Keston News Service Summary: Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan & Turkmenistan
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Subject: Keston News Service Summary: Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan & Turkmenistan
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Keston Institute <[email protected]>
Keston News Service Summary: Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan &
Turkmenistan
KESTON INSTITUTE, OXFORD, UK
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KESTON NEWS SERVICE – SUMMARY 5-9 November 2001
Summaries of recent reporting on violations of religious liberty and
on religion in communist and post-communist lands.
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SUMMARIES:
AFGHANISTAN: WHAT IMPACT WILL FIGHTING HAVE ON UZBEKISTAN? (8 Nov)
'Mercenaries from many former Soviet republics are fighting with the
Taliban, particularly fighters from Chechnya and from the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU),' the Northern Alliance's foreign
minister Abdullo Abdullah told Keston News Service. In Afghanistan the
conflict is largely inter-ethnic: the majority of Taliban fighters are
Pushtuns, while the Northern Alliance unites Afghan Tajiks and Uzbeks,
who are happy to fight with the US against the Taliban. In
neighbouring Central Asian countries, however, the situation is not so
clear-cut. The IMU originated in the Uzbek section of the volatile
Fergana valley (other sections of the valley are in Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan) and many of the movement’s supporters are likely to have
remained in Uzbekistan itself. The radical international Islamic party
Hizb-ut-Tahrir is also active in the Fergana valley, despite being
banned in all the Central Asian countries, and has called for its
supporters to ‘defend the domain of the Muslims’.
KYRGYZSTAN: PROTESTANT CONVERTS PRESSURED TO RENOUNCE NEW FAITH (9
Nov). The Church of Jesus, a Protestant church which draws its members
from the ethnic Kyrgyz population, has complained that its new
community in the village of Chon-Tash has almost been destroyed under
pressure from local people. The chief pastor told Keston News Service
that local villagers had isolated church members and pressured them to
return to Islam and that the village's council of elders had “banned”
Christianity. Other Protestant converts, as well as Jehovah's
Witnesses, have reported similar social pressure to renounce their new
faith, especially in villages in southern Kyrgyzstan.
(see full article below)
TURKMENISTAN: ‘EVERY BELIEVER IS CONTROLLED,’ SAYS FORMER FOREIGN
MINISTER (6 Nov). Turkmenistan’s former foreign minister, Boris
Shikhmuradov, has abandoned the regime of authoritarian president
Saparmurat Niyazov, after being dismissed from his post as ambassador
to China a few days ago. Now based in Russia, he spoke openly to
Keston News Service about the repression of religious believers in
Turkmenistan. He said that President Niyazov personally takes all
decisions on every aspect of life - including religious affairs, even
though he has no understanding of religion. The president tolerates no
dissent, and controls the country through the National Security
Committee, the KNB (former KGB).
Friday 9 November
KYRGYZSTAN: PROTESTANT CONVERTS PRESSURED TO
RENOUNCE NEW FAITH
by Igor Rotar, Keston News Service
...
For the full text, see http://www.keston.org/knsframe.htm
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