Minority religions continue to grow in Turkmenistan, despite obstructions placed in the way of these groups, the International Religious Liberty Association confirmed.

Members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church first organized the IRLA, chartered in 1893, in the United States. It is non-sectarian and promotes principles of religious freedom for all people everywhere.

For more than 100 years the IRLA, has campaigned for human rights, including freedom of conscience, and has been at the forefront of calls for full religious freedom for all people in Turkmenistan.

The Adventist Church in Turkmenistan has a membership of approximately 68 people. The church, which was registered by state authorities as a Protestant church in June, still does not have a place to meet, and is facing other obstacles in its daily work. 

In November of 1999, the world community viewed images of a bulldozer beginning the demolition of a Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ashgabat. According to a former foreign minister, the president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, allegedly gave the order to have the church destroyed.  Nearly five years later, on June 1, 2004, Adventists, Baptists and Baha’is were among minority religious groups granted government registration. (See ANN, June 1, 2004.)

Detailing those obstacles, Protestant sources in Turkmenistan told the Forum 18 news service that Olga Kholopova, a church employee, was summoned by the National Security Ministry secret police on Nov. 8 and told the church’s registration would be removed if she continues to refuse to send her 12-year-old son Timur to school on the Sabbath, or Saturday.

“Kholopova was summoned by the ministry’s 6th department, which deals with the struggle against terrorism,” one Protestant told Forum 18. “Although officers were polite, she was threatened with a criminal case, a fine and the denial of parental rights if she refuses to send her child to school on Saturdays. They also threatened to send her son to a special center for delinquent adolescents supervised by the police - and to strip the church of its legal status.” The source told Forum 18 that officers dismissed Kholopova’s attempts to explain the importance to Adventists of observing the Sabbath.

“This is also a religious freedom issue for Timur, because he is himself a believer,” another Protestant told Forum 18.

The Protestant sources stressed to Forum 18 that Timur has had “excellent reports” in school and has not encountered problems with his study. They add that the secret police know that Adventists, a small minority in Turkmenistan, honor Saturday as a day of rest and worship. The Protestant sources point out that although the Turkmen school week runs from Monday to Saturday, about half the school children in Ashgabat fail to turn up on Saturdays because they are helping their families at work in markets and elsewhere.

However, observers say that registered groups reportedly have varying degrees of freedom. Baha’is in Ashgabat are able to meet regularly, but not in other cities. Baptists there have reportedly been denied a meeting place, or the return of their church building, which had been seized by authorities and given to others. Reports persist that religious groups, even those registered, are unable to import literature to support their adherents, easily rent meeting space, or invite speakers from overseas.

According to the Forum 18 news service, despite president Niyazov’s proclaimed amnesty, the former Islamic chief mufti, Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, remains in jail, as do two Jehovah’s Witnesses. Religious minority prisoners of conscience, which have included Baptists and other Jehovah’s Witnesses, have not been released under presidential amnesties, as released prisoners are required to swear an oath on the Koran in a mosque and a national oath of allegiance, which religious minorities consider blasphemous. The former chief mufti is considered the religious prisoner of conscience serving the longest sentence in any formerly Soviet country.

At the same time, the Forum 18 group reports, other religious communities in Turkmenistan face obstacles in visiting each other, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hare Krishna devotees, ethnic Uzbek Muslims and the Armenian Apostolic Church. The head of Uzbekistan’s Bible Society has also been denied entry, as was the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. The only religious community to have unimpeded travel to Turkmenistan is the Russian Orthodox Church.