Hare Krishna devotee jailed for seven years

suchandra · November 17, 2005

This article was published by F18News on: 17 November 2005

TURKMENISTAN: Hare Krishna devotee jailed for seven years

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service

Turkmenistan has today [17 November] jailed a Hare Krishna devotee, Cheper Annaniyazova, for seven years on charges of illegally leaving the country, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. "Cheper tried to get an exit visa to go to Kazakhstan to stay in the temple in Almaty, but was refused," a source close to the Hare Krishna community told Forum 18. "She went anyway, crossing the border to Uzbekistan." Despite a claimed abolition of exit visas, Turkmenistan is to Forum 18's knowledge preventing three religious believers - two Protestants and a Hare Krishna devotee – from leaving the country. Forum 18's source insists that the heavy sentence was imposed at the behest of the MSS secret police to intimidate the Hare Krishna community. Turkmenistan also has the religious prisoner of conscience with the longest jail sentence in the former Soviet Union, former chief mufti Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah who is on a 22 year jail sentence.

One of the first converts to the Hare Krishna faith in Turkmenistan, Cheper Annaniyazova, was sentenced today (17 November) in the capital Ashgabad [Ashgabat] to seven years' imprisonment for illegally crossing the border three years ago. "Cheper tried to get an exit visa to go to Kazakhstan to stay in the temple in Almaty, but was refused," a source close to the Hare Krishna community told Forum 18 News Service. "She went anyway, crossing the border to Uzbekistan." But the source insists the heavy sentence was imposed at the behest of the Ministry of State Security (MSS) secret police to intimidate the Hare Krishna community.

Annaniyazova stayed in Almaty until earlier this year, returning to Turkmenistan when her father fell ill. She arrived home in Ashgabad in May, just too late to see her father before his death. However, when the MSS secret police later discovered she had crossed the border illegally three years earlier she was summoned for interrogation. While admitting she had left without obtaining the necessary exit visa (these are claimed to have been abolished), Annaniyazova protested that many others who had done likewise were not being tried. She insisted she was being persecuted for being prominent in the Hare Krishna community. The Hare Krishna community, along with other religious believers, has experienced continuing persecution (see the F18News religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=685). Born in 1968, Annaniyazova became a devotee in the late 1980s when Soviet controls on religion were loosened.

Despite the claim to have abolished exit visas, Turkmenistan still denies religious believers permission to leave the country and is currently barring two Protestants and a Hare Krishna devotee (see F18News 9 November 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=685.

In early August Annaniyazova was compulsorily detained in a psychiatric hospital in Ashgabad, where she was held until early September. "She was not injected with anything there – they just did tests and observed her," Forum 18 was told. Prosecutors then lodged a criminal case against her, though she was not arrested in the run-up to her trial, which began on 16 November.

Sources expressed concern that the sentence, handed down by Ashgabad city court, exceeded the five year maximum penalty under Article 214 section 2 of the Criminal Code, which punishes illegal border crossing "committed with preliminary planning and in a group, or using violence or threats". The sources say that Annaniyazova had originally planned to cross with another Hare Krishna devotee, but she changed her mind before they reached the border with Uzbekistan. They say Annaniyazova's lawyer tried to call witnesses who could testify to this, but the court refused to allow this. Had she been tried under Article 214 section 1, which punishes people who cross the border illegally on their own, she would have faced a maximum two year term.

Annaniyazova's friends are now concerned about how she will fare in prison, as she is a vegetarian and no provision is made in prison for vegetarians. They say those punished under Article 214 are also not eligible for amnesty (each year President Saparmurat Niyazov declares a large-scale amnesty during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan). However, her friends say that even were she eligible for amnesty she would not be prepared to swear the oath of loyalty to the president on a copy of the Koran required before prisoners are amnestied.

The oath of loyalty is considered by many religious believers to be blasphemous and reads: "Turkmenistan, you are always with me in my thoughts and in my heart. For the slightest evil against you let my hand be cut off. For the slightest slander about you let my tongue be cut off. At the moment of my betrayal of my motherland, of her sacred banner, of Saparmurat Turkmenbashy [Father of the Turkmens] the Great [i.e. President Saparmurat Niyazov], let my breath stop."

The religious prisoner of conscience with the longest jail sentence in the former Soviet Union is in Turkmenistan. The former chief mufti, Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah, was sentenced to 22 years' imprisonment at a closed trial in Ashgabad in March 2004. The Turkmen government has refused repeated international requests to make the verdict public.

For more background, see Forum 18's Turkmenistan religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=672

A printer-friendly map of Turkmenistan is available at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=turkme

Yesu_Bhaktan · November 18, 2005

How to protest this? I haven't used the provided link so maybe it is there.

Yesu_Bhaktan · November 18, 2005

Run out of Oslo Norway Forum 18 has an email rs list you can join.

One person's religious freedom is every person's religious freedom.

November 20, 2005

Wow, that bites /images/graemlins/frown.gif

I'd be mad too.

But she did break the law. We are to obey our nations laws.

Truely unfair. Hope you have sucess in getting a reduce sentence

----------------------

Yesu, your sig says:

"So if anyone loves Krishna, he must love Lord Jesus Christ also. And if one perfectly loves Jesus Christ he must love Krishna." - Srila Prabhupada, May 12,1969

Krishna is Not Jesus Christ!

One can love him and hate Jesus Christ even as Krishna is not god.

One of the 10 commendments tells us is not to bow down to anyone but unto God, for he is a geolous God.

Were not even to bow down before angels either!

But its true, were to love one another as ourselves, but all has sinned - even Kristna - before God

He is guilty as we all are.

"For all has sinned"

Only Jesus, the Son of the living God was sinless and thus a persect sacirface to take our sins and bear them on the cross, for Jesus is God the Son!

Yesu_Bhaktan · November 20, 2005

Yes Krishna and Yeshua are different beings. One is the Father and the other the Son. Most people on this forum refer to the Supreme Lord as Krishna as it is more intimate than "God" or "Father".

You needn't accept that. Perhaps you refer to the Father as Jehovah or some other name. The point is you have entered into an association here that respects the name Krishna so please be careful. Many harsh "Christians" enter and only succeed in widening the needless gulf of sectarian strife. I am not saying you have only that we need to be careful.

You can hear the statement in my signature like this. One who says they love the Father must love the Son also and one who says they love the Son must love the Father also.

Many Christians are even as we speak (and have for years) smuggled Bibles into communist countries against the laws of those countries in an attempt to bring God's message. Sometimes laws should be broken. And at all times when the laws are there for the purposes of religious persecution.

Hare Krishna

God bless