Wednesday 21 April BAPTIST IMPRISONED ON SWINDLING CHARGES AMID RENEWED CRACKDOWN ON CHRISTIAN MINORITIES IN TURKMENISTAN by Felix Corley, Keston News Service SHAGILDY ATAKOV, an ethnic Turkmen member of a Baptist congregation in the port city of Turkmenbashi (formerly Krasnovodsk), has been sentenced to two years in a general regime labour camp. `Judging by the process and the procedure of the trial we can see the real motives behind the criminal case against Shagildy Atakov,' local Baptists told the US-based Russian Evangelistic Ministries in the wake of the trial, `persecution against him for his faith, as a Christian.' Local Baptist sources report that Atakov, a driver and car trader, first encountered problems with state officials soon after joining the Turkmenbashi congregation, which belongs to the branch of the Evangelical Christian Baptists that rejected state registration during the Soviet period (the `initsiativniki'). On 10 November 1998 an official of the National Security Committee (the successor to the KGB) visited him and threatened to charge him `on an old case' if he did not cease his participation in the church. When Atakov ignored this threat, he received further warnings from officials - including a 10 December visit from the local religious affairs official and the local senior imam - before being arrested late in the evening on 18 December. On arresting Atakov, Agents of the Criminal Investigation Department assured his anxious wife Gulya that he would be released in half an hour, but he was instead charged with swindling, apparently in connection with his car sales. Atakov went on trial on 19 March in the Koptedag district court in the capital Ashgabad, where he was found guilty of swindling under Article 228 of the Turkmen Criminal Code. In addition to his labour camp sentence he was reportedly fined the equivalent of 12,000 US dollars, a huge sum in Turkmen terms. `We are forced to view this not as an accidental arrest, but as a planned event that resulted after numerous threats against Evangelical Baptist believers in Turkmenistan,' wrote PASTOR V. V. CHERNOV of the Ashgabad Baptist church last December in the wake of the arrest, `If brother Shagildy Atakov had agreed to stop preaching, and become unfaithful to the call of Christ to preach the good news, then he would not have been arrested.' The congregation has sent telegrams of protest to the Turkmen president and attorney general. In addition, Baptists abroad have begun a letter-writing campaign to the Turkmen authorities, demanding Atakov's release. Officials of the Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs have admitted that after the Turkmenbashi Baptist congregation encountered problems with the state authorities in 1997, they received a flood of letters from Baptists around the world, with the implication that this had some effect on the state's treatment of the congregation. However, although prisoners sentenced under Article 228 have been included in several amnesties involving tens of thousands of prisoners in recent months, Atakov has not been among them. Russian human rights activist NIKOLAI MITROKHIN told Keston that he believes that the charges against Atakov were carefully chosen to disguise the real origin of the case against him: `This is a common practice of the Turkmen authorities, who try not to use political charges against prisoners of conscience but send them to prison for ordinary criminal offences.' Mitrokhin, of the Moscow-based Information Centre for Human Rights in Central Asia, returned in March from a research visit to Turkmenistan during which he investigated the case of Atakov and other religious believers who have encountered problems from the Turkmen authorities. Baptists in Turkmenistan have reported another recent case of problems with the authorities. On 9 March LYDIA ACHILOVA was summoned by the administrative commission in the city of Dashkhovuz, where she was fined 200,000 manats (one month's average wages) under Article 205 of the Turkmen Administrative Code for hosting Baptist services at her home: `Since our sister Achilova does not recognise herself guilty before God or men, she refuses to pay the fine. Her case has been passed to the court.' Local Baptists ask supporters abroad to pray and write letters of petition for Achilova because, they say, the article under which she was fined violates Article 11 of the Turkmen Constitution, which guarantees religious freedom, the non-interference of the state in religious matters and the freedom `to profess any religion or not profess any either individually or jointly with others, to profess and disseminate beliefs associated with his attitude to religion, and to participate in the practice of religious cults, rituals, and rites.' The Information Centre for Human Rights in Central Asia also reports harassment of the Baptist church in Tashauz, which is likewise unregistered. Officials of the town administration summoned the congregation leader, VITALY TERESHNEV, on 9 March. His wife LIDA TERESHNEVA, the owner of the house where the church meets, was then fined 200,000 manats under Article 205 of the Administrative Code for allowing it to be used for unregistered religious meetings. When Tereshnev refused to pay this money the authorities threatened court action to force them to pay. The couple had moved to Tashauz from Russia at the end of last year and Lida, a citizen of Uzbekistan, bought the house to hold church meetings. The authorities immediately started threatening them to halt the meetings in the house or to leave the town. Among other recent problems, the Information Centre cites the case of an unregistered Pentecostal community in Ashgabad. On 28 February about half a dozen officials - who declined to reveal their identity - burst into a meeting of the Sunday school at the House of Prayer. They demanded that everyone present give their names and passport details. The officials - who, it was later established, were from the Internal Affairs Ministry - were persuaded to allow the class to carry on until the end. Official documents were drawn up for those over the age of 16 - a total of 23 participants. Summoned to appear on 1 March at the local police station with their passports, these were then confiscated and the 23 were taken by bus to the administrative commission of the Koptedag district of the city. The chairman of the commission, NURAGA ALABERDYEV, told them that he did not care what they believed in, but that they had been holding an illegal meeting. Accusing them of violating Article 205 of the Administrative Code, he threatened to fine all of them - pensioners included - 200,000 manats, withholding their passports until they paid. Eventually only the owner of the house, PASTOR ANTONIN MOKROUSOV, was fined 100,000 manats, although he was in Germany when the incident took place. The community underwent a similar raid in spring 1998. Ever since the tightening up of legislation on religion and subsequent compulsory re-registration in early 1997, only the Russian Orthodox Church and the officially-sanctioned Muslims have been able to gain re-registration for their congregations. All other religious communities that previously had official registration have now been deprived of it. The law now requires religious groups to have 500 members before they can apply for registration, and even then there is no guarantee that they will receive it. (END)