Kazakstan Baptist Bible Study Ends in Police Raid

Kazakstan Baptist Bible Study Ends in Police Raid
Stefan J. Bos, Eastern Europe Correspondent, ASSIST News Service with
Keston News Service

Baptist Christians in Kazakstan are pressured to no longer express their
faith in Christ publicly while their leader is facing possible jail time
for refusing to stop bible study meetings in his home, reports said
Monday, November 11. The small Baptist community in Atyrau, a
municipality near the Caspian Sea in northwestern Kazakstan, has been
threatened by police forces and authorities to end their activities,
reported the Keston News Service (KNS). Baptist church leader
Kormangazy Abdumuratov said the pressure increased when police and
officers of the National Security Committee, the former KGB-secret
service, "raided" his apartment where eight Baptists were studying the
Bible. "They searched every room, asking who owned the religious books
and Bibles they found. Then they began to write out an official report
on them for holding a church meeting "unlawfully," KNS said, quoting
Abdumuratov. Authorities have reportedly also pressured him to end his
work as pastor in another Baptist church in the region. The pressure on
Baptists in Kazakstan comes amid growing pressure on Christians in the
former Soviet Union.