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Tashkent

• Woman Killed for Her Faith

  

  A Christian mother in Uzbekistan was killed by her husband on February 9th because she had recently accepted Christ. The attack happened at the Tashkent airport as she was attempting to flee the country.

  Problems for "Umida" (not her real name) began when her husband discovered that she had asked a friend for a Bible. In addition to locking Umida in their home to prevent her from going to church, he also banned her from seeing their two-year-old son. Eventually she was able to go live with her parents, along with their daughter. While living there, Umida attended church but continued to face threats.

• 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."