An award for “peace-loving activities” presented to President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan by the Russian Orthodox Church “flies in the face of the known facts,” says Jonathan Gallagher, an associate director in the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide.

Gallagher points out that the government of Turkmenistan has been cited by the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, and many religious and civil rights groups for its ongoing repression of religious minorities.  Government actions have included the destruction of places of worship, the imprisonment of Christian ministers, and attacks against Muslim and Christian congregations.  In November 1999, an Adventist Church building in the capital city, Ashgabat, was ordered bulldozed by government officials. (See ANN report from January 11, 2000.)

“For the Orthodox Church to claim, as reported in a press interview, that there is no persecution in Turkmenistan only serves to support the Turkmenistan government’s actions against religious minorities,” says Gallagher, “which, in turn, puts many more people of faith at risk of persecution.”

Presented to President Niyazov on October 10, the award is the highest honor the Russian Orthodox Church can bestow on a head of state. 

Father Andrei Sapunov, Russian Orthodox dean of Turkmenistan, defended the choice of Niyazov in an October 20 interview with Keston News Service. While agreeing that the destruction of the Adventist Church, the deportation of Baptists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the exile of Muslim and Baptist leaders had taken place, Sapunov said that there are “a lot of things that you don’t know about these events, a lot of nuances.”

Defending last year’s demolition of the Adventist Church in Ashgabad, Sapunov said that the congregation “wasn’t registered as a church.”  Later in the interview, Sapunov admitted that only the Russian Orthodox Church and the Sunni Muslims have registration as religions in Turkmenistan. 

“As a church, we believe that the freedom to choose and practice one’s religion is a fundamental human right,” says Gallagher.  “We cannot stay silent when people, whatever their religion, suffer persecution because of their faith.  We call on all who uphold religious freedom and human rights to speak out against the proven abuses of the Turkmenistan regime.”

The central Asian country of Turkmenistan gained independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.  President Niyazov has held power since that time and on December 28, 1999, was approved by the Turkmenistan Assembly (or parliament) as president for life.