Tashkent (AsiaNews)-The National Security Service of Uzbekistan (former KGB) still uses Iron Curtain tactics to interrogate believers of  unregistered religious groups as part of their "preventive work" to enforce the country's law on religion. Members of religious minorities who meet in a private home for the purpose of unregistered religious activity will be arrested and fined, or put under administrative arrest for up to 15 days. The informants are often members of the groups themselves who have been threatened into revealing information to the NSS.

While Uzbekistan officials refuse to comment on the issue, a number of members of unregistered religious groups have come forward to tell of the bullying they have been subjected to. Former worker for the Interior Ministry, Rustam Satdano, is now a lawyer in the capital city, Tashkent, and defends Jehovah's Witnesses. Told February 10th to Forum 18, an organization for the protection of religious rights based in Norway, Satdano  was summoned on  December 16, 2003 by Vadim Negreyev, an investigator of minority faiths, to report to NSS national headquarters. Upon arrival, he was taken to the basement of the building, to a small room containing a table and three chairs secured to the floor.

"Behind the table sat Bokhodir Kakhramonovich Alayev, who introduced himself as the head of the NSS administration for combating religious extremism....Alayev's first question was to ask after things at home, and how my two sons were. He mentioned them both by name. He asked after my wife, mother, father, and my little brother Timur." He continued, "These were designed to put me on edge by their depth of information- I know these tricks, having taken an entire course on interrogation techniques at Uzbekistan's Academy of Internal Affairs." Alayev went on to allude that he was aware of the Jehovah's Witness meetings Satdanov held at his home and that the NSS was planning a crackdown on the group after the holidays. He advised Satdanov to protect his relationship with the NSS.  "Alayev told me that he himself had the power either to further my career or ruin my life-he simply had to drop the hint of slander to the right person and I would lose my lawyer's license." On February 11th, Forum 18 contacted Negreyev with Satdanov's permission, and asked him about the three-hour meeting between them.  Immediately after, Satdanov began receiving "threatening" phone calls, "We had a friendly chat with you, and you immediately telephoned journalists and disclosed the names of our agents. Now we're really going to have to find ways of dealing with you."

Other reports of such conversations between NSS and believers have surfaced. In June, Nelja Denisova, a member of the Asia Protestant Church, received a similar call to the NSS offices in Tashkent. After 4 hours of interrogation about the activities of the Association of Independent Churches, to which the Asia Protestant Church belongs, Negreyev directed her, "Just don't publish an article about our conversation on the Internet. No one raped or tortured you here. We just had a friendly chat!"

Vladimir Zhikhar, the Association's coordinator, told Forum 18, "This is far from the first time that members of our church have been summoned by NSS officers." The church is unregistered.

Bakhtier Tuichiev, the pastor of a Protestant church in Andijan, in the Uzbek section of the Fergana valley, told Forum 18 that about a year ago, he had been visited by a group of people claiming to be CNN and BBC jouranalists,  who were mostly interested in his view of the country's president Islam Karimov. He believes that, in fact, they were NSS officers. CNN and BBC confirmed that none of their journalists were in the country at that time.

In June 2002, Forum 18 correspondent  Igor Rotar  experienced first hand the NSS' practices when two men entered his hotel room in Nukus, Uzbekhistan unannounced, saying they were doing a "routine check on foreigners." He was investigating the violation of believers' rights in the town, and was the only foreigner of  several who was subjected to the 'routine check'. It was later suggested that the telephone in his room had been tapped.

Freedom of religion is provided for by the Constitution of the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan

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