Christian Persecution – Russia & Former USSR

Protestant Christians in Azerbaijan are fearing for the future of their children after police raided a Sunday school using old Soviet style “KGB methods”, reports said Thursday September 4.

Barring a miracle, an innocent U.S. citizen is going to spend five years in a Russian prison for a crime he did not commit. Andrew Okhotin’s four months under house arrest and upcoming show trial should outrage anyone who believes in justice. It should also move them to do whatever they can to help.

Baptists and other Protestant groups in two of the most oppressive republics of the former Soviet Union faced fines and possible liquidation Monday, September 1, unless they stop church meetings, reports said.

Just over a month after he signed what critics call “Europe’s most restrictive religion law,” the president of Belarus has agreed to allow a Christian radio program to air daily in his ex-Soviet republic, an official said Tuesday, December 17.

Authorities in the former Soviet republic of Belarus have told Christians and other religious communities they can no longer hold meetings in their homes without prior permission, news reports said Friday, December 13.

Pentecostal Christians in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia are not allowed to gather for worship amid death threats, while a Baptist church was set on fire amid a government backed crack down against religious minorities, reports suggested Monday June 16.

Baptist Christians in Kazakstan are pressured to no longer express their faith in Christ publicly while their leader is facing possible jail time for refusing to stop bible study meetings in his home, reports said Monday, November 11.

A Baptist church in Azerbaijan is threatened with demolition amid growing concern about wide spread violence and persecution of Christians across the former Soviet Union, news reports said Friday November 8.

The Full Gospel Union of Pentecostal churches in Belarus has said it will defy what human rights groups call “Europe’s most repressive religion law” because it “violates the law of God,” news reports said late Tuesday, November 5.

Belarus’ repressive new religion law enters into legal force this coming Saturday (16 November), Keston News Service has learnt. From that date all unregistered religious activity by organised groups will be illegal; all communities with fewer than 20 members will become illegal and will not be able to function; any religious activity in private homes – apart from occasional, small scale meetings – will be illegal…

In a move expected to further isolate isolate the former Soviet Republic underground , Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko signed Europe’s “most restrictive religious law,” Thursday October 31, the Keston News Service (KNS) said.

NUKUS / BUDAPEST, (ANS) — A correspondent of the Keston News Service (KNS), which covers religious persecution, was harassed by the security service of Karakalpakstan, an autonomous republic in Uzbekistan, KNS reported Thursday, June 6.

Six members of a Baptist congregation in the town of Khazar (formerly Cheleken) were fined in mid-January for holding “illegal services”, Keston News Service has learned. The instruction to fine them came from the political police, the KNB (former KGB), the six were told. The Turkmen authorities routinely fine members of unregistered religious congregations for holding religious meetings, even if such meetings take place in private homes.

Just two days after a court in the capital Baku liquidated a Baptist congregation, a local policeman in the small town of Chukhuryurd near Shemakha in central Azerbaijan tried to ban a small Baptist church from meeting, Baptist sources told Keston News Service. “He had heard the news of the Baku church’s liquidation on ANS television and came to the local elder last Friday [5 April] and told him the church could not meet on Sunday for worship,” Ilya Zenchenko, head of the Baptist Union in Azerbaijan, told Keston from Baku on 10 April. “We told the church elder on Saturday the policeman had been overzealous and exceeded his powers and that his demands for the church not to meet had no legal basis.”

by Felix Corley, Keston News Service As believers who claim their rights have been violated by the state authorities debate and argue over the best way to resolve such violations, Keston News Service has discovered that Rafik Aliev, chairman of the State Committee for Relations with Religious Organisations, has repeatedly warned believers not to take their complaints to foreigners. “Come to us with your problems and we will sort them out,” he has told religious minority leaders, despite the fact that his office is often the cause of the violations or – in cases where other agencies have violated believers’ … Read more

by Felix Corley, Keston News Service As believers who claim their rights have been violated by the state authorities debate and argue over the best way to resolve such violations, Keston News Service has discovered that Rafik Aliev, chairman of the State Committee for Relations with Religious Organisations, has repeatedly warned believers not to take their complaints to foreigners. “Come to us with your problems and we will sort them out,” he has told religious minority leaders, despite the fact that his office is often the cause of the violations or – in cases where other agencies have violated believers’ … Read more