Azerbaijan 2008

Forum 18 (27.08.2008)/ HRWF (27.08.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Three weeks after being arrested for conducting "illegal religious propaganda", Jehovah's Witness Imamzade Mamedova was deported from Azerbaijan to Russia by car on 22 August, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service on 26 August. "She was not given any deportation order, which is of course another violation of her rights," they complained. Mamedova, who is 58 and a Russian citizen, had been arrested with another Jehovah's Witness by police, who pressured them to renounce their faith. She was detained for two weeks in a Migration Service detention facility in Baku before being deported. During this time she was allowed almost no contact with the outside world.

No-one at the Russian Federation embassy in Baku was immediately available on 27 August to say whether it had defended Mamedova's interests, or those of other Russian citizens deported from Azerbaijan on religious grounds in recent years.

Mamedova was first arrested on 29 July together with Gamar Alieva in the north-western town of Zakatala [Zaqatala], where both live. Police accused the two women of conducting "illegal" religious propaganda and released them only after seven hours.

Alieva reported that the pair were arrested by local policeman Major Ilgar Bayramov after he found them discussing their faith with neighbours. Bayramov took them to the town police station, where they were interrogated by deputy police chief Kamandar Hasanov and five other officers. "Kamandar swore at us, insulted our faith and us personally," Alieva noted in her complaint to the General Prosecutor's Office, of which Forum 18 has seen a copy.

She said another of the police officers remembered her, as he had "forbidden" her back in 2000 from preaching her faith to others. "Knowing where I work, he started to threaten that I would be driven out of my job and that the police would punish us in such a way that we would stop talking about God," Alieva complained.

Police pressured the two to renounce their faith, but they refused. Alieva reported that police searched the two women's bags without the required witnesses present or any documentation. She also complained they were filmed for subsequent use on television. Police eventually said they would be fined, though without a hearing and without any documentation. Alieva and Mamedova were then freed.

Alieva reported that the following day the police came to her home when she was out and took her husband to the police station. He was forced to transfer from his bank account 16.50 Manats (109 Norwegian Kroner, 14 Euros or 20 US Dollars) as a "fine" on her behalf.

Alieva eventually received from the police a written decision dated 4 August accusing her and Mamedova of having conducted "illegal religious propaganda", an accusation she rejects. The police decision, of which Forum 18 has seen a copy, was signed by Eyub Mamedov (no relation).

Although it declares that no criminal charges are to be filed against either, it accuses Alieva of violating Article 299.0.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences, which punishes "infringement of regulations relating to organisation of religious meetings or other events" with a fine of between 10 and 15 times the minimum monthly wage. Mamedova is accused of violating Article 300 of the Code of Administrative Offences, which punishes "carrying out religious propaganda by foreigners or persons without citizenship" with a fine and/or deportation.

Alieva insists that the Azerbaijani Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights (to which Azerbaijan is subject as a member of the Council of Europe) guarantee her right to discuss her faith with others.

Deputy police chief Hasanov refused to discuss the harassment of the two Jehovah's Witnesses with Forum 18. "We're getting on with our job," he declared on 27 August, before putting the phone down.

Senior Inspector of the Migration Police Elchin Mamedov (no relation) claimed that the decision to deport Mamedova had been taken by the court of Baku's Khatai District. "The sect protested against the ruling and it has gone to a higher court," he told Forum 18 from Baku on 27 August. "Ask their lawyer." Jehovah's Witnesses say this information is incorrect. Asked why Mamedova was deported merely for conducting peaceful religious activity, Mamedov responded: "I'm not authorised to make any comment."

Defending the deportation of Mamedova was Vali Aslanov, an official of the Legal Department of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations. "The police said she did something in Zakatala. They were right to deport her," he told Forum 18 from Baku on 27 August. He acknowledged that the Committee had received Alieva's complaint, but said they had merely passed it on to the General Prosecutor's Office. "We can't enquire into the content of the complaint," he insisted to Forum 18. "This is a matter for the police or the General Prosecutor's Office."

However, Aslanov maintained that the police were right to take action against the two Jehovah's Witnesses, claiming they had "forced" their religious views on others. "Talking about their faith is allowed, but not pressuring others to accept their faith." He declined to specify why he believed they had forced their views on others.

Asked why so many religious communities – including Jehovah's Witnesses and Protestants – face problems practising their faith peacefully in Azerbaijan, with prosecutions, fines, police raids, deportations and censorship of religious literature, Aslanov dismissed such complaints. "The state never does such things," he claimed. "What the Jehovah's Witnesses did was wrong, but then they blame the authorities."

Mamedova is the ninth foreign Jehovah's Witness to be deported from Azerbaijan in punishment for religious activity in the last two years. Six Jehovah's Witnesses were deported after being detained in a massive police raid on a congregation in Baku on 24 December 2006. Two others, Nadezhda Kuznetsova and Anastasia Ivanova, both citizens of the Russian Federation, were deported from the northern town of Khachmaz [Qacmaz] to Russia by car on 17 July 2007.

Mamedova is of Azerbaijan descent but has been living for many years in Russia and has Russian citizenship. She moved back from Russia to Azerbaijan in early 2008, settling in Zakatala, where some of her relatives live.

After her and Alieva's release on 29 July, Mamedova was detained again by the police on 7 August. After being held in Zakatala for one day, she was transferred to the Migration Service detention facility in Baku. This is where the six foreign Jehovah's Witnesses were detained in 2006 before being deported.

Protestant Christians are also known to have been deported from Azerbaijan to punish them for their peaceful religious activity or otherwise forced to leave in recent years. The Swedish pastor of the Cathedral of Praise charismatic church in Baku, Mats-Jan Söderberg, had his visa application denied in June 2005 and was given two weeks to leave Azerbaijan. He was subsequently blacklisted from returning to Azerbaijan.

Zakatala is a particularly repressive region for members of religious communities the authorities do not like. Four police officers and two official witnesses raided the Zakatala home of another Jehovah's Witness, Matanat Gurbanova, on 25 March. Police confiscated Gurbanova's religious literature.

Azerbaijan's Jehovah's Witnesses have added the information about recent harassment of their communities to a case they have brought against Azerbaijan at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (Application No. 52682/07).

Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov – who leads a Georgian-speaking Baptist congregation in the village of Aliabad just outside Zakatala – is now facing criminal trial on charges that he held an illegal weapon, charges his family and congregation insist are fabricated. Shabanov was arrested during a police raid on his home on 20 June and he has been held since then. His trial began in Zakatala on 22 July, but on 29 July the judge referred the case back to the prosecutor for further investigation.

However, Nizami Mamedov (no relation of Mamedova), the regional official of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations, rejects any suggestion that religious rights are violated in north-western Azerbaijan. "Nothing is happening here, there are no problems," he told Forum 18 from Zakatala on 27 August. Asked about the harassment of Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists and Muslims locally over many years he responded: "Here we have freedom of conscience and tolerance at the highest level throughout the world."

Asked about the detention of the two Jehovah's Witnesses and deportation of one of them, and the prosecution of Baptist pastor Shabanov, Mamedov responded: "Some people want to throw dirt, but you should look at the reality." He defended the prosecution of Shabanov. "This is not related to religion – a weapon was found, and he has violated the law. No-one can violate the law." Told that the Baptists accuse the police of planting the weapon so that they could imprison Shabanov, Mamedov responded: "The police are a state organ. Why shouldn't I believe them?"

Baptist pastor still in jail, prosecution given second chance

Forum 18 (30.07.2008)/ HRWF (31.07.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - The judge in the criminal trial of Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov has not yet convicted him, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Defence lawyer Mirman Aliev told Forum 18 that "we called for Shabanov to be acquitted, for an end to the criminal case and for him to be freed. But the judge was afraid to do so and instead sent the case back for further investigation." He said the judge ordered the re-investigation to be complete by 23 August, ready for a new trial. Officials were reluctant to discuss the case with Forum 18. After the trial, Zakatala Deputy Police Chief Kamandar Hasanov accused the head of the Baptist Union, Ilya Zenchenko, of being "an Armenian spy who acts only for money." Hasanov claimed that there is "a special instruction not to allow Baptists to function in Zakatala District." Defence lawyer Aliev complained of "numerous, gross violations of procedure" including forged documents, with alleged interrogations of Shabanov on days when no interrogations took place. Police have also wrongly claimed that copies of the Bible in Azeri and Georgian are "illegal".

Supporters of Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov have welcomed the decision yesterday (29 July) by the judge in his criminal trial in the north-western town of Zakatala [Zaqatala] not to convict him. Instead, Judge Elchin Huseynov referred the case back to the prosecutor for further investigation. "We were partially successful," Shabanov's lawyer Mirman Aliev told Forum 18 News Service on 29 July. "We called for Shabanov to be acquitted, for an end to the criminal case and for him to be freed. But the judge was afraid to do so and instead sent the case back for further investigation." He said the judge ordered the re-investigation to be complete by 23 August, ready for a new trial at Zakatala Court.

"We expect they will try again to imprison Shabanov - and we will try again to get him freed," Aliev told Forum 18. "He's not guilty. They are doing this solely because he is a Christian." The judge rejected the lawyer's application to have Shabanov released pending the retrial.

"We regard this as a first victory, but there is still much struggle ahead to free Hamid," Ilya Zenchenko, head of Azerbaijan's Baptist Union, told Forum 18 on 29 July. "Hamid spoke up in court to declare that he was not guilty. But they are one team, the police, the prosecutors and the judge."

Hekimkhan Seferov of the Zakatala District Prosecutor's Office, who is leading the prosecution case, was not available to Forum 18 on 30 July. Officials at the government's State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations were reluctant to discuss Shabanov's case with Forum 18 on 30 July. The official spokesperson Yagut Alieva was out. Aliheidar Zulfikarov, an official in the Expert Analysis Department which censors religious literature, told Forum 18 that the case is a matter for the courts. "The Committee doesn't get involved in legal cases."

Told that Christian literature had been confiscated as "illegal" from Pastor Shabanov at the time of his arrest on 20 June, as well as in 2007, Zulfikarov confirmed to Forum 18 that the Committee had received no religious literature from the police in Zakatala to review in the past few months.

Highly critical of the whole case are members of Shabanov's family. "We're very unhappy – we want Hamid vindicated and freed. But they don't want to free him," his brother Badri Shabanov told Forum 18 on 30 July from their home village of Aliabad near Zakatala. "The proceedings are not objective. The whole case is a charade. They're holding him now at the police station as if he's a terrorist."

Zenchenko of the Baptist Union told Forum 18 that Zakatala's Deputy Police Chief, Kamandar Hasanov, reacted angrily to the judge's decision. Hasanov met Zenchenko in the corridor outside the courtroom and had him taken to his office at the police station, where Zenchenko was interrogated and threatened for an hour. "Hasanov called me an Armenian spy who acts only for money," Zenchenko told Forum 18. "He demanded in a threatening manner that I should not return to Zakatala, stop helping local Baptists, and that I should abandon my faith."

Zenchenko said Hasanov forced him to write a statement and took a photocopy of his identity documents after checking that they were genuine. "He also told me that there is a special instruction not to allow Baptists to function in Zakatala District." Zenchenko told Forum 18 he intends to write to Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev to find out whether such an instruction exists and who has issued it. "I doubt that it comes from the president – if it exists it must be from the local administration."

Forum 18 has been unable to find out from Zakatala District Administration if such an instruction exists and if so why. The official who answered the telephones of Asif Askerov, head of the Administration, and his deputy both refused to identify themselves or discuss anything with Forum 18.

Zenchenko and defence lawyer Aliev had travelled the 450 kms (280 miles) from the capital Baku to attend the full trial, which began on 28 July. An initial hearing had been held on 22 July, but had been adjourned after the lawyer complained he had not been given the prosecutor's case ahead of the hearing and had not had time to prepare the defence case.

Hamid Shabanov is leader of one of several Baptist congregations in the majority Georgian-speaking village of Aliabad. The 51-year-old pastor is married with three adult children. Members of the congregations have long faced harassment from local officials, including refusal to approve registration applications, police raids, confiscation of Christian literature and denial of birth certificates to children whose parents give them Christian first names.

Pastor Shabanov is facing trial under Article 228, part 1 of the Criminal Code, which punishes illegal holding of a weapon with a sentence of up to three years' imprisonment. Shabanov's congregation and his family insist that the Nagan pistol a Prosecutor's Office official claims to have found, during the 20 June house search, was planted. Shabanov was arrested immediately after the alleged discovery.

Among the confiscated Christian books that the police claimed were "illegal" were copies of the Bible in Azeri and Georgian. Zenchenko was a witness in Shabanov's defence that the books had been approved by the Committee for Work with Religious Organisations under Azerbaijan's controversial system of compulsory prior censorship of all religious literature.

Pastor Shabanov's brother Badri complained to Forum 18 that neither the Christian literature confiscated in the June house search, nor literature confiscated during a raid in 2007 has been returned a year ago has still not been returned. He also complained that internal church documents also confiscated in June – which were not recorded in the official police record – have also not been returned.

Pastor Shabanov's lawyer, Aliev, reported that he had told Deputy Police Chief Hasanov bluntly that the pistol and bullets they claim to have found during the house search were planted by the police.

Hasanov has long demonstrated hostility to the Baptist community in Aliabad, which culminated in his leadership of the June raid when Shabanov was arrested. In the wake of the release from prison of Shabanov's colleague Pastor Zaur Balaev on 19 March, Hasanov and two colleagues threatened him with a new prison sentence if he continued his work with his congregation. Local Jehovah's Witnesses have also faced raids and harassment by police.

Reached by Forum 18 on 30 July, Hasanov rejected the Baptists' claim that the gun had been planted by police. But he refused to discuss Shabanov's case further. "Ask the judge," he said. He also refused to explain why the police have repeatedly harassed the Baptists in Aliabad and other religious communities in the region. He then asked Forum 18 why Shabanov's case was of interest. "This is our state. You do your job and we'll do ours." He then put the phone down.

Aliev, Pastor Shabanov's lawyer, complained of "numerous, gross violations of procedure" during the preparation of Shabanov's case. Signatures of unknown witnesses were on documents, and the "witnesses" were not made available when Aliev for them to be called to testify in court. He also complained of forged documents, with alleged interrogations of Shabanov being recorded on days when no interrogations had taken place.

Fabricated evidence, "witnesses" who did not witness events and lack of due process were also evident in the case of Pastor Balaev.

In particular, Aliev noted that all the case materials were prepared in Azeri, written in the Latin alphabet which has been in use for the language since independence. "Shabanov's native language is Georgian and he studied in Georgia," he told Forum 18. "He is therefore very weak in Azeri and finds reading it difficult, especially when it is in the Latin script." Court proceedings were conducted in Azeri, with no translation into Georgian for Shabanov on 22 July. However, on 28 and 29 July the judge arranged for a translator to assist Shabanov, who he said has a "poor understanding" of Azeri.

The Baptist congregation led by Balaev and Shabanov has also got no further in its long battle to get state registration, which in law requires an application by ten adult citizens

The congregation has been unable to register since the early 1990s as the State Notary refuses to confirm the signatures on the registration application, the first stage of the process.

On 22 July when the lawyer was in Zakatala, he and Zenchenko of the Baptist Union accompanied ten members of Shabanov's Baptist church to the Notary's Office. When the lawyer presented the documents to confirm the signatures on the community's registration application, the notary Najiba Mamedova again refused to do so. Complaining that the Baptists were preventing her from getting on with her work, she summoned the police and representatives of the Prosecutor's Office, who arrived quickly. "She said we were hooligans," Badri Shabanov, one of the church members present, told Forum 18. Mamedova has a long record of similar behaviour.

After Mamdova called the police, "I and the lawyer were taken to the police station," Zenchenko reported. "Instead of defending the rights of believers, the lawyer had to begin to defend himself."

‘Prosecutors very much want to sentence Hamid’

Forum 18 (23.07.2008)/ HRWF (24.07.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - The criminal trial of Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov began in the north-western town of Zakatala on 22 July, despite the fact that the prosecution had refused to hand the defence the case materials, Baptist Union leader Ilya Zenchenko told Forum 18 News Service. The trial resumes on 28 July. The same court sentenced fellow Baptist pastor Zaur Balaev to prison in 2007. Shabanov is being prosecuted on charges that he held an illegal weapon and faces up to three years' imprisonment. His church and family insist the weapon was planted during a massive raid on his home on 20 June during which he was arrested. They say he is being prosecuted to punish him for leading his congregation. "Prosecutors very much want to sentence Hamid," Zenchenko warned. "This whole case has been staged. We pray to God for him to come home," Shabanov's family told Forum 18. Meanwhile prosecutors in the capital Baku are trying to prosecute Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Mushfiq Mammedov for a second time on charges of evading military service, although the Constitution and the Criminal Code ban this.

The criminal trial of Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov began yesterday (22 July) with a preliminary hearing in the north-western town of Zakatala [Zaqatala], Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The full trial – at which he faces up to three years' imprisonment - begins on 28 July and could be over within two days, the head of Azerbaijan's Baptist Union Ilya Zenchenko told Forum 18 after the preliminary hearing on 22 July. "Prosecutors very much want to sentence Hamid," he warned. He views Shabanov's prosecution as part of an official campaign against local Baptists which has lasted more than a decade. Meanwhile a police manhunt has begun for a Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Mushfiq Mammedov, who has already served one sentence for refusing military service. Prosecutors want to sentence him a second time for the same offence, although this is banned in law.

Zenchenko – who travelled the 450 kms (280 miles) from the capital Baku to attend the hour-long hearing – said Shabanov "looked bad". "Hamid was wearing the same clothes he had been arrested in back on 20 June," he told Forum 18. "The Zakatala police who are now holding him have not allowed his family to pass on food or clothes. Hamid's wife and daughters were crying in court – it was the first time they had been able to see him since he was brought back to Zakatala earlier this month. Even then they were kept at a distance of three metres [yards] and were not able to touch him."

The authorities similarly denied former Baptist prisoner of conscience Pastor Zaur Balaev's family the opportunity to meet him during his lengthy pre-trial arrest.

Forum 18 was unable to find out from Zakatala police why they had refused to accept food and clothes for Shabanov and why family visits had been denied. The duty officer refused to put Forum 18 through to the police chief Faik Shabanov (no relation) on 23 July. "Why should I put you through?" he asked, before putting the phone down.

Shabanov is leader of one of several Baptist congregations in the majority Georgian-speaking village of Aliabad, which is close to Zakatala, the regional centre. The 51-year-old pastor is married with three adult children, two daughters and a son. He is being tried at the same court where fellow Aliabad Baptist pastor Zaur Balaev was sent to prison in 2007. Fabricated evidence and lack of due process were evident in that trial.

"We saw him today in court," Shabanov's family told Forum 18 on 22 July from their home in Aliabad. They report that about fifteen family and church members were allowed into the court and say that for the first time the police did not refuse to accept food and clean clothes for Shabanov. "We hope they now hand them on to him."

The family insists that all they want is Shabanov back home. "This whole case has been staged. We pray to God for him to come home."

Zenchenko complained that Shabanov's lawyer, Mirman Aliev, was only shown the full case file at the 22 July hearing and can only now begin to prepare Shabanov's defence. He said that Shabanov is being tried under Article 228, part 1 of the Criminal Code, which punishes illegal holding of a weapon with a sentence of up to three years' imprisonment. Shabanov's congregation and his family insist that a Nagan pistol a Prosecutor's Office official claims to have found during the 20 June house search was planted in his home. Shabanov was arrested immediately after the alleged discovery.

During the search by some ten officers of the police, Prosecutor's Office and National Security Ministry (NSM) secret police, Christian literature was deemed "banned literature" and confiscated.

Zenchenko also complained that the case paperwork includes allegations that Shabanov was promoting separatism among other members of Azerbaijan's Georgian-speaking minority, allegations Zenchenko rejects. "Hamid did not have an illegal weapon and he did not promote separatism," he told Forum 18. "But he has been accused of trying to create a new Karabakh," he reported in a reference to the mountainous region with a majority ethnic Armenian population which broke away from control from Baku in a bitter war in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Forum 18 was unable to find out from Hekimkhan Seferov of the Zakatala District Prosecutor's Office why materials on Shabanov's case had not been handed to the defence until the first day of the trial. The official who answered the telephone on 23 July said Seferov was not in the office and refused to discuss Shabanov's case.

Zenchenko lamented that unlike with earlier hearings in the prosecution of fellow Aliabad Baptist pastor Balaev, no observers from the Baku Office of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were present in court.

Balaev was arrested in May 2007 on charges of attacking five police officers and damaging a police car that he and his church insist were trumped up and aimed to punish him for leading his congregation. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, but was freed on 19 March after being held for nearly a year. He was summoned and threatened with a new prison term in early May.

Meanwhile Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Mammedov faces a possible new sentence for refusing compulsory military service, despite the fact that he has already served one sentence on this charge. Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 on 22 July that the new criminal case could have been lodged to punish him for challenging the original sentence through the domestic courts and at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, where his case is now awaiting an admissibility decision.

Forum 18 tried to find out why the Prosecutor's Office is seeking to prosecute Mammedov for a second time, but the telephone went unanswered on 23 July.

Mammedov was found guilty by Baku's Sabail District Court on 21 July 2006 of violating Article 321.1 of the Criminal Code, which punishes evasion of military service with a sentence of up to two years' imprisonment. He was given a suspended sentence of six months. The authorities have repeatedly – as in other cases such as that of Pastor Balaev – violated due legal process in hearing Mammedov's appeal.

The original prosecution and the new attempted prosecution come despite Azerbaijan's commitment to the Council of Europe to have instituted an alternative sentence by January 2004, three years after it joined the pan-European organisation. Azerbaijan failed to meet this deadline and has still not adopted an alternative service law.

Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 that the "harassment" of Mammedov and his family began soon after he filed the application to the ECHR in March 2008. "Starting from May this year, policemen several times went to the apartment where Mushfiq is registered," they told Forum 18. "And several times officials from Sabail District Prosecutor's Office called his mother and told her that Mushfiq should come to the Prosecutor's Office, allegedly because Mushfiq was accused of committing the crime of stealing a mobile phone."

On 8 June Mammedov and his mother Sevil Najafova filed a complaint against these actions with Sabail District Prosecutor's office. "Up till now they received no answer from the Prosecutor's Office," the Jehovah's Witnesses complained. Copies of the complaint were also sent to the Human Rights Ombudsperson Elmira Suleymanova and human rights organisations.

On 7 July a police officer named Javad called Mammedov's mother and said that a criminal case has been instigated over his alleged evasion of military service. He said he had received a written order to find him and bring him forcibly to the investigator Vugar Alekperov of Sabail District Prosecutor's Office. "Interestingly, up till that time Mushfiq did not receive any written notice from the Prosecutor's Office," the Jehovah's Witnesses commented.

The next day Mammedov's mother went to the prosecutor's office where she was given the written decision that a criminal case had been instigated against her son. The decision – of which Forum 18 has seen a copy – was dated 5 June. She was also informed that police would soon declare a manhunt for him.

The Jehovah's Witnesses point out that Article 64 of Azerbaijan's Constitution and Article 8.2 of the Criminal Code do not allow criminal charges to be brought against someone twice for the same crime. "Moreover this should be true in this case when Mushfiq did not commit any crime, but used his constitutional rights to request alternative service." They said Mammedov intends to file another complaint shortly with Sabail District Prosecutor's Office about the attempt to prosecute him a second time for the same offence.

Another Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector prisoner, Samir Huseynov, was freed from jail on 1 May.

'No new Religion Law,' official states

Forum 18 (30.06.2008)/ HRWF (01.07.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Despite intermittent discussion in recent years, Azerbaijan will not be amending its Religion Law, a senior official of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations told Forum 18 News Service. "There will be no new Religion Law," Jeyhun Mamedov told Forum 18 categorically in his office at the Committee in the capital Baku in late May. "This is what we've been told from above." He declined to specify which higher agency had passed this message down to the Committee. One opposition parliamentarian insisted to Forum 18 that the Law does need to be amended to prevent abuses of religious freedom. He also insisted that illegal moves against religious communities must also end.

The Religion Law was first adopted in 1992 and amended several times, each time making the Law more restrictive. Discussion of what some officials claimed was a "need" to revise the Religion Law peaked in late 2006, though Forum 18 was unable to find out why officials believed such a need existed (see F18News 14 August 2006 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=827). At that time, one deputy spoke up in parliament for the new Law to make registration more difficult, sentiments echoed to Forum 18 then by the Caucasian Muslim Board.

Rabiyyat Aslanova, a deputy of the Milli Mejlis (Parliament) who chaired the working group preparing the amendments, told Forum 18 in July 2006 that she expected the draft to be completed by September 2006, but refused to divulge what would be in the draft text. Many religious communities at the time expressed frustration to Forum 18 at the secrecy surrounding the new draft.

Fazil Gazanfaroglu Mustafaev, the only parliamentary deputy from the opposition Böyük Qurulus Partiyasi (Great Formation Party) and a member of the parliamentary Human Rights Commission, said that no draft new Religion Law currently exists. "I was involved in this issue as a deputy and a specialist," he told Forum 18 at the Milli Mejlis in Baku in late May. "But the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations didn't want a new Law. They said there was no need to look again at this Law."

However, Gazanfaroglu – who describes himself as a practising Muslim - insists such a need does exist, echoing complaints made separately to Forum 18 by human rights and religious activists. "The current Law does not treat all faiths equally," Gazanfaroglu complained to Forum 18. "The Caucasian Muslim Board has privileges. It is given a special status and this is wrong. All religious groups should be equal and ruled by law. This is what we wanted." Gazanfaroglu was referring to Article 8 of the Religion Law, which requires all Muslim communities to be under the umbrella of the Muslim Board.

"Muslim communities not under the authority of the Muslim Board should be allowed to gain legal status," Gazanfaroglu told Forum 18. "They could be of a different Islamic school or under a different sheikh." He added that many Sunni mosques consider it wrong to be forced to be under the Shia-dominated Muslim Board. "They should be allowed to register independently."

Gazanfaroglu also rejected the requirement imposed by the State Committee - though it is not in the Law - that non-Muslim groups have to be subordinated to a centre outside the country. "They're not allowed to open if they're independent."

Among other complaints about the Religion Law, Gazanfaroglu objected to the compulsory prior censorship by the State Committee of all religious texts printed in Azerbaijan or imported into the country. The provision is outlined in Article 22 of the Religion Law and amplified in Article 9 of the State Committee's Statute, as approved in 2001.

"The State Committee shouldn't have the right to censor religious literature, especially as they use such subjective grounds to ban things," Gazanfaroglu told Forum 18. "Censorship should be abolished entirely. The Religion Law and the State Committee's Statute need to be changed to ensure this." He believes that should any publications be produced that for example call for violence they should be considered in court with the help of specialists and if proved to be against the law should only then be banned.

Equally important to Gazanfaroglu as the Law itself is the behaviour of the authorities. "It is illegal when police raid religious communities," he told Forum 18. "Yet they do it. It is the same problem for political parties, journalists and non-governmental organisations. This is not a law-governed state."

Gazanfaroglu pointed to the raids on the Baptist community in Aliabad in the north-western Zakatala Region. He also pointed to the violation of their rights to gain legal status for their community because the local Notary refuses – with no legal basis – to refuse to notarise the signatures of the founder members.

"All this is against the law. Those affected should apply to the courts, even if the courts are not neutral here," Gazanfaroglu insisted to Forum 18. "We want the Law to be clear-cut and decisive to make such problems impossible."

Arbitrary denial of legal status for religious communities the government does not like is widespread. Those denied registration are often too afraid to take officials to court or believe this is highly unlikely to achieve success (see forthcoming F18News article).

Members of a range of religious communities told Forum 18 that they too would like to see an end to restrictive provisions in the Religion Law, including an end to compulsory prior censorship of religious literature. This is a long-standing complaint of many communities.

The current Law appears to allow only registered religious centres to establish educational institutions - and even then a maximum of one per denomination. Only registered religious centres can apparently establish religious publishing houses – and all literature they produce must be subjected to prior censorship. The State Committee may be planning to further tighten censorship.

Some religious minorities criticise the restrictions on the role of foreigners in religious communities. Article 300 of the Code of Administrative Offences punishes foreigners involved in "religious propaganda" with fines of deportation. Six foreign Jehovah's Witnesses were deported after a raid on a meeting in Baku in December 2006.

More widespread are complaints by religious communities of arbitrary and burdensome registration requirements (for example that founder members have to provide a letter from their place of work), arbitrary registration denial, police raids on religious meetings, confiscation of religious literature, denial of permission to print or import literature and detention or imprisonment of individual religious believers. Like the complaints over censorship, these complaints are long-standing.

Two members of religious communities are, to Forum 18's knowledge, currently being detained for their beliefs: Said Dadashbeyli, a Baku-based Muslim teacher is undergoing a 14-year sentence from December 2007, on terrorism-related charges. Dadashbeyli, his family say, promoted a "European style of Islam", mutual respect and unity between Shias (the largest Muslim tendency in Azerbaijan) and Sunnis, and rejected fundamentalism.

Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov was detained on 20 June 2008 pending criminal trial on charges of possessing an illegal weapon. His church and family insist that the charges are false, like those made against Baptist former prisoner of conscience Zaur Balaev.

Shock at second Baptist pastor arrest

Forum 18 (21.06.2008)/ HRWF (23.06.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Three months after Baptist pastor Zaur Balaev was freed from prison on what his family and congregation insist were trumped-up charges, another Baptist pastor in the same remote village of Aliabad in the north-western Zakatala [Zaqatala] Region has been arrested. Family members told Forum 18 from Aliabad that Hamid Shabanov was arrested yesterday (20 June) after police claim to have found a pistol during a house search. Family members insist that police planted the weapon. "He's a criminal," the head of Zakatala regional police Faik Shabanov (no relation) told Forum 18 bluntly on 21 June, even though under Azerbaijani law individuals are innocent until found guilty in court. Pastor Shabanov remains in detention at the Zakatala police station, the police chief confirmed.

"This is all being done according to a scenario," Pastor Shabanov's brother Badri told Forum 18 from Aliabad on 21 June. "First they imprisoned Zaur Balaev on fabricated charges, now they're going for Hamid. Their aim is also to bring a criminal case and put him in prison." Badri Shabanov insists the true aim is to close down all Baptist activity in Aliabad. "Their target is the church."

Condemning the arrest - the latest move in years of official harassment of Baptists in the village - is Ilya Zenchenko, head of Azerbaijan's Baptist Union. "We're in shock," he told Forum 18 from the capital Baku on 21 June. "This was a provocation by the police, a deliberately targeted action."

Like the overwhelming majority of Aliabad's inhabitants, Pastors Shabanov and Balaev and other church members are from the Georgian-speaking Ingilo minority, which was converted to Islam several centuries ago.

The several Baptist congregations in Aliabad have faced repeated raids, threats and confiscation of religious literature. The congregation Balaev leads has existed for more than fifteen years and has repeatedly been barred from gaining state registration. Forum 18 believes it to be Azerbaijan's religious community that holds the record for the longest denial of registration. Children given Christian first names by their parents in Aliabad have been denied birth certificates by officials angry at their choice of name.

Pastor Shabanov's home was among those searched when Pastor Balaev was arrested in May 2007. Christian literature confiscated during the raid has still not been returned.

Pastor Balaev was freed from prison in March 2008 after a worldwide campaign for his release, including support from former US President Jimmy Carter. Since his release police have threatened Balaev with a further prison term if he continues his religious activity with his congregation.

"Without this international campaign Zaur Balaev would never have been freed," Zenchenko of the Baptist Union told Forum 18. "Taking his case through the local courts brought us nothing."

Pastor Shabanov's family told Forum 18 that some ten police officers from both Aliabad and Zakatala had come to the family home in the village at about 5 pm on 20 June. "We believe they already had the intention to seize him," the family reported. "They threatened him because we meet for worship and pray together - they said we shouldn't do it."

The family accuse the police of planting "evidence" to use against Pastor Shabanov. "They came in claiming to be looking for drugs and guns," they reported. "They searched the house and claim to have found a gun, but they planted it themselves. He has got no weapons." The family say the search and the arrest were all over in about twenty minutes.

But police chief Faik Shabanov insists the pastor is guilty of a crime, harbouring an illegal weapon. Told that the family vehemently reject the accusation, the police chief told Forum 18: "They can say what they like." Asked why, if the police was solely concerned with an alleged illegal weapon, officers had threatened the pastor over church meetings in his home, police chief Shabanov responded: "Who are you to talk to the chief of police like that?" He then put the phone down.

Reached on 21 June, Jeyhun Mamedov of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations immediately put the phone down each time Forum 18 tried to ask him about Pastor Shabanov's arrest.

Officials in Zakatala Region have a history of restricting religious freedom, not only for Aliabad's Baptists. In 2007 a police officer banned Muslim men from attending a prayer room at Zakatala's market if they had beards and ordered them to shave. Local Jehovah's Witnesses have also faced harassment, most recently with a police raid on the home of Matanat Gurbanova and her family on 25 March. Police confiscated religious literature they claimed is "banned" and threatened members of her family.

Meanwhile, still imprisoned is Said Dadashbeyli, a Baku-based Muslim teacher who received a 14-year sentence at a closed trial in December 2007. His lawyer and family insist that he and eight of those sentenced with him are innocent of the serious terrorism-related charges levelled against them. Dadashbeyli founded an Islamic group called Nima in 2005 and, his family say, promoted a "European style of Islam", mutual respect and unity between Shias (the largest Muslim tendency in Azerbaijan) and Sunnis, and rejected fundamentalism.

Second raid this month on Jehovah’s Witnesses

Forum 18 (18.06.2008)/ HRWF (19.06.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Police in Azerbaijan have now raided two Jehovah's Witness communities since the beginning of June, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 that the second raid was on "a small peaceful religious meeting" in a private home in Lokbatan, a suburb of the capital Baku. Fifteen police officers took part in the raid on the evening of 11 June and detained all of the congregation, beating up three detainees. Neither the local police nor the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations have been prepared to explain to the Jehovah's Witnesses or to Forum 18 why this happened.

A similar Jehovah's Witness meeting in a private home in the Baku suburb of Surakhani was raided by police on 3 June. Nine men who were present were taken to the police station, beaten, threatened with rape and pressured to renounce their faith.

In the wake of the Surakhani raid, nine Jehovah's Witnesses caught up in the raid wrote a complaint to the General Prosecutor, of which Forum 18 has received a copy. They insisted that the raid was a violation of their rights to freedom of thought, speech and conscience guaranteed under Articles 47 and 48 of the Azerbaijani Constitution and Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. They asked the General Prosecutor to take "urgent and effective measures" to halt the violation of Jehovah's Witnesses' rights, to verify the legality of the actions of the officials and if they have violated the law to bring them to criminal responsibility.

The Jehovah's Witnesses copied their appeal to the Human Rights Ombudsperson Elmira Suleymanova, the head of the State Committee Hidayat Orujev, other state officials and human rights activists.

As is her usual practice, the spokesperson for the State Committee, Yagut Alieva, repeatedly put down the phone each time Forum 18 introduced itself on 18 June and asked why the two Jehovah's Witness communities had been raided.

Alieva's colleague Jeyhun Mamedov, who had told Forum 18 that Alieva would give the State Committee's response, said he had no information either about the 11 June raid in Lokbatan or about the 3 June raid in Surakhani, despite the fact that the Jehovah's Witnesses 13 June complaint about the Surakhani raid had been copied to the State Committee.

One Jehovah's Witness told Forum 18 on 18 June that they "have no clue" why the two meetings were raided in June. "The officers always say in these cases that these meetings are illegal, but when we ask them under what law they cannot explain."

Azerbaijani law contains no ban on religious meetings in private homes. Nor is unregistered religious activity illegal, although many state officials believe that it is.

Asked by Forum 18 as to why police and National Security Ministry (NSM) secret police officers repeatedly regard such religious meetings as "illegal" and raid them, Mamedov of the State Committee responded: "We have the law." Asked several times whether he believes such religious meetings in private homes are illegal, he eventually replied: "No they're not banned. However, we need to look at the individual situation of each case." Asked to clarify what he meant, Mamedov added; "Maybe there was some incident or problem." He refused to explain what he meant or to discuss this further.

Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 that at approximately 7.30 pm on 11 June, some 15 police officers, some of them in civilian clothing and some of them armed, burst into the Lokbatan home of Eldar Aliev. They requested all those present to show their identification documents.

"After forcing the door of another room they searched the whole house and confiscated religious literature, videocassettes and documentation of the congregation," the Jehovah's Witnesses reported. "Of these confiscated items, only some of the religious literature was returned the next day." They say the police showed no warrant.

"The policemen detained Aliev and without even giving him time to put on his shoes brought him to Lokbatan police station No. 10, soon followed by others who had attended the meeting." Among those detained was Sakit Zohrabov (who was also taken to the police station barefoot), as well as children and pregnant women. The Jehovah's Witnesses report that police also went to the house of Aliev's neighbour, Rovshan Mursalov, and detained him, even though he was not even present at the meeting.

At the police station officers demanded that Aliev hand over the keys of his house. When he refused, officers put handcuffs on him and brought him back home. There the police also detained his wife Maryam and the other female Jehovah's Witnesses who were still there. "In total more then 30 persons were detained and brought to the police station."

At about 10 pm all were released except for Aliev, Mursalov and Zohrabov. The Jehovah's Witnesses say these three were "insulted and beaten on their faces and bodies". Finally they were released at 11.30 pm. "Though marks of the beating still could be seen on their bodies," they report, "their efforts to receive a medical examination in one of the local hospitals were without result, since the hospital personnel told them they should have a note from the police requesting such an examination."

The duty officer at Lokbatan's police station No. 10 told Forum 18 on 17 June that he had not been on duty on the evening of 11 June. He referred all enquiries to another number. However, despite Forum 18's repeated calls on 17 and 18 June the officers who answered the phone refused to explain why Aliev's home had been raided. The head of the police station, Sabit Veliev, was not present or available on 17 and 18 June.

Muslim and Protestant communities have also seen intermittent police and NSM secret police raids on their meetings in recent years. However, the number of raids seems to have stepped up in the past year, with raids on other Jehovah's Witness communities, as well as Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists and other Protestants. Communities of other faiths have also been raided and warned for peaceful religious activity by officials in 2008; these communities have asked Forum 18 not to identify them for fear of further repression. Such raids have been condemned by human rights activists in Baku.

Some religious leaders have been imprisoned for peaceful religious activity. Zaur Balaev was freed in March 2008 after being imprisoned for leading his Baptist congregation in the village of Aliabad in the north-western region of Zakatala [Zaqatala]. He has been threatened with a new prison term if his congregation continues to meet.

Still imprisoned is Said Dadashbeyli, a Baku-based Muslim teacher who received a 14-year sentence at a closed trial in December 2007. His lawyer and family insist that he and eight of those sentenced with him are innocent of the serious terrorism-related charges levelled against them. Dadashbeyli founded an Islamic group called Nima in 2005 and, his family say, promoted a "European style of Islam", mutual respect and unity between Shias (the largest Muslim tendency in Azerbaijan) and Sunnis, and rejected fundamentalism.

‘Wasn’t one prison term enough?’

Forum 18 (12.06.2008)/ HRWF (13.06.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Baptist former prisoner of conscience Zaur Balaev - freed on 19 March after being held for nearly a year to punish him for leading his congregation - was summoned and threatened with a new prison term in early May, he told Forum 18 News Service on 12 June from his home village of Aliabad in the north-western region of Zakatala [Zaqatala]. "Haven't you learnt from your imprisonment?" Balaev quoted police officers as telling him. "Wasn't one prison term enough for you?" And, in what Balaev says was a clear threat, one officer added: "You may not be afraid, but you've forgotten you've got a wife, daughter and a son."

Balaev said the threats came from Kamandar Hasanov, the deputy regional police chief, and two of his colleagues in Hasanov's office in Zakatala. "They didn't hit me but they were very crude."

Balaev said the police banned his church from meeting, a ban the congregation has defied. Police have continued to visit his church during worship services. "They realise they can't drive us out," he told Forum 18, referring to the fact that all the church members are local people. "But they observe us closely.

Hasanov denied to Forum 18 that he had threatened Balaev. "There were no threats," he told Forum 18 from Zakatala on 12 June. "Who said there were any threats and raids?" He declined to say why the Baptist congregations in Aliabad cannot meet for worship without harassment, why Muslim men with beards were forcibly shaved and banned from Zakatala's mosque in recent years and why religious books were confiscated in a raid on a Jehovah's Witness home in Zakatala in March. "Call me back later," Hasanov said and put down the phone. He was not in the office later in the day.

Strongly backing Balaev and his congregation is Ilya Zenchenko, head of Azerbaijan's Baptist Union. "They used very bad threats against him," he told Forum 18 in the capital Baku in late May. "This must be reported. They definitely want to threaten him, telling him 'this is an Islamic country and Christians shouldn't be here'."

Balaev was arrested in May 2007 on charges of attacking five police officers and damaging a police car that he and his church insist were trumped up. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, but was freed under amnesty in March, perhaps as a result of international attention to his case. Another prisoner of conscience, Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Samir Huseynov, was freed on 1 May.

However, Said Dadashbeyli, a Muslim teacher on a 14 year jail term is still in prison. His lawyer and family have insisted to Forum 18 that he is "completely innocent." His lawyer, Elchin Gambarov, claims the Azerbaijani government wanted to show foreign governments that there was a serious Islamist threat. Dadashbeyli's family told Forum 18 that he promoted a "European style of Islam" and rejected fundamentalism.

The 44-year-old Balaev told Forum 18 his health suffered during his imprisonment. He was held for four months in an investigation cell together with some twenty other prisoners who smoked constantly and some of whom suffered from tuberculosis.

Like the overwhelming majority of Aliabad's inhabitants, Balaev is from the Georgian-speaking Ingilo minority, which was converted to Islam several centuries ago. The congregation he leads has existed for more than fifteen years and has repeatedly been barred from gaining state registration. Forum 18 believes it to be Azerbaijan's religious community that holds the record for the longest denial of registration.

Although police have not punished church members for continuing to meet, Balaev told Forum 18 that they have continued to visit services both of his congregation and of another Baptist congregation in the village led by Hamid Shabanov. "They visited us three times and other congregations twice," Balaev complained. "Pastor Hamid was also summoned by the police and threatened." He said police scrutiny had been particularly intense during a visit some two weeks earlier by fellow church members from Baku. "Police asked them why they had come and what they were doing. They demanded to see their identity documents and wrote down their details."

Balaev reported that Christian literature confiscated from Pastor Shabanov a year ago has still not been returned.

After Balaev's release, church members accompanied by Zenchenko tried once more to have their signatures on the congregation's registration application officially notarised by Zakatala's notary. "But they absolutely refused to do this," Zenchenko told Forum 18. "This is how they have behaved for years."

Jeyhun Mamedov of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations in Baku refused adamantly to discuss the threats to Balaev and harassment of his congregation and other religious communities in Zakatala Region with Forum 18 in his office in Baku on 21 May. However, he pledged to investigate the refusal of the notary to notarise the signatures on the registration application. Mamedov's telephone has gone unanswered every time Forum 18 has called since then.

Najiba Mamedova, Zakatala's notary, screamed down the phone at Forum 18 when it tried to find out why the notary's office is refusing to notarise the signatures on the registration application. "You've been going on about this for years," she told Forum 18 on 12 June. "You're a provocateur. It's none of your business. Armenians have occupied Nagorno-Karabakh for more than 15 years and we've spent blood over it. One Karabakh is enough." When Forum 18 pointed out that the Aliabad Baptist church has no connection with Armenians and that its members are Azerbaijani citizens she angrily put the phone down.

In November 2004 Mamedova angrily threw Forum 18 out of her office during a visit to try to find out why she was then refusing to notarise the signatures.

Numerous religious communities of a variety of faiths have been denied registration over recent years.

Children given Christian first names by their parents in Aliabad have been denied birth certificates by officials angry at their choice of name.

Meanwhile, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 that four police officers and two official witnesses raided the Zakatala home of Matanat Gurbanova and her family at noon on 25 March. Although she and her husband were out, police ignored her daughter's request that they should come back and insisted on conducting a search. When the daughter fainted in shock the police gave her water to bring her round then threatened her physically when she continued to object to the raid, Jehovah's Witnesses reported. Police confiscated Gurbanova's religious literature.

Jehovah's Witnesses and Protestants in other parts of Azerbaijan also continue to experience raids and police threats against their members.

Deputy police chief Hasanov told the media after the raid that 570 books and 78 brochures - which he described as "banned" literature - had been removed and that an investigation was underway.

Several days later, when Gurbanova was again out, a police officer again visited and said she could go to the investigator and collect the literature. "I did not go since I consider they acted unlawfully," Gurbanova wrote in a 2 April complaint to the Zakatala Regional Prosecutor's Office and the General Prosecutor's Office in the capital Baku. She insisted the raid violated her rights to freedom of thought, speech and conscience guaranteed in Articles 47 and 48 of Azerbaijan's Constitution and Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Zakatala's Muslim community has also faced official pressure in recent years. In October 2007 the APA press agency reported local Muslims as complaining that police officer Nasib Musaev had banned men with beards from praying at the prayer room at the town's market. They say he summoned all the men and ordered them to shave off their beards if they wanted to be allowed into the prayer room. APA said local Muslims had complained about the ban to the State Committee in Baku. Musaev denied to APA that he had issued any ban, claiming that anyone who wanted to could pray at the prayer room.

Local Muslims had earlier complained of close police scrutiny and pressure to shave off beards. However, one local resident told Forum 18 on 12 June that this problem seems to have at present halted.

Jailed Muslim teacher ‘completely innocent’

Forum 18 (28.05.2008)/ HRWF (28.05.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - The lawyer and family members for imprisoned Muslim teacher Said Dadashbeyli have insisted to Forum 18 News Service that his 14-year prison term imposed in Baku in December 2007 is completely unjustified. "Said and eight members of his group, out of the total of the 15 sentenced, are I believe completely innocent," Dadashbeyli's lawyer Elchin Gambarov told Forum 18 in Baku on 22 May. "All Said was doing was expounding his views of Islam to his 40 or so followers and collecting money to help the poor." Gambarov claims the Azerbaijani government wanted to show foreign governments that there was a serious Islamist threat. "The state knows Said is no danger, but needed a victim. He is a victim of geopolitics."

Gambarov told Forum 18 that the authorities had violated Dadashbeyli's rights to freedom of religion and freedom of association. He said they wished to crush the religious group he led, but sought to find a way to do it without appearing to target him for his religious activity.

No-one at the National Security Ministry (NSM) secret police was prepared to discuss Dadashbeyli's case with Forum 18.

Gambarov complained that the original trial in 2007 was closed. "Anyone who saw what actually went on would laugh," he told Forum 18. "It was all a spectacle. The verdict was one-sided and only had in it what was in their original accusation. I was allowed in but even his family was not." Similar accusations of lack of due process in court proceedings were made in the case of Baptist pastor Zaur Balaev.

The 32-year-old Dadashbeyli is currently being held at Strict Regime Prison Colony No. 15 in Baku's Narimanov District. The camp address is: UA-38/15, Boyuk Shor settlement

Dadashbeyli's mother, Gatiba Karaeva, told Forum 18 on 22 May that she is allowed to visit her son once a month. However, even in prison he is not allowed free access to religious literature. "He is allowed a copy of the Koran, but no other religious literature," she complained. "I can send him magazines and books about economics, which he studied, or anything else, except about religion. I don't know why."

The official who answered the phone at the prison on 28 May - who refused to give his name - told Forum 18 that prison director Yusif Allaverdi was not present that day (a public holiday in Azerbaijan). He maintained that Dadashbeyli's health is "excellent". He denied Karaeva's assertions that her son was not allowed to receive religious literature other than the Koran. "She can claim anything she likes," he told Forum 18. "But he uses religious literature. We have a mosque here also." He declined to explain on what terms Dadashbeyli and other prisoners are allowed access to the mosque.

Elchin Behbutov, head of the Azerbaijan Committee Against Torture, a non-governmental organisation, says that he has regularly visited Dadashbeyli and that his health is reasonable. He told Forum 18 from Baku on 28 May that for the last two weeks he has been treated for painful kidneys in the medical unit. "Said can go to the camp mosque freely, but like other prisoners cannot have religious literature apart from the Koran. This has been banned by the prison director Colonel Allaverdi, who says he fears extremist literature." Behbutov said he too believes Dadashbeyli is innocent.

Dadashbeyli - who had worked for many years for an oil-service company - founded an Islamic group called Nima in 2005. His family told Forum 18 the name was chosen as it represented Amin (Amen) backwards, and was chosen to signal respect for Muslims and Christians as both use the word when praying.

They say Dadashbeyli promoted a "European style of Islam", mutual respect and unity between Shias (the largest Muslim group in Azerbaijan) and Sunnis, and rejected fundamentalism, especially what he regarded as fundamentalism preached by missionaries from neighbouring Iran. He also opposed sending alms from Muslims in Azerbaijan to ayatollahs in Iran, arguing that needy people in Azerbaijan should be supported instead. Karaeva, his mother, told Forum 18 that he had collected money and helped orphans, disabled people and the poor.

The family say Dadashbeyli met with his followers in tea houses around Baku where he would discuss his views informally with them. He often prayed with his followers at Baku's Turkish (Sunni) mosque, where he would encourage Shias to pray alongside Sunnis. The family add that the group was still forming and had some 40 members when Dadashbeyli and the others were arrested. They say he had intended to set up a website to expound his views, formalise the group, draw up statutes and try to register it with the Justice Ministry.

Dadashbeyli was arrested by the NSM secret police on 13 January 2007, just
days before he, his wife and their two children were due to emigrate to
Canada, where he had gained permission to work. Gambarov reports that
immediately after his arrest, NSM officers beat Dadashbeyli, deprived him
of food and water, refused to let him sleep and refused him calls to his
lawyer and family.

Dadashbeyli was charged under a range of Criminal Code articles: Article 274, Article 278 (violent seizure of power), Article 218 (organising a criminal group), Articles 28.2 and 180.3 (attempted robbery), Articles 204.3.1 and 204.3.2 (manufacture or sale of forged money), Article 228.4 (illegal storage of firearms and ammunition) and Article 234.1 (illegal storage of drugs). He rejected all the charges.

Gambarov and the family told Forum 18 that drugs and weapons were planted in Dadashbeyli's car when he was arrested. A hunting rifle he had been given for his 30th birthday and for which he had a licence was used as evidence also. "He had never even got round to using the hunting rifle – he never had time," his mother told Forum 18.

The trial of the 15 alleged conspirators took place from 28 September to 10 December 2007 at Baku's Court for Especially Serious Cases under Judge Anver Saidov. It was closed to the public. All 15 received long sentences - of between 14 years and two years - on a range of serious charges.

Those Gambarov and Dadashbeyli's family insist are innocent are, in addition to Dadashbeyli: Mikail Idrisov, Emin Mehbaliev, Rasim Kerimov, Samir Gojaev, Beybala Guliev, Farid Agaev, Fatula Bebirov and Zaur Orujov. Gambarov told Forum 18 that their families too are trying to challenge the long sentences. Two of those sentenced together with them are, the lawyer and the family insist, local people who had been recruited as Iranian spies. The other four were, they say, guilty of forging money in an unrelated case (they knew one of Dadashbeyli's followers) which was "deliberately" merged into their case.

Dadashbeyli lodged an appeal against his sentence, but this was rejected by Baku's Appeal Court in a one-day hearing on 25 February 2008. "The last chance to challenge the sentence here in Azerbaijan is at the Supreme Court," the lawyer Gambarov told Forum 18. "We lodged the appeal at the end of March."

However, an official of the Criminal Cases Collegium of the Supreme Court told Forum 18 from Baku on 27 May that no case under the name Dadashbeyli is listed. "This means the appeal was not received."

Gambarov rejects this. "They did receive it," he insisted to Forum 18 on 27 May. He says if the Supreme Court appeal fails they will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. "I have no illusions - courts here are not independent. I know we will have to go to Strasbourg."

Dadashbeyli's wife, Ilhama Kazimova, and their two children left for Canada in late 2007 while the trial was still going on. She told Forum 18 from Canada that she remains highly concerned about her husband and his colleagues. "I am determined to fight for the rights of my completel innocent husband."

Karaeva, Dadishbeyli's mother, told Forum 18 she has repeatedly appealed to Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliev, ombudsperson Elmira Suleymanova, and other agencies. However, so far her campaign to have her son freed has been fruitless.

Azerbaijan's authorities remain highly suspicious of unregistered religious communities. Many Protestant, Jehovah's Witness and other minority communities have been raided by police. In one high-profile case, Baptist pastor Zaur Balaev was imprisoned on trumped-up charges and only freed in March. A Jehovah's Witness prisoner who objected to military service on religious grounds, Samir Huseynov, was freed in May despite his appeal against his jail sentence being refused.

In defiance of international religious freedom commitments, Azerbaijan's Religion Law insists that only Muslim communities subject to the state-loyal Caucasus Muslim Board are allowed to gain state registration. The authorities repress Muslim groups that function independently of the Board, which is led by Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade.

In 2004 police forcibly expelled from Baku's Juma Mosque an independent community led by imam Ilgar Ibrahimoglu Allaverdiev.

Freed under a previous presidential amnesty in January 2006 was a Sunni imam Kazim Aliev, who led the Sunni mosque in Azerbaijan's second city Gyanja [Gäncä]. The mosque community insisted to Forum 18 that the charges against him of organising an armed uprising were trumped-up. On his release the authorities refused to allow him to return to serve the Gyanja mosque.

Conscientious objector prisoner freed

Forum 18 (14.05.2008)/ HRWF (20.05.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Samir Huseynov was freed from prison on 1 May, despite failing in his appeal against his sentence, as he told Forum 18 News Service on 14 May. He is now back in his home village of Dalmamedli near the city of Gyanja [Gäncä] in western Azerbaijan. "Because I have not been cleared, I now have a criminal record," Huseynov complained. "If I want to get a job, any employer will find this out and will treat me with more caution." He insisted he should never have been imprisoned for refusing to perform compulsory military service. "The state one hundred percent had no right to imprison me," he told Forum 18. "I have rights guaranteed under the European Convention of Human Rights.

Jehovah's Witnesses say no other of their young men are currently facing prosecution for refusing military service, although several have this year been summoned by Military Conscription Offices and harassed after declaring that they will not serve in the armed forces because of their religious faith.

Azerbaijan committed itself to introduce an Alternative Service law by January 2003 when it entered the Council of Europe in 2001, but failed to do so. A parliamentary official says that a draft Alternative Service Law is about to be presented to parliament.

"The draft Law has not yet been presented to parliament," Jeyhun Garajaev, an expert on the Permanent Commission on Legal Policy and State Building, told Forum 18 from Baku on 14 May. "But our leaders have said we are ready to adopt this law and it is at a decisive stage. It will be adopted this year." He initially said the draft is being prepared by the Presidential Administration, but added that it could be being prepared by a group of parliamentary deputies.

Garajaev repeatedly refused to admit that his country had failed in its obligation to the Council of Europe to adopt this law. However, he claimed that this was "connected to objective conditions", a reference to the unresolved conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Garajaev said the draft Law is still in the "working phase" but that he expects it to be presented during parliament's spring session, which finishes at the end of May. He said the draft will first be presented to one of parliament's commissions, probably to his Commission on Legal Policy. He claimed that the text will be published on the parliamentary website before it is even considered by the Commission.

Garajaev contradicted Safa Mirzoev, the head of the Parliamentary Administration, who was reported by the Trend News Agency as telling journalists on 2 May that the draft Law would be adopted at the spring session. Mirzoev claimed that the draft Law has been approved by "international organisations", which the agency did not name. The agency noted that not all parliamentary deputies supported the idea of introducing an alternative service. Forum 18 was unable to reach Mirzoev on 14 May.

One human rights activist complained about the secrecy surrounding the adoption of the Alternative Service Law. "The draft law is top secret and was never publicly discussed," Eldar Zeynalov, head of the Baku-based Human Rights Centre of Azerbaijan, told Forum 18 on 14 May.

The Geranboy District Court in western Azerbaijan sentenced Huseynov in October 2007 to ten months' imprisonment for refusing military service on grounds of religious conscience under Article 321.1 of the Criminal Code. He was transferred to Penal Colony No. 16 in the Baku suburb of Bina in January.

Huseynov failed in his first appeal, but then challenged his sentence at the Regional Appeal Court in Gyanja. He was brought to Gyanja from Baku on 14 April ahead of the appeal hearing, which took place a week or so after his transfer. That appeal failed, but he was allowed another appeal shortly after, which was held on 1 May. "The three judges took just twenty minutes to hear the appeal," he told Forum 18. "One of them then told me that my appeal was being rejected but that I was being freed, without explaining why."

He said his lawyer received a copy of the written Appeal Court ruling and passed it on to him on 13 May. The written verdict rejected his appeal for the original sentence to be overturned, but ruled that he should be freed early because the sentence of ten months was too harsh.

Huseynov said at the Military Conscription Office last year he was insulted when he declared he could not serve in the armed forces because of his faith. But he says he was generally well treated during his imprisonment and not beaten. He said the head of Penal Colony No. 16 asked why he had been imprisoned. "I told him I am a Jehovah's Witness and he was very interested to find out about us," Huseynov told Forum 18. "He treated me with respect."

However, Huseynov added that this did not prevent the penal colony head listing him as a dangerous prisoner, requiring him to sign in every hour between 7 am and 10 pm at the guardhouse. "They had no reason to do this," he insisted. "And there is always the danger that if you sign in late you will be punished." He said he was held in a cell for 12 prisoners, which often held about 13 or 14.

Huseynov said he does not know if the military authorities will again try to conscript him.

The Jehovah's Witness community in Dalmamedli has several times had its meetings raided by police, Huseynov reported. "They've occasionally stopped us meeting and studying the Bible, speaking to us very crudely." He said that in June 2007 several local Jehovah's Witnesses were fined, but complained against them and did not pay. He said the local community has not been harassed in 2008.

Jailed religious conscientious objector must undergo ‘re-education’

Forum 18 (27.03.2008)/ HRWF (28.03.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Jehovah's Witness Areg Hovhanesyan, who has already served more than three years of a four-year sentence for refusing compulsory military service on grounds of religious conscience, must remain in prison and undergo "re-education", Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The Supreme Court of the internationally unrecognised Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in the South Caucasus rejected his appeal for early release on 24 March, a court official told Forum 18 from the capital Stepanakert on 27 March. Yet the official - who would not give his name - refused to say why the court rejected Hovhanesyan's appeal. "I don't have the right to give you this information."

However, Albert Voskanyan of the Stepanakert-based Centre for Civilian Initiatives - who attended the court on 21 March when the case was heard - told Forum 18 that the court had ordered the prison leadership to "re-educate the prisoner".

"I believe the rejection of the appeal is not right, as Areg's conduct in prison has been excellent and he has not violated any regulations," Voskanyan told Forum 18. "The court should have taken this into account, not his religious affiliation which makes it impossible for him to serve in the army." He said he had long been pressing for conscientious objectors like Hovhanesyan to be given the possibility of an alternative civilian service.

But Ashot Sargsyan, the head of the government's Department for National Minorities and Religions, defended Hovhanesyan's continued imprisonment. "He's not dangerous, but how can he be a well-behaved person if he breaks the law by refusing to do military service?" he told Forum 18 from Stepanakert on 27 March. "Let him go to Azerbaijan then and do alternative service there."

Hovhanesyan was imprisoned in February 2005 for violating Article 327 Part 3 of the Nagorno-Karabakh Criminal Code, which punishes evasion of military service "in conditions of martial law, in war conditions or during military actions" with a sentence of between four and eight years. (Nagorno-Karabakh has adopted the criminal code introduced in Armenia in 2003.) He has been held in the prison in the hilltop town of Shusha near Stepanakert (see F18News 9 November 2006 ).

Lyova Markaryan of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Armenia - who retain close ties to their fellow-believers in Nagorno-Karabakh - said that Hovhanesyan had lodged his appeal for early release at the beginning of this year. "Areg was hoping that he might be freed early after serving more than two-thirds of his sentence," Markaryan told Forum 18 from the Armenian capital Yerevan on 27 March. "But it is clear neither the authorities in Stepanakert nor in Yerevan are prepared to give him early release."

Both Markaryan of the Jehovah's Witnesses and Voskanyan of the Centre for Civilian Initiatives maintain that Hovhanesyan's conduct in the prison has been exemplary. "Prison director Artur Abramyan praises Areg for his behaviour and has given him a position of responsibility in the canteen," Markaryan told Forum 18. Voskanyan frequently visited Hovhanesyan and other inmates in Shusha prison until his group were banned from monitoring prison conditions.

Despite repeated calls on 27 March, Forum 18 was unable to reach Shusha prison director Abramyan.

Nagorno-Karabakh's Constitution - adopted by referendum in December 2006 - required all citizens to take part in defence and made no provision for an alternative non-military service (see F18News 9 November 2006 ).

Sargsyan of the Department for National Minorities and Religions defended the lack of an alternative to compulsory military service. He cited the long-running unresolved conflict with Azerbaijan, which insists that Nagorno-Karabakh is an integral part of its territory. "The international community is to blame that we don't have such a law on alternative service," he insisted. "If one was adopted, what would we do if 10,000 young men refused to serve in our armed forces? That's why we're not in a hurry to adopt this law."

Sargsyan stressed that he was speaking to Forum 18 in an individual capacity, not in the name of the government. "I've been in this job for four months, but my post has not been confirmed," he explained. "Only when the 1997 Religion Law is amended to include the role of this office can my responsibilities be confirmed."

Despite repeated calls on 27 March, Forum 18 was unable to reach Ashot Gulyan, speaker of Nagorno-Karabakh's parliament. He had told Forum 18 in 2006 that a Law on Alternative Service would not be adopted until the conflict over the territory had been resolved (see F18News 9 November 2006 ).

A previous victim of Nagorno-Karabakh's policy of insisting that all conscripts must swear an oath of allegiance before they begin their military service was Gagik Mirzoyan, a member of a local Council of Churches Baptist congregation. He also refused to bear arms. After being forcibly taken to a military unit in December 2004 and beaten, he was then imprisoned for refusing military service. He was freed in September 2006 and transferred to a military unit, where he was able to serve without swearing the oath and without bearing arms (see F18News 9 November 2006 ).

Mirzoyan's military service should have ended on 29 December 2007, but he was released only on 4 January. "Gagik was summoned again on 3 January and told that if he refused to swear the oath they would not let him home," local Baptists told Forum 18 back in January. "He told them he had not changed his view and would continue to refuse to swear the oath, whatever consequences that would bring. Seeing his firmness on this issue they handed him his military card and allowed him to go home." On his military record card, which Mirzoyan has, the section headed "Oath" was crossed out.

Unlike in earlier years, neither the Jehovah's Witnesses nor the Council of Churches Baptists - who refuse to apply for state registration in any former Soviet state - report any current harassment of their religious activity.

Sargsyan of the Department for National Minorities and Religions told Forum 18 that until the Religion Law is changed, no religious communities apart from the dominant Armenian Apostolic Church will be able to get legal status.

"We have emergency military rule at the moment because of the unresolved conflict so all religious communities should be registered," he insisted. "But the current law does not have provision for that. The Armenian Apostolic Church's status is recognised in our Constitution, but no other religious communities have legal status. This must be changed." He told Forum 18 the status of his department needed to be enshrined in the law and a mechanism for registering religious organisations enacted.

Baptist pastor freed, second religious prisoner of conscience still jailed

Forum 18 (19.03.2008)/ HRWF (26.03.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - One of Azerbaijan's two religious prisoners of conscience was freed today (19 March) in the wake of President Ilham Aliev's amnesty to mark the spring festival of Novruz. Baptist pastor Zaur Balaev was freed at noon from Baku's 10th prison colony, but Jehovah's Witness Samir Huseynov was not included in the amnesty, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. "We won – it's a great joy to be free," Balaev told Forum 18 hours after his release as he travelled the six-hour journey back to his home village of Aliabad in Azerbaijan's remote north-west. "We're all waiting for him," one of his church members told Forum 18 from Aliabad.

Ilya Zenchenko, head of the Baptist Union, welcomed the release. "We thank God and those who prayed and supported Zaur," he told Forum 18 from Baku on 19 March. "But there is a lot more work still to be done to defend religious freedom in Azerbaijan."

Balaev was pardoned under an 18 March decree from President Aliev – published on the presidential website - which pardoned 58 prisoners and reduced the sentence of one other. Former US President Jimmy Carter was amongst those who appealed for Balaev's release, writing to President Aliev on 15 February. Pastor Balaev was arrested in May 2007 and sentenced in August on charges of using violence against state representatives, an accusation church members flatly denied to Forum 18. After his appeal failed in October Balaev was transferred to a prison in the capital Baku.

Since Pastor Balaev's jailing, a number of other Protestants have been threatened in recent months that they could be imprisoned as Balaev has been. However, these threats have not so far been carried out.

But Jehovah's Witness Huseynov was not in the presidential amnesty list. He was imprisoned for 10 months in October 2007, under Article 321.1 of the Criminal Code, for refusing compulsory military service on religious grounds. When Azerbaijan joined the Council of Europe in 2001, it pledged to introduce alternative civilian service by January 2003, but has not done so.

"We weren't surprised that Samir Huseynov wasn't freed," one Jehovah's Witness told Forum 18 on 19 March. "Otherwise they wouldn't have imprisoned him in the first place." He insisted the authorities had no reason to imprison Huseynov and described the ten-month sentence imposed on him as "illegal". "All Samir wanted to do was to perform alternative non-military service as guaranteed in Article 76 of Azerbaijan's Constitution.

The Jehovah's Witness said Huseynov remains in Prison No. 16 in the Baku suburb of Bina, to which he was transferred in February. He is awaiting his appeal hearing.

Refusing to comment on whether Balaev will be safe from future official harassment, whether his congregation will be able to worship without obstruction and gain state registration and why Huseynov has not been freed from prison was the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations. After Forum 18 had introduced itself on 19 March, the official who answered the phone of Committee spokesperson Yagut Alieva said she was not there and that Forum 18 should phone back later to speak to someone else. When Forum 18 called back the official repeatedly put the phone down.

Present on 19 March outside the prison to welcome Balaev on his release were Zenchenko and Balaev's son. "Zaur was brought to the Baptist church and a joyful prayer service was held," Elnur Jabiev, General Secretary of the Baptist Union, told Forum 18 from Baku on 19 March. "Then he left immediately for Aliabad, where his wife and daughter and all those who've been concerned about his imprisonment are waiting for him."

Despite their joy at Balaev's release, Baptists point out that he still has a criminal record. "Zaur was given a certificate that he had been pardoned, while the original verdict still stands," Jabiev told Forum 18. "We want the original sentence overturned. We have to decide now how to proceed." Zenchenko added that the country's Supreme Court has still not responded to Balaev's latest appeal and they are still considering an appeal over what they regard as an unjust sentence to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Forum 18 tried to find out from state officials in Aliabad and in the regional capital Zakatala [Zaqatala] whether they will continue to harass Balaev and his congregation, as they have done for many years. However, an official at the Aliabad village council told Forum 18 on 19 March that council chairman Hasan Hasanov was not in his office. Reached on 19 March, Asif Askerov – head of the Zakatala Regional Administration – declined to talk to Forum 18. The telephone of Faik Shabanov, regional police chief, went unanswered.

The member of Balaev's congregation told Forum 18 on 19 March that despite earlier harassment, "things have been quiet for the last three months".

Over the past fifteen years, Baptists in the village have faced police raids, threats, destruction of property, dismissal from their jobs and religiously-motivated insults from officials. Some of their children have even been denied birth certificates because their parents have chosen Christian first names. Without a birth certificate a child cannot enter school or be treated in hospital.

Novruz Eyvazov, a member of a different Baptist congregation in the village, also suffered this from of official harassment. After Eyvazov's son Ilya was born in June 2006, officials long refused to issue him with a proper birth certificate. In September 2007 he was given a small fine and had his tractor confiscated to punish him for his religious activity. The tractor was subsequently returned.

Balaev's release is unlikely to make any difference to his Baptist congregation's unsuccessful fifteen-year registration battle. Forum 18 believes the congregation holds the record for the Azerbaijani religious community denied registration for the longest time.

Ilya Zenchenko, the head of the Baptist Union, told Forum 18 that in July 2007 he had gone to the Zakatala offices of the town's two public notaries, both of whom yet again refused to sign the application for no reason. A public notary is required to sign a registration application before it can be sent on to be processed.

Other religious believers have also been handed criminal sentences as a result of their peaceful religious activity. In July 2006, conscientious objector Mushfiq Mammedov, who was studying to become a Jehovah's Witness, was found guilty of violating Article 321.1 of the Criminal Code. He was given a suspended sentence of six months. The authorities have repeatedly – as in other cases such as that of Pastor Balaev – violated due legal process in hearing Mammedov's appeal.

Freed under a previous presidential amnesty in January 2006 was a Sunni imam Kazim Aliev. Originally a Shia (the dominant Muslim community in Azerbaijan), Aliev became a Sunni and was appointed to lead the Sunni mosque in Azerbaijan's second city Gyanja [Gäncä]. The mosque community insisted to Forum 18 that the charges against him of organising an armed uprising were trumped-up. On his release the authorities refused to allow him to return to serve the Gyanja mosque.

Azerbaijan's authorities keep religious activity under tight control. Police often raid services held by religious communities they do not like, especially Protestant Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses. One recent example was a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, Elshan Samedov, who was threatened with jail for not banning children from church and leading worship in church-owned properties.

Some 30 police officers raided a Jehovah's Witness meeting in a private house in the central town of Barda on 30 January, claiming the meeting was "illegal". Police beat several of the people present at the meeting. The raid came six weeks after a similar raid on a meeting in Baku's Nizami District, where some of those present were also beaten. Seventh-day Adventist communities were also raided in December in Baku and in Gyanja.

Religious communities the authorities do not like cannot gain legal status. Many religious communities have complained to Forum 18 that even if their applications are approved by public notaries and the local authorities, the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations often denies registration.

The State Committee also operates the system of compulsory prior censorship of religious literature, despite government claims that censorship has been abolished. The head of the State Copyright Agency's Monitoring Department, Ali Ismailov, told the Azeri Press Agency (APA) on 12 March that it would conduct a joint "monitoring programme" across Azerbaijan to check up on religious literature and audiovisual material being imported, sold or distributed. "Control in this sphere will be stepped up," he told APA.

Ismailov told Forum 18 on 13 March that check-ups would be made in bookshops and publishing houses, but he seemed vague on the details. "I don't know when the monitoring programme will start." He claimed that the sole interest by his Agency was in checking that books were not pirated but published with authors' permission. "We're not going to ban anything," he told Forum 18. "The job of controlling religious literature is done by the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations".

As is their customary practice, officials at the State Committee declined to make any comment to Forum 18 on the check-ups on religious literature or the religious censorship carried out by its "Expertise Department".

Raid and beatings for ‘illegal' religious meeting – but police deny it

Forum 18 (06.02.2008)/ HRWF (07.02.2008)- Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it – Website: http://www.hrwf.net - The police raid on a Jehovah's Witness meeting in a private home in Barda on 30 January is the latest attempt to suppress religious meetings in private homes, Forum 18 News Service has found. "If this was a religious group, why were they meeting in a private house?" Orhan Mansuzade of the Interior Ministry in Baku told Forum 18. "The Jehovah's Witnesses don't have registration with the Justice Ministry, so their activity is illegal." No law bans unregistered religious activity or religious meetings in private homes. Local police denied conducting the raid or beating six of those attending. Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists are among others who have faced recent raids. In the exclave of Nakhichevan, no religious minorities - whether Baha'i, Hare Krishna or Adventist communities - are allowed to function. "There is no possibility for us to do anything in Nakhichevan," a Baha'i told Forum 18. "Of course our people would like to be able to meet."

Despite a massive raid on a Jehovah's Witness meeting in a private house in the central town of Barda on 30 January involving some 30 police officers, two local police officers have independently denied to Forum 18 News Service that any raid took place. "There wasn't a raid," Magerram Ahmedov told Forum 18 from Barda on 6 February. "You have incorrect information." His colleague, Major Farid Kuliev, separately denied that any religious meeting had been raided or that any religious believers had been beaten. "Nothing happened," he told Forum 18 later the same day. "We checked."

Orhan Mansuzade, a press officer at the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, confirmed the incident but denied that this was a raid. "It was a police operation," he told Forum 18 from the capital Baku on 6 February. "The police have the right to conduct such operations. If this was a religious group, why were they meeting in a private house? The Jehovah's Witnesses don't have registration with the Justice Ministry, so their activity is illegal. They should abide by the law."

Azerbaijan's Jehovah's Witnesses have only been able to get state registration for one community in Baku.

Asked why a religious meeting in a private house is illegal, Mansuzade responded: "They don't have state approval for their activity. Without registration they can't meet. The Religion Law says so." However, he was unable to specify which article of the Religion Law requires registration.

Mansuzade went on to attack the Jehovah's Witnesses. "They conduct illegal propaganda, trick people and disturb people's peace," he claimed to Forum 18. "People complain – they are afraid." He refused to give examples of alleged wrongdoing by the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Despite conceding that Azerbaijan commits itself to freedom of religion and freedom of speech, Mansuzade insisted these freedoms do not extend to the Jehovah's Witnesses. "We have freedom of speech, but this doesn't allow propaganda among the population. They're illegal missionaries. Our religion is Islam."

Jehovah's Witnesses, who preferred not to be identified, told Forum 18 on 4 February that about 30 police officers, some of them armed, raided the home of a Jehovah's Witness, Nasiba Gulieva, on 30 January. A Jehovah's Witness meeting was underway. They reported that a police officer entered Gulieva's yard, but she refused to open the door of the house. The police officer slapped her in the face. The officers waited in her yard for five hours.

Finally Gulieva opened the door, hoping all who attended the meeting could go home. The police entered the house, refusing to let anyone leave. The police invited colleagues from the school where Gulieva works to witness the raid. "After these 'witnesses' signed a document stating that policemen did not use physical force against anyone or stop them leaving the house, policemen severely beat six of the male believers," Jehovah's Witnesses reported. "Policemen threw them on the floor and hit them, witnessed by all the others who were present at the meeting." They say that among those beaten was 17-year-old Fuad Mekhtiev.

The police took all the men present to the police station. "Fuad Mekhtiev, Ilham Gasanov and Maarif Mekhtiev were again beaten in a way that no traces of this violence can be found on their bodies," Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18. Police tried to force those detained to sign statements incriminating themselves. However, they refused. "Instead of that they wrote that they are Jehovah's Witnesses and refuse to change their beliefs." They were not freed until after midnight.

Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 that the victims plan to file a complaint over the maltreatment to the Prosecutor's Office.

Despite the Jehovah's Witnesses' report that police beat six of the men present at the meeting, Major Kuliev of Barda police adamantly denied this to Forum 18. He specifically denied that anyone named Fuad Mekhtiev had been held in the police station.

Mansuzade of the Interior Ministry also denied the Jehovah's Witness report that six of those held suffered beatings. "We don't have information that any were beaten," he told Forum 18. "If they have any complaints they can appeal to higher authorities."

As is their usual practice, officials at the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations in Baku refused to discuss the harassment of Jehovah's Witness congregations – or violations of the religious freedom of any other religious communities – with Forum 18 on 4, 5 or 6 February.

The Barda raid is the latest of several on Jehovah's Witness communities, as well as communities of other faiths. On 13 December 2007, police in Baku's Nizami District raided a Jehovah's Witness meeting in a private home. Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 that 20 people had gathered to study the Bible when the police raided the home. "This was accompanied by insults, unfounded accusations and even physical violence. In the police station those detained were ordered to stand in line against the wall and not to move, as if they were especially dangerous criminals."

The Jehovah's Witnesses say Roman Mukhtarov, Fariz Mamedov and Vusal Amirli were beaten "just because they make use of the freedom of religion provided to us by the Constitution and the law". They report the police as telling each other: "Beat them in a way that no traces can be found."

All those at the meeting were questioned and forced to write statements dictated by the police that Jehovah's Witness activity is illegal. Police and National Security Ministry officers then told them that they will be fined under the Code of Administrative Violations, though no proceedings have taken place.

"Police did not heed the fact that under-age children were with them and that several of them were feeling ill," the Jehovah's Witnesses complained. "Most were held in the police station against their will for over seven hours, till 2 o'clock in the morning. Each of them was required to hear insults, unprintable words and threats."

On 7 January, thirteen of the Jehovah's Witnesses filed a complaint against the police with the General Prosecutor's office. Copies were sent to the Prosecutor of the Nizami District and to the Human Rights Ombudsperson. Jehovah's Witnesses reported that as of 6 February the thirteen had received no response to their complaint.

Firdovsi Kerimov, the representative of the State Committee in the central city of Gyanja [Gäncä], warned the local Jehovah's Witnesses on 25 January through the media that all meetings in the city were "illegal" and that the police would take measures if they "violate the law". Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 that there have been no new raids in the wake of the comments, although the community has been raided in the past. "We fear a raid there at any time."

Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists in Gyanja have also been raided in recent years. Also in Gyanja, the imam of a Sunni Muslim mosque was imprisoned on what mosque members believe were trumped-up charges. On his release in early 2006 he was not allowed to return to serve the mosque community.

Restrictions on religious communities remain, especially outside Baku. Baha'i representatives told Forum 18 that no Baha'i activity is allowed in Nakhichevan [Naxçivan], an exclave separated from the rest of Azerbaijan. "There is no possibility for us to do anything in Nakhichevan – this problem is still continuing," one Baha'i who preferred not to be identified told Forum 18 from Baku on 6 February. "Of course our people would like to be able to meet."

There has long been a de facto ban on religious activity by non-Muslim communities in Nakhichevan. A small Adventist congregation and a Hare Krishna community were also banned. Muslim communities too are under strong control by the Nakhichevan authorities.

Among other communities to have faced recent official harassment are the Council of Churches Baptists. Baptists told Forum 18 that the leader of the embattled congregation in the village of Aliabad in north-western Azerbaijan, Novruz Eyvazov, had his tractor confiscated in September 2007 to punish him for leading religious meetings. "He was threatened and given a small fine, but they gave him back his tractor," one Baptist told Forum 18 on 4 February. "Things have calmed down there a little." Eyvazov has faced problems registering the birth of several of his children as officials object to the Christian names he and his wife have given them.

The Baptist added that a camp was raided by police in summer 2007, but after checking the identity of all those present allowed them to leave as the camp was ending.

Another Baptist congregation in Aliabad led by Zaur Balaev has also faced persecution in recent years. Balaev is serving a two year prison sentence in Baku on charges of attacking police who came to break up a service. He and his congregation vigorously deny the charges.

A Pentecostal congregation in Baku's Nasimi District, the Temple of the Lord, was visited by the local policeman during its Sunday service on 24 June 2007. After the service, the pastor Rasim Hasanov was told to go to the head of the district police, who told him that as the congregation does not have registration it cannot meet in the Nasimi District. "I told him that this is in no law, but he said that what he says is the law," Hasanov told Forum 18 from Baku on 6 February. "We had to move out of the place we were meeting."

Hasanov complained that the State Committee has been stalling over the congregation's registration application since May 2006. He said it claimed the statute needed revising and gave it back, but since January 2007 the documents have been with the State Committee. "They're supposed to handle the application within 40 days, but this is more than a year with no response."

Hasanov said he visited the State Committee in late January 2008 and officials said the congregation cannot use a private home as a legal address. He asked the State Committee to put this in writing but they refused. "They said we have to meet in a club or cafe and sign a legal contract with them," he told Forum 18. "But they know we can't sign a legal contract if we don't have registration."

The objection to the holding of religious meetings in private homes – which is not based in law - appears to be the same problem that the Jehovah's Witnesses are facing in Barda.

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