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2018-12-06

• Military Joins in Church Raid

  

  On November 25th, a Baptist church in Tashkent was raided. While not an unusual situation, this is the first time such a raid included members of the Uzbek military, as the National Guard joined 20 plain clothes officials from the secret police, the Justice Ministry, and the district police.

  Official searched throughout the building, confiscating over 7,000 items - including literature, songbooks and DVDs. Fourteen of the church attendees were taken to the police station where they were detained for over nine hours and then forced to sign statements that they had participated in an "unauthorized meeting."

• Christians Positively Respond to Persecution

  

  Despite ongoing attacks from authorities, members of the Early Rain Covenant Church have continued to preach on the streets. In October, 20 members of the church were detained for street evangelism. Despite the danger, church members gathered together again on November 14th to hand out fliers.

• Christian Refused Permission to Visit Dying Mother

  

  Ebrahim Firouzi has been imprisoned since 2013 on charges, including "actions against national security" (see this report). He is presently being held at the Rajai Shahr Prison, considered one of the harshest in the country.

  Ebrahim's mother has been suffering with cancer and appealed several times to the courts, asking that he be granted permission to visit her, since she was too sick to travel to the prison. Officials refused and, sadly, she passed away without seeing him. The funeral was held on December 4th and Ebrahim was unable to get permission in time to attend the service.