Nukus (AsiaNews/Forum18News) "You Christians should all be shot!" City Public Prosecutor M. Arzymbetov is said to have declared to eleven members of the Church of Christ who were summoned for questioning on April 21st. The Christians were pressured to renounce their faith and to convert to Islam. The declaration was made after the believers refused to sign documents admitting that they had participated in 'illegal' religious meetings and training. They now face steep fines in court. Authorities have denied the statement, stating the reason for the interrogations was because, "All of them are members of an unregistered religious organization," Atzymbetov told Forum 18 News. "The activity of unregistered organizations is forbidden by law."
In other parts of the country, however, reports of harassment, threats, interrogation and badgering of Protestant believers have also increased in recent days. In Tashkent on March 10th, six Christians were charged in criminal court and fined for holding religious meetings in a private apartment. Also in the capital the day before, police raided a religious meeting of ten Uzbek and South Korean Christians. The Uzbek citizens were fined five times the monthly minimum wage, and the Koreans were "recommended" to leave the country for engaging in "unlawful religious activity".
Christian groups who attempt to register with the government as required by law are most often caught in a cycle of red tape and dead ends. "Every time, the justice administration deliberately concentrates on some grammatical inaccuracies (in the application), so that they can once again refuse registrations, supposedly for objective reasons," stated a Protestant who requested anonymity. "In fact, officials are simply dragging their feet so that a church cannot function."
The recent intensification of restrictions on religious expression, particularly of Christian groups, began in Nukus, the capital of the Karakalpakstan republic in northwestern Uzbekistan on April 1st. Though its constitution technically upholds freedom of religion and separation of church and state, the Uzbek government maintains strict control over the spread of Protestants and other non-traditional religious groups in the country.
