Local Christians report that prison authorities in Tajikistan released Christian prisoner of conscience Bakhrom Khasanovich Kholmatov on the morning of December 17, 2019. He had been held in Yavan prison in the southwestern Khatlon region.
Kholmatov was not due to be released until April 2020. "The court examined the possibility of releasing him early and shortened the sentence," says a local Christian according to the news service Forum 18 (which the Danish European Mission helped found, ed.)
Through the Danish European Mission, Danes have sent letters of encouragement to Bakhrom in prison and Danes have prayed for him.
"I would like to express my immense gratitude to everyone who has supported and prayed for me, my family and my church," Kholmatov says. "In those three years, I have felt your prayers. They have helped me to persevere, they have helped my beloved wife and children, and they have helped the members of my church who suddenly found themselves without a pastor and were kicked out of the building by the authorities."
Image: Bakhrom in cage during the trial in Khujand District Court 2017.
Prisoner of conscience Bakhrom Kholmatov, a pastor of a church in Khujand, was sentenced to three years in prison in July 2017 for allegedly "singing extremist songs in church and inciting religious hatred." The National Security Committee secret police arrested Kholmatov in April 2017 after raiding his church in Khujand, where they harassed and tortured its members.
The police seized the pastor's computer and the book "More than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell, which was published in Danish by Lohse Forlag in 1991. Imams working at KNB claim that the book is extremist.
Many thanks to everyone who prayed for Bakhrom and sent letters of encouragement.
