Source: World Watch Monitor, September 2, 2016<\/p>\n
Finally, their journey is over. Three years since fleeing Uzbekistan\u2014following four years in a labor camp, house arrest, and death threats\u2014Pastor Dmitry Shestakov has arrived in the United States, where he and his family have been granted asylum.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been almost 10 years since Shestakov was first detained, after a raid on his Full Gospel Church in Andijan, southeastern Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n
When eventually he was released, only two church members went to collect him.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one else dared to come, because they\u2019re afraid to attract unwanted attention due to their connection with him,\u201d a charity worker with Open Doors, which advocates for Christians like Shestakov, said afterwards. \u201cPastor Dmitry has to be very careful and everything he does will be strictly monitored. This includes the people he will be talking to, everything he says, everywhere he goes, and much more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shestakov himself said he had been \u201cordered to follow strict guidelines and regulations.\u201d He added: \u201cI am a pastor and I want to serve God, but I have to find a wise way to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
But two years later it became apparent that staying in Uzbekistan was no longer possible. After being made to ask the police for written permission to leave his house, and then receiving death threats, Dmitry Shestakov took his family to Ukraine, where they were granted refugee status by the United Nations Human Rights Council.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb See also another report from Open Doors<\/a>, this one describing tensions surrounding the faith of another Central Asian believer who apparently has remained in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: World Watch Monitor, September 2, 2016 Finally, their journey is over. Three years since fleeing Uzbekistan\u2014following four years in a labor camp, house arrest, and death threats\u2014Pastor Dmitry Shestakov has arrived in the United States, where he and his family have been granted asylum. It\u2019s been almost 10 years since Shestakov was first detained, … Continue reading UZBEKISTAN: Pastor and Family Granted Asylum in US<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6636,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6635\/revisions\/6636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}