Scepticism over new ruling on registration of religious groups

"It is too early to assess the practical significance of President Saparmurat Niyazov's decree that purports to have eased the numerical requirements for [the] registration of religious groups in Turkmenistan," Felice Gaer, a deputy co-chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) told IRIN from Washington. "The decree seems timed to coincide with the run up to the United Nations Human Rights Commission session in Geneva that criticised Turkmenistan's human rights record last year." Describing Turkmenistan as one of the most totalitarian states in the world, Gaer noted severe curtailments of human rights and religious freedom in the former Soviet republic. Until recently, only two religions, Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodoxy, were officially recognised by the state, but even they faced close government scrutiny. Regarding the decree, Erika Dailey, director of the Open Society Institute's Turkmenistan Project concurred. "As a law, it is meaningless. The constitution of Turkmenistan's international human rights obligations already guarantee religious freedom, so simply restating this doesn't strengthen the protection," she told IRIN from Budapest. Their comments followed a decree by Niyazov on 11 March making it easier for religious organisations to register in the reclusive Central Asian state. Under the new rules, the groups must be established by at least five Turkmen citizens who permanently live in the country and have a minimum membership of 51, a major change over an earlier requirement requiring religious organisations to have at least 500 members. But Niyazov's move has been criticised. The decree coincided with the arrival the same day of US Deputy Assistant Secretary Lynn Pascoe to Ashgabat. Given a poor record on religious freedom, there was growing concern within the government that Turkmenistan was likely to designate a "Country of Particular Concern" under the US International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 - a label Ashgabat has been keen to avoid. According to the USCIRF, in 1999 and 2000 Niyazov had personally promised other senior US officials that he would liberalise the registration system for religious organisations - an act that was long in coming, making the decree somewhat dubious to say the least. If the government is serious about improving the state of religious freedom in Turkmenistan, it must adhere to what is already written, not issue additional decrees, Dailey maintained. "It needs to order the abuse stopped." One day before the law came into effect on 24 March, Forum 18 News Service, an agency covering religious freedom in the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe, reported that five religious communities - the Baha'i, the New Apostolic Church, the Catholic Church, the Church of Christ and the Adventists - had all sought information on registration procedures. But USCIRF noted as of Tuesday no organisation had yet to be registered under the new scheme. Moreover it remained unclear whether other religious organisations that were now in fact illegal in the country - Hare Krishna, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other Muslim and Protestant denominations - would apply to register. Additionally, there was at least one religious organisation, the "Initiative" Baptists, who refuse to register as a matter of principle. An additional criticism of the decree concerned fines imposed for those who did not register a group, encouraged others to take part in the activities of an unregistered organisation, or received any assistance from abroad. "These huge fines for violations of administrative procedures constitute an extraordinary hardship for communities and their leaders and do not bode well for the future of religious freedom in Turkmenistan," Gaer maintained. "It is also unclear that if a religious leader or community cannot pay these onerous fines what further legal consequences that will entail." Meanwhile, Felix Corley, editor of Forum 18, tried to remain pragmatic. Under the new law, for the first time since 1997, the majority of Turkmenistan's religious communities had the opportunity to try and register and function legally again. Secondly, the move demonstrated that concerted international pressure could bring about change, he explained. But questions about the government's real intentions remain. Only if the authorities meet their obligations without discrimination would believers in Turkmenistan believe that the situation had changed irrevocably for the better, Corley said. "After years of persecution, believers are unsure how far to trust the government and its newly-proclaimed religious policy," the religious rights expert told IRIN from London. "Some are determined to take the government at its word and try to get registration. Others will wait and see, fearing that if they apply now those who sign the registration application could open themselves up to further victimisation."