November 13, 2001 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Two of the countries adjoining Afghanistan are Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. These were formerly part of the Soviet Union. Both are hotbeds of religious persecution against Bible-believing Christians. The following information is from the Keston Institute of Oxford, England -- http://www.keston.org

TURKMENISTAN

A religious organisation must have 500 members before it can apply for registration. Currently the only registered - and therefore legal - religious organisations are the Russian Orthodox Church and the state-approved Spiritual Directorate of Muslims. In November 1999 the Seventh Day Adventist church building in Ashgabat was demolished by the authorities. The last Baptist missionary was deported from Turkmenistan on 6 May 2000.

PRISONERS: Shagildy Atakov, Turkmenbashi. Baptist. An active evangelist, in August 1999 Atakov was sentenced to four years in a labour camp and fined $12,000 fine for alleged swindling. The average wage is in Turkmenistan is approximately $30 a month. Church members insist this charge was instigated to obstruct his activity with the church. He was arrested on 18 December 1998 in the Caspian port city of Turkmenbashi, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and fined on 19 March 1999, but was retried on 4 and 5 August 1999 in Ashgabad and given the increased sentence. In February 2001 Atakov's family reported that he had been tortured and treated with psychotropic drugs, and further, that his health was deteriorating rapidly after a heart attack he suffered in January. After being transferred briefly to prison hospital, then being put in a punishment cell in Seydy, he was moved on 23 March 2001 to an enclosed prison in Turkmenbashi where prisoners have no contact at all with the outside world. Meanwhile, the police and local authorities began to exert pressure on Shagildy's wife Artygul and their five children to renounce their faith and swear the oath of allegiance to the Turkmen president on the Koran. Artygul was threatened with suspension of parental rights if she failed to comply. On 12 May Shagildy and Artygul were brought to the Turkmen capital Ashgabad and pressured to emigrate. After they refused, Shagildy was returned to the enclosed prison in Turkmenbashi where he is still being held. His family has been without a breadwinner since his arrest. In addition to these known prisoners, there are a number of Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses who have been subjected to internal deportation.

UZBEKISTAN

The 1998 law on religion requires communities seeking registration to have 100 adult citizens as members, bans proselytism, prohibits all religious education outside approved establishments, subjects imported religious literature to state censorship and tightly restricts religious publishing. Unregistered religious activity is illegal. Many religious communities fail to qualify for reregistration or have been denied it on spurious grounds.