Kyrgyzstan (MNN) ― Authorities are cracking down on religious minorities. They say churches must collect signatures from 200 members in order to register, and even if churches are registered, they may only gather in the city of their registration.
"Before this last presidential election in 2005, when the current president came to power, churches in Kyrgyzstan seemed to have very little difficulty," said Joel Griffith of Slavic Gospel Association. "They seemed to be able to meet for worship, and maybe hold children's ministries without too much difficulty. But in the last couple of years after this election took place, we began to see the authorities take a much tougher line."
Some churches have convictions against registration in the first place. If they do try to register, the process can be nearly impossible. The government requires them to collect 200 signatures from adult citizen members -- an insurmountable requirement for churches that are not even allowed to meet.
"They're purposely wanting to make it very difficult for new places of worship to be registered," Griffith said. "So if they institute an impossible requirement like that, then they effectively have been able to put their thumb down on any new group of believers that would want to come together and form a church."
Griffith said Forum 18 asked one official for an explanation of the signature policy. The official's response, he explained, is an example of the "game-playing" government officials are doing.
"One of the state agency officials said, ‘Why should religious communities such as the Presbyterians try to open a branch in every corner of the country? Why can't they come together in one place, where they would not have a problem gathering 200 people?'" Griffith recounted. "Now of course, logic says if you have a group that lives in one part of the country, how in the world could you try to bring somebody from the other side of the country to gather in one place to try to worship!"
There's still hope, however, that Parliament could change parts of the new religion law, "especially controversial parts of that law, such as the restriction on sharing literature. Then regarding this high threshold, apparently there is still some argument going on within the Kyrgyz Parliament about whether to amend this," Griffith said.
SGA partners with the 64 registered Baptist churches in Kyrgyzstan, which have a membership of over 3,000 people. According to the CIA, about 5.4 million people live in the country, and 75 percent of them are Muslim. Most of the rest are Russian Orthodox.
Griffith urged Christians to pray that God will protect Christians, soften the hearts of the officials and open doors to continue spreading the Gospel.
"When you look back over history, the more pressure they try to apply on the churches, the more the churches grow," Griffith said. "We have hope and trust that the Lord's going to continue to build His church in those countries and that they are going to continue to see growth, even if they have to function underground, as many of them do. They're going to continue proclaiming the Gospel and worshipping the Lord no matter what."
