[4] According to the 2022 U.S. Department of State Religious Freedom Report,There are small communities of Jehovah's Witnesses, Shia Muslims, Baha'is, Roman Catholics, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and evangelical Christians, including Baptists and Pentecostals.
There are small pockets of Shia Muslims, consisting largely of ethnic Iranians, Azeris, and Kurds, some located in Ashgabat, with others along the border with Iran and in the western city of Türkmenbaşy.
All groups must register in order to gain legal status; unregistered religious activity is illegal and may be punished by administrative fines.
While the 1996 law on religion and subsequent 1999 amendments had effectively restricted registration to only the two largest groups, Sunni Muslim and Russian Orthodox, and criminalized unregistered religious activity, presidential decrees issued in 2000 dramatically reduced the numerical thresholds for registration and abolished criminal penalties for unregistered religious activity; civil penalties remain.
There was no substantial change in the degree of religious tolerance by the Turkmenistan government during the period covered by this report, and there were troubling developments in the treatment of some unregistered groups.
The Turkmenistan government threatened members of minority religious groups with fines, loss of employment and housing, and imprisonment because of their beliefs.
In 2004 the Government published amendments to the 2003 law on religion that reduced numerical thresholds for registration from 500 members to 5, and made all minority groups eligible to register.
In October 2005 the Government announced a temporary procedure for the registration of religious groups' regional branches by issuing powers of attorney.
Ministry of Justice (MOJ) representatives also stated that amendments would be made to the 2003 law on religion that would codify the branch registration issue, but this did not happen during the reporting period.
In addition the decree relieved the MOJ of the obligation to publish in the local media a list of registered religious organizations for transparency.
Its writ is enforced by security forces, specifically the Sixth Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and it has no role in promoting interfaith dialogue.
Until June 2004 government entities at all levels, including the courts, had interpreted the laws in such a way as to discriminate against those practicing any faith other than Sunni Islam or Russian Orthodox Christianity, whose congregations represented the only two registered religious groups.
In practice government policies, including those at the city level such as zoning regulations on the use of private residences, have created difficulties for some groups in finding places to hold worship services.
However, two registered religious groups, the Baha'i community and the Krishna Consciousness Society, were permitted to conduct worship meetings in homes.
In 2003 the widely respected former mufti of the country, Nasrullah Ibn Ibadullah, was replaced, secretly tried, and sentenced in 2004 to 22 years in prison.
Until June 2007, conscripted members of the Jehovah's Witnesses were returned home unharmed several days after being called up, although they were not given papers excusing them from military service, which are needed for employment.
President Berdimuhammedov raised the issue of education reform in January 2007 but there was no change in the Ruhnama policy by the end of the reporting period.
Article Six of the November 2004 law allows mosques to provide religious education to children after school for 4 hours a week with the approval of parents.
Several groups said they would prefer to buy a worship center or land to establish a permanent one, but municipal authorities raised insurmountable bureaucratic hurdles.
The law prohibits foreign missionary activity, although in practice both Christians and Muslims working in the country in other capacities engaged in religious outreach.
Copies of the book were kept in most mosques, and authorities have pressured religious leaders to place it alongside the Qur'an and to preach Ruhnama in their services.
According to Forum 18, the Government on January 6, 2007, refused to grant permission to Merdan Shirmedov, a Protestant from an ethnic Turkmen fellowship in Dashoguz, to leave the country to join his pregnant wife, Wendy Lucas in the United States.
Several registered religious minority groups reported that the Government monitored them by attending their gatherings; nonetheless, communities continued to engage in regular activities.
According to Forum 18, Ministry for National Security (MNB) officials arrested Vyacheslav Kalataevsky, a Baptist leader from Türkmenbaşy, on March 12, 2007, and on May 14 he was sentenced to 3 years' imprisonment in a labor camp on criminal charges of illegally crossing the border in 2001.
Jehovah's Witnesses have reported a number of beatings, arrests, fines and imprisonments of its members in Turkmenistan for conscientious objection and other charges related to their religious activities.
On April 19, 2007, officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Sixth Department raided a branch of the registered Evangelical Baptist Church of Turkmenistan in Türkmenbaşy.
In early 2007 law enforcement officials reportedly raided a meeting of the registered group Svet Vostoka (Light of the East) Pentecostal church in Dashoguz.
In 2004 Muslims in Bagyr, a predominantly Kurdish suburb of Ashgabat, reported they could no longer bury their family members in traditional cemeteries but instead were obliged to use a centralized location.
In a May 2007 meeting with embassy officers, the Deputy Chairman of the CRA agreed in principle to hold another minority religious group roundtable to discuss pressing concerns, similar to the one held on October 20, 2005.
For example, in the early part of the 20th century Ashgabat was a refuge for Baha'is escaping persecution in Iran, and a Baha'i temple was built in the city at that time.