12 Church Members Start Hunger Strike in Kazakhstan
Twelve members of a Presbyterian church in Kazakhstan started a hunger strike on Friday to protest against accusations of treason against three of its staff, Interfax news agency reported.
Posted: Friday, September 7, 2007, 22:03 (BST)
Twelve members of a Presbyterian church in Kazakhstan started a hunger strike on Friday to protest against accusations of treason against three of its staff, Interfax news agency reported.
Kazakhstan is a predominately Muslim country but has a handful of Protestant churches, many of which cater to Kazakhstan's ethnic Korean minority and have links to churches in South Korea.
Interfax quoted the senior pastor at the church in Karaganda in central Kazakhstan, Vyacheslav Vorobyev, as saying members of the Kazakh internal security service raided the church and properties of some of its workers on Aug. 24.
The church's archbishop, his sister and an administrator are suspected by the Kazakh authorities of treason, Interfax quoted Vorobyev as saying.
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Added: Thursday, September 13, 2007, 15:40 (BST)
Don't forget please that in general terms, Kazakhstan is more secular than most Muslim countries. The government still functions in a Siviet style manner and puts pressure on all external groups, such as Buddhists, Hare rishna and jehovah's Witnesses as well as Christians. The muslim majority was only allowed to openly worsip after perestroika, and even then the Russian Orthodox church had the upper hand initially due to the influence of the large groups of ethnic russians in the country.
There are also some Muslim groups which are proscribed there.
And of course across the boirder in Russia, any group which is NOT Russian Orthodox faces an uphill struggle.
Jimmyd, Wales
