Rights group Forum 18 says the pastor remains cognitively impaired due to a traumatic brain injury, as a UN special rapporteur accuses prison officials of torturing a church leader in Kyrgyzstan.
Forum 18 reported that Major Azat Kudaibergenov, the warden of the prison, told the relatives of 65-year-old True Freedom and Reform Adventist pastor Pavel Schreider in a letter on September 22 that doctors had examined him multiple times and diagnosed him with a “traumatic brain injury” that caused “cognitive impairment.”
According to Forum 18, Schreider was sentenced to three years in prison on the trumped-up charge of “inciting hostilities” and was transferred to Prison No. 31, a medical unit in the capital Bishkek. On September 12, her daughter, Vera Schrider, appealed to staff at Prison 21 for medical treatment.
“As evidenced by official medical examination results, he has developed a brain disorder, encephalopathy, which is affecting his general health,” the family said, as reported by Forum 18. “We had already written to the prison authorities to request him to be transferred to the medical unit for treatment as we saw him very weak during the appeal hearing in court on September 9. It was more than two weeks later that they transferred him.”
In November 2024, the National Security Committee (NSC) secret police began raiding the pastor’s home in Bishkek and the homes of 10 church members before his arrest. Forum 18 reported that NSC secret police officers tortured both Pastor Shrider and three other church members during post-arrest interrogations. The police officer denied abuse.
“Five police officers punched me in the head and chest and kicked me in the spine from behind,” Schrider wrote in a complaint filed in November 2024 with the then-National Center for the Prevention of Torture, adding that the officers “beat me with a steel pipe to get me to confess to having committed the crime.”
According to Forum 18, NSC secret police officers also used a stun gun to try to force church member Igor Tsoi to write a statement against Pastor Schleider. The stun gun caused multiple injuries to Tsoi, but she refused the request.
Five UN Special Rapporteurs, including Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief Nazira Ghanea, sent a letter to the administration on July 23, citing the “alleged arrest, detention, and torture” of members of the True Free Reformed Adventist Church and the subsequent criminal prosecution of Reverend Schleider.
“Serious allegations of torture and ill-treatment have been made in relation to Mr. Schreider and other male believers while in custody,” the special rapporteurs told officials, Forum 18 reported. “Male and female members of the group reportedly witnessed (NSC secret police) officers hitting seven male members of the group, including Mr. Schleider, Mr. (Yuri) Pauls, Mr. Igor Tsoi, and Mr. Peter Petkau, in the head and body, all of whom reported abuse in custody. Mr. Schleider and Mr. Tsoi were also reportedly strangled with cellophane bags and subjected to the use of a weapon, including a Taser.”
The Special Rapporteurs asked the administration to comment on its actions against True Free Adventists and on Pastor Schrider’s health. They also asked how his prosecution and court-imposed ban on the church were “consistent with international human rights obligations” and what steps had been taken to “investigate credible accusations” of torture against the four church members.
The administration responded with a short response in Russian on September 20, according to the UN Special Procedures Communication website.
Kanatbek Midin Wooley, deputy director of the National Office of Religious Affairs and Interethnic Relations, did not respond to calls from Forum 18 or to written questions about the administration’s actions against True Freedom and Reform Adventists.
Pastor Schrider’s family told Forum 18 that they pointed to several factors that contributed to the deterioration of Pastor Schrider’s health, with the assault during his arrest being the most serious. “Firstly, he is old; the prison environment is not conducive to his physical movement and exercise, and his circulation is poor… secondly, he is under stress every day, probably because of the arrest… and lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the police officer beat him and hit him in the head when he was arrested.”
Church members told Forum 18 that they had sent a letter to the United Nations in Geneva in December 2024 reporting attacks, detentions and torture.
According to a report by Forum 18, no one has been prosecuted for torturing Pastor Schleider and his church members. At the time, the National Center for the Prevention of Torture effectively dismissed the victim’s testimony, claiming that torture was “unsubstantiated.”
On September 25, prison authorities finally transferred the pastor from Prison 21, where he had been detained for 10 months, to a secure medical facility. Pastor Schreider’s transfer to the prison medical unit postponed his appeal hearing for a three-year sentence at the Bishkek City Court.
church ban
On July 10, Bishkek’s Birinci May (Pervomaysky) District Court found Schreider guilty of “inciting racial, ethnic, national, religious, or regional hostility.” Forum 18 reported that Judge Ubaydullah Satymkulov sentenced him to three years in a general regime forced labor camp and ordered him to be deported to Russia at his own expense after the end of his sentence.
The pastor’s lawyer, Akhmat Alagushev, filed an appeal against the conviction and prison sentence in Bishkek City Court on August 7.
The True Free Reform Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kyrgyzstan has chosen not to seek national registration. Forum 18 notes that exercising freedom of religion or belief without state registration is illegal and punishable in the country.
On March 19, the Alamuddin District Court in the Chui region banned the True Free Reformed Adventist Church as an “extremist” religious group. Kyrgyzstan’s Bishkek Supreme Court on August 4 permanently dismissed the church’s appeal against the ban, with the judges issuing the ruling in just 20 minutes, Forum 18 said.
Because of the ban, churches are no longer able to gather for worship. Previously, meetings were held at a place of worship in the village of Lenin, just north of Bishkek.
Kyrgyzstan formally abides by the United Nations Convention against Torture, which obliges signatory states to arrest persons suspected of committing or instigating torture, take “other legal measures to ensure the existence of such persons (sic)” and bring them to trial under criminal law.
In the latest move to further alarm the regime’s accountability, the Zogoruk Kenesh (parliament) voted in June to abolish the independent National Center for the Prevention of Torture and transfer its key role to the regime-appointed Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman.
