DUSHANBE (UCAN) --Tajikistan's Ministry of Culture has prevented 100,000 Tajik-language bibles ordered by the local Baptist community from entering the country.

According to Asia Plus, a weekly paper published in Dushanbe, Religious Affairs department head Idibek Zieev said the consignment of bibles is too large for the Baptist community, which numbers only about 1,000.

The government official reportedly said it was strange to import so many copies of the Christian Scriptures to a country where 95 percent of the population is Muslim. Tajikistan has around 6.5 million people.

No law bans the import of religious literature in the Central Asian country, according to a lawyer UCA News spoke with on April 28.

"To be honest, it is an absolutely incomprehensible decision, because there is no restriction on the import of religious literature into the country," said the lawyer, who preferred to remain anonymous. "I really don't know how the Bible does not conform to the laws of the Republic of Tajikistan."

Baptist community leaders contacted by UCA News preferred not to comment.

The news, however, did reinforce concerns among the small Catholic community, which numbers about 250 and also has had problems importing religious literature.

"I'm really disappointed with the strict and unfriendly position of the Religious Affairs Committee of the Ministry of Culture concerning the delivery of religious literature to Tajikistan," said Father Carlos Avila, who heads the Catholic Church in Tajikistan.

"I understand our government is trying to prevent the penetration of radical religious movements into the country, but the work of communities that spread peace, love and tolerance shouldn't suffer from it," the Argentine missioner told UCA News. "What is wrong with bringing a large number of Bibles into Tajikistan? Or has it become forbidden for Tajiks to read this holy book?"

Tajikistan gained independence in 1991, with the breakup of the Soviet Union, but suffered through a civil war between Muslim rebels and the government from 1992 until a peace agreement was signed in 1997.

According to Father Avila, the local Catholic Church has long struggled to bring good, modern Russian-language religious literature into the country for catechism and to help Catholic's faith life in general.

Father Ezequiel Ayala, in charge of St. Joseph Parish in Dushanbe, told UCA News that bringing in religious books would be "excessively expensive" for the parish community. "We would have to pay the customs house for each day the religious affairs committee holds up the shipment to inspect of the contents, and this is impossible for our small parish."

Nonetheless, Father Ayala insisted his parish needs prayer books, catechetical material, bibles, Vatican documents and other religious literature.

"To be honest, our catechists don't have normal materials for teaching children," he said.

Larisa Kviatkovskaya, a St. Joseph catechist, told UCA News she has "virtually nothing to teach the children with, except the Bible and general catechism books." She said she can only dream about "specific catechetical literature aimed at children 13-16 years old" that she would like to use.

"I use religious magazines from 2002, 2001 or even the 1990s in my work, but it would be great to use something new," she said.

Her colleague, Ekaterina Gavrilova, who teaches children aged 4-6, would also like to have better material. "It is not such a big problem for me, because small children don't need very systematic study and the main thing for them is securing their attention," the 19-year-old catechist admitted. "But it would be great to have some paintings or illustrated books on religious subjects."

Father Ayala said he and the other Incarnate Word priests, to whom Pope John Paul II entrusted the Tajikistan mission in 1997, occasionally bring back books when they go to Russia or other Russian-speaking countries. "But this definitely can't solve the problem," he said.

Russian remains the lingua franca in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, but none of the priests serving here are native Russian speakers. They all came from Argentina, where the Institute of the Incarnate Word was founded in 1984.

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