KHALKABAD, Uzbekistan — Four years after being harassed by authorities, the small Baptist congregation in Khalkabad near Pap in the eastern Namangan Region of Uzbekistan is again facing harassment for meeting without compulsory registration.
Local Baptists told Forum 18 News Service that police raided successive Sunday services on July 29 and Aug. 5. In the wake of the raids, church member Nikolai Zulfikarov — who hosts services in his home — could face criminal trial with a possible sentence of up to five years' imprisonment.
Baptists said Zulfikarov was being charged with “illegal organization of a social or religious organization.” Cases are also being prepared against others present at the services, as well as Baptists from the city of Fergana who traveled to Pap to try to find out why charges were being brought.
The head of the Pap District criminal investigation department, Abdumalik Motboev, is leading the investigation. His office confirmed that a criminal case has been launched against Zulfikarov. However, the official said he did not know the details.
“All I know is that they didn't have any documents authorizing them to hold such events,” he told Forum 18. Told that the Council of Churches-Baptists — to which the congregation belongs — rejects registration on principle, the official responded: “That's their problem.”
Ikrom Saipov, an official at the government's National Human Rights Center denied that Uzbekistan's laws restrict religious activity. “Religious organizations must register — they just apply to the Justice Ministry for registration.” Saipov, however, was unable to explain why unregistered religious activity is banned and why so many religious communities that want legal status have had their registration applications arbitrarily rejected.
Local Baptists state that after the Khalkabad church's Sunday service on July 29, held in Zulfikarov's home in his absence, five church members stayed behind to talk. “Without any warning seven people in civilian clothes and with a video-camera burst into the flat,” church members told Forum 18. “They immediately started a search.”
One church member, Odiljon Solijonov, asked the intruders who they were. Instead of answering, the intruders — who turned out to be police officers — pushed him up against the wall and said: “We're the ones who ask the questions.”
They confiscated all the Christian literature they could find and tried to force the five church members to sign statements. When Solijonov told the others not to sign anything, the officers threatened him physically.
All five plus Solijonov's five-month-old child were then taken to the Pap District police station five miles away. Solijonov's wife, Nilufar, was given no food or water, despite having a young child to feed.
All except Solijonov were freed after six hours. Solijonov refused to sign any statement and was held until 1 a.m. He was told to come back in the morning. He had no alternative but to walk home, arriving at 3 a.m. Solijonov returned to the police station in the morning, where he was held for a further nine hours.
Solijonov reports that he was beaten in the face and chest. When fellow Baptists complained to Motboev about the way Solijonov had been treated, Motboev told them he feared no one and that they could complain to whomever they liked.
Church members were forced to write statements although they complained that this violated their rights as enshrined in the criminal procedure code. When the Baptists told Motboev that they could not go against their conscience, they quote Motboev as responding: “I spit on your conscience.” Motboev told the Baptists they were “state criminals” and threatened to hand them over to the National Security Service secret police.
The Khalkabad congregation belongs to the Council of Churches-Baptists, which refuses on principle to register with the authorities, maintain ing that such registration leads to state interference in their internal activities.
Zulfikarov and the congregation has experienced harassment before. In November 2006 police raided the Khalkabad congregation and fined Zulfikarov 12,420 Soms ($10 US) for “failing to observe the correct procedure for teaching religious beliefs.” The court also ruled that Christian literature confiscated from church members was “extremist” and ordered that it be destroyed.
Amid an earlier period of heightened pressure in 2003, five church members — including Zulfikarov and Solijonov — were each sentenced to 10 days' imprisonment. They had to pay the costs of their own imprisonment. Three other church members were fined.