The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
13 June 2011
AZERBAIJAN: "I'm the permission and the warrant"
The state religious affairs official who led the police raid yesterday (12 June) on a Baptist congregation in Sumgait during Sunday morning worship explained away the lack of a warrant. "I'm the permission and the warrant," local Baptists quoted him as telling them. Also raided the same day was a Jehovah's Witness meeting in Gyanja, fellow Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. Both were raided because they do not have the compulsory state registration and in both cases fines are expected. An official of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations defended its officials' participation in the raids, claiming they were "in accordance with the law". The raids came two days after Parliament approved yet further restrictive amendments to the Religion Law.
8 June 2011
AZERBAIJAN: Communities to be forced to begin re-registration again?
Many of Azerbaijan's religious communities, whose re-registration applications have not been answered since the end of 2009, fear that the proposed raising of the required number of adult founders from 10 to 50 could see their current applications rejected, Forum 18 News Service has learned. The latest restriction on freedom of religion or belief is contained with other restrictive Religion Law draft amendments to be considered in Parliament on 10 June. Officials have given contradictory views on whether the increase in founders will be applied retroactively. This will be the 13th time that the 1992 Religion Law has been amended. Many communities fear that their intent is to force them to re-apply again, giving more opportunities for officials to impose pressure on communities and stop them gaining legal status. The Council of Europe's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) has described restrictions in the Religion Law on spreading one's faith and on religious literature as "incompatible with the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights". ECRI was also highly critical of the re-registration system.
6 June 2011
AZERBAIJAN: "The latest devious move to control religious communities"
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has sent new amendments to the Religion Law to the country's parliament, the Milli Mejlis, which is due to consider them on 10 June. Among other new restrictions in the draft text seen by Forum 18 News Service, they will require 50 adults to state that they are founders for a religious community to apply for state registration. Also the amendments increase the controls that the state requires religious headquarter bodies or centres to have over all communities under their jurisdiction. "This is the latest devious move to control religious communities through the law," a member of a religious minority told Forum 18. Muslim activist Ilgar Ibrahimoglu Allahverdiev noted that "these amendments are anti-Constitutional and violate the European Convention on Human Rights and United Nations human rights provisions". Iqbal Agazade, the only Milli Mejlis deputy of the opposition Umid (Hope) Party, told Forum 18 that "the amendments restrict human rights and are not in accordance with Azerbaijani law and international standards".
18 May 2011
AZERBAIJAN: Police "did well" in Sumgait raids
Defending the raids in mid-May on three Protestant churches in Sumgait within three days was the press office of Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry. The police "did well", an official there told Forum 18 News Service. After a raid by up to 15 police officers on the Sunday worship service of one of the congregations, held in a local restaurant, two church members were today (18 May) each fined about two weeks' average local wages. On 17 May, some 20 police officers raided a private flat where members of another local church were meeting, seizing about 60 books. "You can't meet for religious purposes in a restaurant – there are mosques and synagogues for that," the Interior Ministry official insisted. He refused to give his name, telling Forum 18: "I don't know who you are. You might be a terrorist or Azerbaijan's enemy No. 1."
13 May 2011
AZERBAIJAN: Another Sunni mosque disappears, heavy fines feared
After Turkish imam Ahmet left the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan in February, the Sunni Juma Mosque was taken over by the Shia community, leaving local Sunni Muslims nowhere to pray in the way they wish, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Forum 18 has been unable to establish whether the imam was forced to leave by the Nakhichevan authorities, or whether he left on completion of his term. Turkish diplomats refused to say. "No new appointment [of a Turkish imam] has yet been made, and we don't know when that will be," one told Forum 18. Meanwhile, two Jehovah's Witnesses face possible heavy fines for religious activity after religious literature was seized from their homes. Police and secret police joined the local Religious Affairs official to raid one. A Nursi reader had a Koran seized and faced police questioning in Mingechaur.
12 April 2011
AZERBAIJAN: "Sword of Damocles" hangs over religious booksellers
Bookshops selling religious literature in Azerbaijan are facing unspecified measures because they do not have the compulsory state licence to sell religious literature, Forum 18 News Service notes. Ilgar Ibrahimoglu Allaverdiev, head of the Devamm Muslim religious freedom organisation, told Forum 18 that "only very few can get such licences, while fines for selling religious books without a licence hang over traders like a sword of Damocles." However, he added that traders were reluctant to make official complaints in writing, fearing state reprisals, and preferred to complain verbally. Some local people noted to Forum 18 that traders are vulnerable to officials seeking bribes to turn a blind eye to evasion of the regulations. However, the harsh censorship regime on all religious literature is still being rigorously applied. And a ban is being imposed on local branches of foreign non-governmental organisations if, among other things, they engage in "political or religious propaganda".
8 April 2011
AZERBAIJAN: Riot police versus worshippers
Three religious communities in Azerbaijan's second city Gyanja have been banned from meeting for worship, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Babek Sadykov of Gyanja Police completely denied this, claiming to Forum 18 that "no one is being prevented from worshipping". Local people, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of state reprisals, told Forum 18 that one of the communities was warned that "if they met for worship on the following Sunday or at any future date they will all be arrested". Two buses full of ordinary police and riot police later arrived to prevent any religious worship. Protestants told Forum 18 that the church had already reluctantly decided not to hold one big Sunday service that day. "People are now very afraid." Meanwhile, a government-initiated World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue was told by President Ilham Aliyev that "freedom of religion, freedom of conscience have been fully established in Azerbaijan".
7 April 2011
AZERBAIJAN: Gaining legal status "a torturous process"
Many of Azerbaijan's religious communities have told Forum 18 News Service that procedures to gain or re-gain legal status are "a torturous process". At least 300 communities are waiting for renewed legal status, and unregistered activity is banned. Typically over 15 separate documents are required, and many complain that State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations officials arbitrarily and repeatedly question information supplied, the grammar of applications, and the completeness of documentation. Yusif Askerov of the State Committee told Forum 18 that "we're trying to help religious communities with the re-registration process". But communities state that complaints about slowness and hostility in processing applications are dismissed with comments such as "If you're not happy you can take us to court". Many communities are afraid to speak out publicly, for fear of official reprisals. But some are prepared to take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, noting the precedents set by Moldova losing such cases.
5 April 2011
AZERBAIJAN: "True believers aren't concerned"
As yet a further mosque is reported closed, parliamentarian Fazil Gazanfaroglu Mustafaev complained to Forum 18 News Service of the continued enforced closure of places of worship. He cited the Turkish mosque near parliament where he regularly prayed, whose 2009 closure he termed "unfounded". Local Muslims told Forum 18 officials in Qobustan closed and sealed their mosque on 4 March with no explanation. They said denials to Forum 18 from Administration and local police officials were lies. Members of the only Sunni mosque in Azerbaijan's second city Gyanja are continuing their campaign to have it reopened, though the city's Administration chief told them it was not his business. Baku's Baptists are renewing their campaign for the return of their church ceremonially opened exactly a century ago but confiscated during Soviet rule. Rabiyyat Aslanova of Parliament's Human Rights Committee admitted mosques have been closed, but told Forum 18 that "true believers aren't concerned about this".
22 February 2011
AZERBAIJAN: Continued defiance of UN and Council of Europe
Azerbaijan marked the tenth anniversary of its accession to the Council of Europe by rejecting a prisoner of conscience's appeal against his conviction. On 25 January Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Farid Mammedov's appeal against his nine month jail term was rejected by the Supreme Court. He is now preparing a case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. Continued conviction of conscientious objectors breaks Azerbaijan's international – including Council of Europe - human rights obligations. Less than a month beforehand, the Supreme Court also rejected the final appeal against a fine imposed for conscientious objection from fellow Jehovah's Witness Mushfiq Mammedov (no relation of Farid). He and a former Jehovah's Witness prisoner of conscience, conscientious objector Samir Huseynov, lodged a joint application (No. 14604/08) on 7 March 2008 to the European Court of Human Rights. "This application is pending before the Court and no date has yet been fixed for its examination," a Court spokesperson told Forum 18.
21 February 2011
AZERBAIJAN: Why a fine with no notice of a trial?
In the second such case known to Forum 18 News Service so far in 2011, Azerbaijan has imposed a fine for religious activity without state permission - without informing the victim she was being tried for this "offence". Jehovah's Witness Rasmiyya Karimova was warned by police in Gakh in north-western Azerbaijan not to conduct religious activity after a raid on her home in November 2010. However, although she was verbally told by a police officer that she would be fined 100 Manats, or three weeks' average wages, the first time she knew of a trial was when she received a court document informing her that she had been found guilty under Article 299.0.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences ("Infringement of the regulations on organising religious meetings or events"). The court document said that if she failed to pay the fine within the next ten days, bailiffs would seize property from her home to meet the fine. She has appealed, but has yet to receive an answer. The first such victim of a "trial" without notification was a Protestant fined for leading unregistered worship.
16 February 2011
AZERBAIJAN: Schoolboy prayer ban leads to two-day prison sentence
Boys of school age were prevented from attending Friday prayers at the Juma Mosque in the central town of Yevlakh on 21 January, local Muslims complained to Forum 18 News Service. Barring entry was a town administration official and the head teacher of a local school, but both refused to explain to Forum 18 why they had done so. A young man, Elvin Mamedov, was given a two-day prison sentence for failing to abide by police orders after he protested against the local police officer forcing entry into the home of a father who had defied the ban and taken his son to pray. Meanwhile, Seventh-day Adventist Gheorghiy Sobor was allowed to return to his family and home after being barred for eight weeks from returning to Azerbaijan. A Moldovan citizen, he and his wife have been required to pledge in writing that he will not conduct religious activity. "Of course we are not happy about this," Aida Sobor told Forum 18. "It's like living without an arm or a leg."