TASHKENT CITY, Uzbekistan (ABP) -- Authorities in Uzbekistan cracked down on Baptists after a government-sponsored news agency ran articles alleging illegal religious activity at a summer camp for children.

Forum 18, a Norway-based news service that monitors alleged violations of religious freedom, reported July 28 that Pavel Peichev, head of the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists of Middle Asia, faces criminal charges of unlawfully teaching children religion and misusing resort facilities.

Local Baptists fear huge fines, confiscation of the property, imprisonment or some combination of penalties if Peichev is convicted.

Details of the investigation were sketchy, but Forum 18 said charges include violating rules of maintenance and fire safety, unlawfully using Baptist property for a children's camp and "involving under-age children in religious organization as well as teaching them religion against the will of the children, their parents or persons substituting them."

Camp Director Dimitry Pitirimov told Forum 18 that all parents whose children attend the Camp4Joy summer camp know it is run by Baptists and sign an agreement to allow children to be taught. He said most children who attend are children of members of Baptist churches.

Uzbekistan's law says only registered religious groups can engage in religious activity. In April a deacon of a Baptist church in Tashkent received a 15-day jail sentence for allegedly teaching Baptist beliefs to children in his home and giving them food.

Pitirimov says the Camp4Joy is legal because the Baptist union is a legally registered religious organization. Baptists have been holding the camp in the mountain district about an hour-and-a-half's drive from Uzebekistan's capital city of Tashkent for several years.

Pitirimov denied several allegations in two articles published by the news agency Gorizont.uz under a headline "Grievous and Criminal Acts of 'Joy,' including that he receives large amounts of money from foreign sponsors.

Last year Camp4Joy had 538 campers. The camp lasts eight days and features rock-climbing, hiking and other recreation.

Uzbekistan's constitution provides for freedom of religion and for the principle of separation of church and state, but a religion law passed in 1998 restricts many rights only to registered religious groups and limits which groups may register.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom labels Uzbekistan a "Country of Particular Concern," ranking it as one of the world's worst violators of religious liberty.

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This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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