UZBEKISTAN — Uzbekistan officials are claiming that a protestant pastor has voluntarily renounced his right to an appeal and because of poor health is pleading to be transferred to his place of sentence.

Uzbekistan is in Central Asia, north of Afghanistan.

However, friends of Pastor Dmitry Shestakov who has been sentenced to four years in a work camp, have told Forum 18 News Service that they are very concerned about this claim, as well as the unexplained cause of his poor health.

Forum 18 has been unable to verify whether Shestakov is still incarcerated in eastern Uzbekistan, or whether he has already been sent to an open work camp.

According to Forum 18, some people in Uzbekistan have assumed that Shestakov had been forced to sign the document renouncing his right to an appeal. They point out that he had lodged an appeal on March 16 against his sentence. There is also speculation over the cause of Shestakov’s deteriorating health, who turned 38 on April 9.

Shestakov was sentenced on March 9 to four years imprisonment in an open work camp, because of his leadership of his congregation, a branch of the city’s registered Full Gospel church.

Forum 18 reported that Shestakov’s delayed appeal should have been heard in Andijan Regional Criminal Court on May 1, but that did not take occur, Protestant sources who preferred not to be named for fear of reprisals told Forum 18. At a court hearing on May 1 to consider Shestakov’s lawyer’s complaint over the delay to the appeal hearing, Forum 18 reported the court claimed that Shestakov had "voluntarily" signed the document on April 25.

The apparent author of this document renounced an appeal and begged to be sent to his place of punishment. Forum 18 reported that the appeal should have been heard within one month of his sentence, according to Article 497-2 part 1 of the Criminal Procedure Code. On April 20, Shestakov had complained about the delay to the Regional Court and the Prosecutor’s Office.

Forum 18 reported that sources have told the news service that the court has also refused to consider the complaint that the expert analysis of literature and tapes of sermons confiscated from Shestakov had been done illegally. Also not considered by the court were complaints that prosecutors and witnesses in the case should themselves be prosecuted, for allegedly falsifying evidence and testimony against the pastor.

Forum 18 reported that the news service was unable to reach anyone at Andijan Regional Prosecutor’s Office or at the Regional Criminal Court to find out why the appeal was not heard within the set time. Neither was the news service able to ask court and prosecution officials why Shestakov apparently renounced his right to an appeal after the application had already been lodged.

M. Mamadaliev, a senior aide to the Andijan City Prosecutor, has continued to summon members of Shestakov’s church for questioning, Forum 18 reported, which he began on April 5. Forum 18 learned that 14 church members have now been summoned, some more than once. However, they refused to attend and complained to prosecutors over what they regarded as the illegality of the summonses. Also summoned was one individual who had left for Russia in 2002.

Forum 18 also discovered that on a number of occasions Mamadaliev and officers of the National Security Service secret police visited the registered Jesus Christ Full Gospel church. They asked Pastor Ramai Jalilov to pressure church members to appear for questioning when summoned, stating that official warnings would be given to anyone who did not obey.

One Protestant told Forum 18 that Article 5 of Uzbekistan’s Religion Law forbids this behavior, stating that religion and the state are separate and that the state cannot interfere in the internal affairs of religious communities.

In addition, Forum 18 reported, the statute of the Andijan Full Gospel church declares that it is "not responsible for the obligations and actions of its members." The verdict on Shestakov documented extensive state controls on religious communities in Uzbekistan.

The Andijan authorities’ determination to crush what it regards as Pentecostal missionary activity in the region is clear from a leaked document from the Andijan regional administration seen by Forum 18.

In north-western Uzbekistan, another Christian is on trial. Local Protestant Salauat Serikbayev is being tried in Nukus, the capital of the Karakalpakstan region. Serikbayev is a member of an unregistered congregation in his home town of Muynak, close to the Aral Sea. He was detained with 17 other Protestants, when police swooped on a home in Nukus on Jan. 15.

Serikbayev was later accused under Article 229-2 of the Criminal Code, Forum 18 reported, which punishes "violating the procedure for teaching religion" and carries a maximum term of three years imprisonment. However, he has accused the police officers who have testified that they caught him teaching religion without state approval, a crime in Uzbekistan.

Protestant sources speaking on condition of anonymity told Forum 18 that Serikbayev’s trial finally took place on May 2 with a verdict anticipated on May 3.

Local Protestants have complained to Forum 18, the news service reported, about continuing attacks on missionaries - who are unnamed - in the state-run press. An example of this, Forum 18 reported, is that on April 24 the Tashkent-based Russian-language newspaper "Narodnoe Slovo" published an article by Professor Mansur Bekmuradov, of the Tashkent State Institute of Culture. He alleged that unnamed missionaries were turning local people into zombies. He implied that people sharing their faith was akin to "religious violence," describing this as "one of the most dangerous social, political, ideological and moral problems."

Bekmuradov also claimed that, Forum 18 reported, that "In Karakalpakstan religious emissaries have used the method of spreading their faith among the rural population of giving out free goats in exchange for changing religion, in Tashkent region free groups for studying English have been launched, while in Khorezm clothes have been given out etc." He also charged that missionaries are particularly targeting students.

Christian university students in Karakalpakstan have long been targeted by the authorities, Forum 18 reported. Hare Krishna students in Khorezm region, also in north-western Uzbekistan, have been targeted as well.

Without offering any evidence to support his claims, Forum 18 reported that Bekmuradov continued to say that for nine years missionaries had tried to "Christianise" the Timor region of Indonesia, before launching a civil war and achieving the break away from Indonesia of East Timor. He claimed that missionaries in Uzbekistan were likewise seeking to open up a "schism" in Uzbek society.

Forum 18 said that there was no explicit indication in the article whether he had Christian, Muslim or other missionaries in mind. But the reference to the alleged activities of Christian missionaries in Indonesia makes one believe, the news service commented, that he was particularly targeting Christians who share their faith with others.

The state-run media’s encouragement of intolerance against religious minorities has been stepped up in recent months, as has a propaganda offensive to deny that Uzbekistan violates religious freedom.

For more background, see Forum 18’s Uzbekistan religious freedom survey at www.forum18.org/Archive.php ?...