Turkmen police invade Christian group meeting

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — Police in Turkmenistan’s capital city broke up a Christian house group meeting May 3, confiscating personal belongings and subjecting the group to extensive interrogation. More than 15 officials busted the unregistered gathering of 13 members of the Soygi (Love) Church in Ashgabat just hours after U.S. officials recommended that Turkmenistan be labeled one of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom. After seizing materials, the officers forced the Christians to re-enact their meeting activities while police videotaped them. Noting that Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov’s “increasingly oppressive personality cult” had effectively become “a state-imposed religion,” the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that Turkmenistan be added to the U.S. State Department’s list of violators of religious freedom as a Country of Particular Concern.