Keston News Service Summary: Armenia, China, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Yugoslavia-Kosovo
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Subject: Keston News Service Summary: Armenia, China, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Yugoslavia-Kosovo
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Keston Institute <[email protected]>
Keston News Service Summary: Armenia, China, Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan, Yugoslavia-Kosovo
KESTON INSTITUTE, OXFORD, UK
______________________________________
KESTON NEWS SERVICE – SUMMARY 12-16 November 2001
Summaries of recent reporting on violations of religious liberty and
on religion in communist and post-communist lands.
______________________________________
SUMMARIES:
ARMENIA: CHARISMATIC PASTOR FREED, BUT CASE CONTINUES (14 Nov). The
pastor of a Charismatic Church in Yerevan, Shogher Khachatryan, was
freed on 15 October after three months in a jail of the National
Security Ministry, she told Keston News Service on 9 November.
Although she said she had been cut off from all access to her family
or her church during her imprisonment, she said she had not been
beaten or mistreated. The case against her on charges of swindling
continues although she denies the charges.
CHINA: GOVERNMENT PREVENTS RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PARISHES HAVING PRIESTS
(14 Nov). After the death of its priest over a year ago the Orthodox
parish in Harbin, as well as the other Orthodox parishes in China,
remain without either priests or services, Keston News Service has
learnt. This is more than a year after the Russian Orthodox Church
began asking the Chinese government for permission to send a priest or
priests (see KNS 11 October 2000). No response has been received by
the Chinese government. In Hong Kong by contrast, following a recent
visit to Beijing and Hong Kong by Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk &
Kaliningrad, a Russian Orthodox priest may be allowed to visit Hong
Kong to hold services.
KAZAKHSTAN: FIVE-DAY PRISON SPELL FOR BAPTIST PASTOR (12 Nov). A
Baptist pastor, Valery Pak, fined last spring for refusing to register
his church with the authorities, was punished in October with a
five-day spell in prison, Keston News Service has learnt. Although
Kazakhstan's religion law does not require religious groups to
register to be allowed to function, prosecutors are increasingly
relying on an article of the administrative code introduced last year
which renders the activity of unregistered religious organisations
liable to punishment. Two other Baptist pastors are known to be facing
charges for leading unregistered churches.
KAZAKHSTAN: BAPTIST BEATEN BUT POLICE DENY IT (12 Nov). According to
local Baptist sources, Asylbek Nurdanov was severely assaulted and
threatened at his local police station on 27 October in the town of
Kazalinsk in Kyzyl-Orda region close to the Aral Sea in southern
Kazakhstan. One officer threatened to cut his tongue out with scissors
if he did not renounce his faith. The local police chief admitted to
Keston News Service that the church had been searched and Nurdanov
questioned, but denied absolutely that he had been beaten or
threatened, accusing him of lying. In an echo of similar moves
elsewhere against unregistered Baptist churches in Kazakhstan (see
separate KNS article), the police chief claimed that the Kazalinsk
church was functioning illegally as it does not have registration.
KAZAKHSTAN: BEATEN BAPTIST SENT TO PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL (13 Nov). A
“completely healthy” Baptist, Asylbek Nurdanov, who has recently been
beaten up by the police has now been taken to a psychiatric hospital
by police, Keston News Service has learnt. This took place after the
police pressured Nurdanov's parents to write a statement complaining
of his activities. The police “shouted at him and threatened him to
try to make him abandon his faith in Christ”. He was then taken to a
psychiatric hospital. It is not known for how much longer the
authorities intend to hold him there.
KAZAKHSTAN: BAPTIST RELEASED FROM PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL (16 Nov). A
young Baptist leader, Asylbek Nurdanov, from the town of Kazalinsk in
Kyzyl-Orda region, was freed from psychiatric hospital today (16
November), the US-based Russian Evangelistic Ministries told Keston
News Service. His release came after a Baptis delegation, including
Pastor Peter Peters from Russia, visited him in the hospital in the
town of Kyzyl-Orda where he had been held for nearly a week. He had
been taken there forcibly on 10 November by police, who allegedly put
pressure on his parents to write a statement complaining of his
activities (see KNS 13 November).
TURKMENISTAN: FORTY DETAINED AT PROTESTANT MEETING (15 Nov). All the
more than forty people attending a service of the Word of Life Church
in the Turkmen capital Ashgabad today (15 November) were detained when
the private flat where the church was meeting was raided, several
sources in Ashgabad have told Keston News Service. Officers of the
police and of the KNB security police (the former KGB), as well as
officials of the local hakimlik (administration), were involved in the
raid on the evening meeting. Among those detained for interrogation
were the church’s pastor, Vladimir Shamrai, and his wife Olga.
TURKMENISTAN: PROTESTANTS FINED THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS (16 Nov). More
than forty people who were detained when police raided a service of
the Word of Life Church in the Turkmen capital Ashgabad on 15 November
(see KNS 15 November) have been released, but only after paying fines
totalling more than forty million manats (7,700 US dollars or 5,400 UK
pounds at the official exchange rate; 2,000 USD or 1,420 GBP at the
street rate). Sources in Ashgabad told Keston News Service that
although the fines varied from individual to individual, most paid the
equivalent of the average monthly wage in Turkmenistan. A police
inspector admitted to Keston that the group had been arrested and then
released, but declined to discuss why the meeting in a private home
had been raided. No other official was prepared to explain why the
church service was raided. (see full article below)
YUGOSLAVIA - KOSOVO: CHAPEL BLOWN UP, TOMBSTONES DAMAGED (12 Nov). The
Serbian Orthodox chapel in the village graveyard at Staro Gracko
(Gracke e Vjeter), 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the Kosovo
capital Pristina, was destroyed on 8 November by three dynamite
explosions, Keston News Service has learned. Tombstones within a
radius of 30 metres (100 feet) were also damaged. The NATO-led
peacekeeping force KFOR reported that no-one was injured in the attack
and that an investigation has begun. This was the third incident in a
week affecting Orthodox sites in Kosovo.
Friday 16 November
TURKMENISTAN: PROTESTANTS FINED THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS
by Felix Corley and Igor Rotar, Keston News Service
...
For the full text, see http://www.keston.org/knsframe.htm
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...
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