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-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Charles
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 7:24 AM
To: 'The Sandbox Discussion List'
Subject: [Sndbox] Baptist leader shot dead while prayingBaptist leader shot dead while praying
Probe launched amid report of possible anti-proselytism campaign
Posted: January 15, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.comA Baptist leader was shot dead while praying in a chapel in the Central Asian Muslim nation of Tajikistan.
Sergei Bessarab, a missionary in the town of Isfar, was shot with an automatic weapon by an unidentified assailant who broke into the yard of the house where the church's believers usually congregate, officials told the Russian Itar-Tass new agency.
Bessarab was from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, about 185 miles southwest of Isfar. He was shot 13 times with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an official from the United Nations office in Dushanbe said, according to gazeta.ru.com.
Officials said it is too early to draw conclusions, but a Norway-based persecution watchdog group, Forum 18, said the pastor's active missionary work – which included distributing Tajik-language evangelistic booklets – had aroused the anger of some local people.
One week before his death, the local paper Nasimi Isfara published an article sharply criticizing Besarab's missionary work, Forum 18 said.
Nothing was taken from the church, noted Valdemar Rakoshevsky, political adviser at the U.N. Tajikistan Office of Peace-building.
Interior Minister of Tajikistan Makhmadsaid Dzhurakulov has flown to Isfara to conduct a probe, according to Reuters.
Alexander Vervai, leader of the Evangelist Baptist Christians of Tajikistan, sent a letter to Itar-Tass saying "all the believers are profoundly upset by this tragic event."
Christians comprise an estimated 1 percent of Tajikistan's 7 million people. About 90 percent are Muslims.
Tajik authorities in Isfar regularly detain members of the Islamist Hizb-ut Tahrir party, which advocates creation of an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia, Reuters noted.
Islamist fighters challenged Tajikistan's authoritarian Moscow-backed secular government in a civil war from 1992 to 1997.
Charles Mims
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