhad Mustafin under article 240 ("violation of the law on religious organisations") and Article 241 ("violation of the procedure for teaching religion") of the Administrative Code.

Forum 18 was unable to find out why Pastor Mustafin and the church are being targeted. The telephone of Angren's police chief went unanswered on 16 October despite Forum 18's repeated attempts to reach him. Mustafin was fined under Article 240 in June 2005 for leading services in his registered church (see F18News 17 June 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=588).

The congregation in Tashkent of the Council of Churches Baptists, who refuse on principle to register with the authorities in any of the former Soviet republics, is facing renewed pressure. About 12 officers from the city's Khamza district police – among them the deputy head of the local Counter-terrorism Department, S. Isakov - burst into the Sunday morning service during the sermon on 24 September. Other police officers stood outside smoking. "The intruders took photographs and tried to go into all the rooms of the church," church members told Forum 18 from Tashkent on 25 September. "After the service they blocked the exit and allowed through only the elderly and mothers with children."

Police put thirteen church members – including teenage children - on a police bus and took them to the local station. There, five were summoned to an office, photographed, had their personal details recorded and pressured to write statements. "They were warned that services and the Christian library are being undertaken illegally and next time they are undertaken criminal cases will be launched," church members reported. "They threatened to post a police unit by the prayer house if we do not register the church." Unlicensed religious activity is – against international human rights standards – a criminal offence in Uzbekistan.

Igor Voloshin, Mikhail Goryachev and Larisa Lankina were ordered to appear at the police station the following day, where an administrative court fined Voloshin and Goryacheva 21,600 sums (118 Norwegian Kroner, 14 Euros or 18 US Dollars) each under Article 240 of Uzbekistan's Administrative Code, which punishes "violation of the law on religious organisations".

At 11.30 am on 8 October, the Baptist church's Sunday morning service was again raided by a group of district police officers, who arrested seven church members. The police are now gathering documentation for a prosecution under Article 240 and Article 241, which punishes "violation of the procedures for teaching religion" of the administrative code.

Source