Source: Forum 18, April 28, 2017<\/p>\n
The NSC secret police in Khujand arrested Protestant pastor Bakhrom Kholmatov on April 10 after raiding his church and seizing Christian literature. Officials claim songbooks and the book More Than a Carpenter<\/em> are \u201cextremist.\u201d The pastor is being investigated on \u201cextremism\u201d criminal charges.<\/p>\n The NSC secret police asserts that the songs \u201cPraise God, oh the godless country,\u201d \u201cGod\u2019s army is marching,\u201d \u201cOur fight is not against flesh and blood,\u201d are \u201cextremist.\u201d Protestants pointed out that the words of these songs are references to texts of the Bible. Officers told church members during interrogations that these songs are \u201cextremist and call on the people to overthrow the government.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00bb Read full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb See also Tajikistan Opens A New Chapter: No Books Allowed In Or Out Without Approval<\/a> (Radio Free Europe) and Young Professionals Quietly Transforming Muslim-Majority Central Asia for Christ<\/a> (Christian Broadcasting Network).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Forum 18, April 28, 2017 The NSC secret police in Khujand arrested Protestant pastor Bakhrom Kholmatov on April 10 after raiding his church and seizing Christian literature. Officials claim songbooks and the book More Than a Carpenter are \u201cextremist.\u201d The pastor is being investigated on \u201cextremism\u201d criminal charges. The NSC secret police asserts that … Continue reading TAJIKISTAN: Christian Songs and Books Lead to Arrest for Extremism<\/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-7127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7127","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=7127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7128,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7127\/revisions\/7128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}