VZCZCXRO8392
PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHBC RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHDE RUEHDF RUEHDIR RUEHIK
RUEHKUK RUEHLH RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHPW RUEHROV RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHAH #1189/01 2530922
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 090922Z SEP 08
FM AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1517
INFO RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA 4278
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 2090
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 1955
RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL 2526
RHMFIUU/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ASHGABAT 001189 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN AND NEA/IR, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL IR TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: AN IRANIAN-AMERICAN BAHAI AT HOME 
(AGAIN) IN ASHGABAT 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Emboff's recent conversation with an 
elderly Iranian-American Bahai religious worker in Ashgabat 
revealed a refreshing exception to the problems faced by 
minority religious groups in Turkmenistan, including 
registered organizations.  The fact that this Bahai community 
elder is able to operate quite freely mentoring Bahai youths, 
meeting in Ashgabat with other adherents from around the 
world, and conducting other religious activities is rather 
impressive.  Our contact's relative freedom to conduct 
religious work in Turkmenistan is positive.  She also reports 
having had no problems whatsoever in renewing her residence 
permit each year since she arrived in 1991. END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (SBU Our contact, an 83-year old ethnic Iranian and 
naturalized U.S. citizen, was born in Ashgabat in 1925. Since 
she returned in 1991, she has functioned as a community elder 
and shepherd for the country's small Bahai community.  She 
meets regularly with Bahai youth, who look to her as a 
religious mentor.  In fact, the day after her conversation 
with emboff, she was hosting a lunch for 15 young members of 
the community from around the country.  She is a point of 
contact for visiting Bahais  from around the world, including 
from North America and the Middle East.  She hosts religious 
meetings in her home and sometimes shows movies from her 
large collection of Bahai-themed videos.  Our contact 
volunteers as an English language tutor.  She also enjoys 
listening to the 24-hour Bahai radio station that broadcasts 
from the U.S. via her satellite dish. She said that she never 
misses an opportunity to spread the message of Baha'ullah in 
her interactions with Turkmen she meets, although not in a 
overt way.  For example, she reminds vendors of the 
importance of honesty, and irate cab drivers to use patience 
rather than profanity, all basic tenets of her faith, she 
says.  Turkmen authorities allow her to renew her residence 
permit yearly without problems because Ashgabat was her place 
of birth. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The Amcit Bahai community leader lived in Ashgabat 
with her family for 13 years, then settled in the northern 
Iran city of Mashad when they were forced to leave 
Turkmenistan in 1938.  Back in Iran, she attended high school 
and later completed nurse's training.  Her family, ethnic 
Persians, are originally from Yazd.  Her mother was also born 
in and lived much of her life in Turkmenistan.  Since 1953, 
she has made pilgrimages to the Shrine of the Bab in Haifa 
six times, most recently for the dedication of the Bahai 
World Center in 2001.  At the time of her first visit to 
Haifa, she met with Shoghi Effendi, the grandson of 
Baha'ullah (revered as a divine prophet), founder of the 
Bahai faith.  (NOTE: The Bahai faith is one of the few 
registered religions in Turkmenistan and the world's first 
Bahai House of Worship was built in Ashgabat in 1908. END 
NOTE.)  Our contact left Iran for Nicosia in the 1950s and 
worked as a hospital supervisor.  She was later joined there 
by her parents and siblings.  In 1964, when the civil war 
broke out in Cyprus, the family returned to Iran, but left 
for the U.S. three years later via Lebanon.  For the next 25 
years, she worked in hospitals in East Africa and the 
Caribbean, undertook further medical training in the United 
States, ultimately returning to Ashgabat in retirement 
seventeen years ago.  All of her siblings reside in the 
United States. 
 
¶4. (SBU) COMMENT: Our contact's relative freedom to conduct 
religious work in Turkmenistan is positive.  The Turkmenistan 
government does not limit her religious activities and have 
allowed her to remain in the country legally.In addition to 
its window on the Bahai community, our contact's story 
mirrors Turkmenistan's early Iranian community, who migrated 
here around the turn of the century.  Many were dispersed 
during Stalin's enforced relocations and sent to Khazakhstan 
and Siberia. Others were ordered deported back to Iran.  Of 
the original immigrants who managed to remain in Ashgabat, 
most have assimilated, and their descendants no longer speak 
 
ASHGABAT 00001189  002 OF 002 
 
 
Farsi at home.  END COMMENT. 
CURRAN