However, a number of village groups have closed as a result of this pressure. A number of church members have also been fined by the authorities for their activity. The phone line then went dead. Turkmenistan is committed to a range of human rights agreements, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the OSCE human dimension commitments and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These guarantee religious liberty, as does Turkmenistan's own constitution.
Registration remains one of the main problems for minority communities.
Legislation on religion requires 500 adult citizen members before an individual community can apply for registration. Officials have interpreted that to mean 500 people in any given town or district, making it all but impossible for smaller communities to gain registration. Speaking to the visiting Special Adviser to the United States Secretary for the New Independent States, Steven Sestanovich, and the US Ambassador to Turkmenistan, Joseph Hulings, in May 1999, President Saparmurat Niyazov promised to permit registration of almost all religious groups, but to date no action has been taken by the Turkmen government. There are frequent visits to churches on Saturdays and Sundays and church leaders continue to receive threats from officials. Meanwhile, Hare Krishna representatives in Moscow staged a protest against recent harassment of their community in Turkmenistan outside the Turkmen Embassy to Russia in Moscow on 24 September and held a press conference afterwards with devotees from Turkmenistan.