Only Russian Orthodox and Sunni Muslim confessions enjoy legal status, while the state denied registration to other confessions. Harassment of those faithful who defied this ban intensified in 1999. In September, officials summoned Pastor Korobov, head of the Evangelical Baptists in Turkmenistan and threatened to arrest him if all worship services did not cease. Also in August, KNB officers destroyed a Hare Krishna temple and forcibly deported a Krishna leader. Three Jehovah's Witnesses imprisoned for conscientious objection to military service were freed early in the year.
Free expression is non-existent, thanks to a government monopoly on the media.
Foreign media outlets, such as newspapers from Russia, were often confiscated from private citizens at the border. The KNB warned several journalists not to meet with an advisor to the OSCE Special Representative on Freedom of the Media who visited Turkmenistan in April. Amnesties in February reportedly freed 3,000 prisoners, while at the end of the year the government promised to free 6,000 to 12,000 more. Witnesses recounted that torture in prisons and pre-trial detention is routine. On December 31, Turkmenistan announced a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty.