Officials from Kazahkstan’s National Security Committee (KNB) staged a prolonged and thorough raid against Grace Presbyterian Church on 24 August.  A colonel and several officers arrived without warning at 10 am and did not leave until 1 am the following morning.  Everyone present was forced to stay for the duration and provide written statements to KNB apparatchiks.  Computers, Christian literature, administrative files, and other documents were confiscated.  The KNB filmed the whole thing.

The reason for the raid is apparently a state secret.

Officials of the National Security Committee (KNB) secret police in the town of Karaganda [Qaraghandy] and in the capital Astana have refused to explain to Forum 18 News Service why they staged a massive 15-hour raid on Karaganda's Grace Presbyterian Church and several other church-related properties on 24 August. "We cannot tell you," the duty officer at the Karaganda Regional KNB – who refused to give his name – told Forum 18 on 27 August. "We're not an open organisation."

You don’t say.

Likewise, Kenzhebulat Beknazarov, spokesperson for the national KNB in Astana, refused to explain. "It was in the framework of a criminal case," was all he would tell Forum 18 the same day.

The criminal case is said to involve Article 165 of the Criminal Code, which relates to high treason and imposes very lengthy prison terms on those found guilty.

On the same day, searches were also conducted at three church-owned private homes in Karaganda and the Grace Presbyterian Church in Oskemen, eastern Kazakhstan.

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