State Committee on Religious Affairs received carte-blanche from the president
for struggle against missionaries
Zerkalo (24.07.2001)/ / HRWF International Secretariat (24.07.2001) C Website : http://www.hrwf.net - Email : info@hrwf.net - The President of Azerbaijan Geydar Aliev approved the Regulations of the State Committee on work with the religious organizations. According to this document, the Committee is responsible for creating the conditions ensuring the freedom of conscience, control over
implementation of the legislation in this area, is in charge for registration of the religious organizations, and is to organize pilgrimage to foreign countries ("Turan").
Besides, the Committee is entitled to speak on behalf of the state in considering disputes connected with the religious organizations, and to bring corresponding issues before the authorized state bodies. The new institution is also granted authorities to implement
control over publication of religious literature, import and distribution of religious attributes, examine religious schools. The Committee also has the right to bring the cases before the court, asking to terminate activities of the religious organizations in the cases of violations of legislation, inciting religious discord, and religious-political subversive activity against national security. The institution is also commissioned to collect and forward to law enforcement bodies the information and materials about religious propaganda conducted by foreigners and stateless persons.
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Azeri TV Channel slanders local Adventist church
Religion minister says some foreign missions will lose registration
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass Direct (06.07.2001) / HRWF International Secretariat (12.07.2001) C Website : http://www.hrwf.net - Email : info@hrwf.net - A TV news program deliberately misrepresenting a Seventh-day Adventist church in Azerbaijan in early June has prompted strong objections from local church leaders.
Calling the TV report "an insult to our members," the executive committee of the Ganja Adventist Church fired off a protest letter five days later to top government and media officials in the Central Asian republic, including President Heidar Aliyev.
The June 12 letter declared that the untrue and sensationalized report was "incompatible with the ethics of journalism," and demanded that the ANS TV channel "apologize for the lie they spread regarding the Adventist community."
ANS TV, one of Azerbaijan's leading independent TV stations, broadcast a five-minute "documentary clip" on the Ganja Adventist Church on its prime-time "Xaberler" program on June 7. The program, which was repeated several times over the next three days, had been secretively videotaped by an Azeri journalist and her cameraman over a period of two weeks.
According to Adventist Pastor Ivan Zavrichko in Ganju, some 215 miles west of the capital Baku, a woman named Shahla Abdinova and her friend identified only as Ilgar visited their weekly worship service on May 19.
When the two announced they wanted to join the religious community just a week later, Zavrichko asked her directly if she was a journalist. When she denied it, the pastor suggested that before making such an important decision, the two first learn the church's teachings, based on the Bible.
Over the next three weeks, the two attended all the church's services, visited the homes of several Adventist believers, and then attended a church wedding on June 2. At the ceremony, Ilgar brought along a video camera, offering to videotape the entire celebration as a present to the bridegroom. Although the man shot considerable videotape, even asking people to pose with their Bibles and children to pretend they were praying, he failed to give the video to the new couple.
Two days later, Zavrichko said the journalists joined in a youth outing in the countryside, where "without forewarning Ilgar started to video everything." When Ilgar started asking people to explain how they had become Adventists, the group asked jokingly, "What TV channel is this going to appear on?" Ilgar also denied any media links, replying he was just videotaping this for himself, in order to convince his parents why he wanted to become an Adventist.
Three days later, ANS TV broadcast the program about the Adventist community of Ganja, with Abdinova as narrator and Ilgar as cinematographer.
"The program . propagated intolerance and served to create a disrespectful attitude toward these citizens, based only on the fact that they meet on a religious basis," the church's June 12 protest letter stated.
It also rejected ANS TV's misrepresentation of their church as "an unknown, secret and almost covert organization." Seventh-day Adventists trace their existence in Azerbaijan back 100 years, and were registered as a legal religious community 32 years ago. After the republic declared its independence, the Adventist church was reregistered by the Azeri Ministry of Justice in May 1994 and again in December 1999.
ANS TV also claimed that thousands of Azeri citizens were accepting Adventist teaching, whereas the church said their numbers did not exceed 400 nationwide. Less than a third of those are in Ganja, Compass was told. Implying that Adventists were a "threat to the nation," the news show claimed that all church members were required to bring 12 converts into the church, and that their adherents "do not love the motherland or the government."
During the broadcast, Abdinova declared that the Adventist church was being financed in Azerbaijan by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA). The relief agency has been working in the country since 1993 to provide relief aid for refugees, migrants and the physically disabled caused by the war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. But according to church leaders, the local Adventist community is "totally separate" from ADRA, and depends on it "neither financially nor morally."
Concurrent with the "Xaberler" show, daily newspapers came out with articles and interviews during the second and third weeks of June, denouncing by name a number of Christian groups accused of being involved in "dangerous foreign missionary activity."
In an interview with Mustapha Ibragimov, the minister of religious affairs in the Cabinet of Ministers, "Our Age" newspaper stressed on June 12 that foreign mission groups were thriving in the areas of Azerbaijan most sensitive to ethnic separatism, particularly in the north of the country. Ibragimov stated that due to Azerbaijan's socio-economic standards, Western-funded missionaries were using financial enticements to get "greedy people with a weak will" to change their religion.
Noting that Azerbaijan was in the process of toughening its laws against foreigners propagating religion in the country, Ibragimov admitted the Ministry of Justice was already planning to cancel the registration of some foreign mission organizations which "somehow were registered in 1993-1994," although he declined to give any specific names.
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Islamic extremism becomes a real danger for Azerbaijan
Iran supports the organizations willing to establish an Islamic
state in Azerbaijan by committing a coup.
By Farhad Mammadov
Azerbaijan National Democracy Foundation (03.05.2001) / HRWF International Secretariat (08.05.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The articles at the local media onthe activation of religious extremism in Azerbaijan various times have begun to be approved officially. On May 1st, there has been given sensational revealing about this danger at a special ceremony held by the order of the president Heidar Aliev and dedicated to the religious situation in the country. Representatives of different ministries and religious organizations have taken part in this meeting.
Tofig Babayev, deputy minister of national security, made a speech at the meeting and stated that many organizations are dealing with the act of sabotage under the name of religious activity in Azerbaijan. He has pointed two major directions of the danger: organizations protected by Iran and wishing to establish an Islamic state by organizing a coup in Azerbaijan; Vahabi [one of the sects of Islam] organizations patronized by several Arabic states.
In the words of Babayev, in many instances youth are taken to Iran by illegal ways like going to educate and are trained at the special centers there, where is prepared terrorists. Iran is planning to use of those youth in committing a coup in Azerbaijan in future. Islamic extremists funded and supplied by Iran have mainly gathered at the mosques, religious education centers, and several other organizations that act under the name of a humanitarian organization.
But Vahabi emissaries are mainly dealing with distributing literatures about dangerous ideas and gathering social base. The deputy minister added that over 300 Azeri citizens had been trained at the Vahabi centers in Daghestan during the last years. In his words, at present the number of people that adopted Vahabi sect is over 7,000 in Azerbaijan. If we take into consideration that over 5,000 refugees from Chechnya have settled in Azerbaijan, there should also be pointed their contacts with local Vahabies, as well. Babayev said that there were several Vahabi mosques in Baku. In addition, there exist major centers of Vahabies at the northern regions of Azerbaijan in the frontier with Russia and there such informations that recently the Vahabi emissaries have become very active in these regions. In the words of Babayev, another factor forming a threat for the security of Azerbaijan is the Christian missioners. At present, 54 Christian organizations have been officially registered in Azerbaijan; most of them are holding activity among the soldiers of the Azerbaijani army and refugees and are trying to prepare them for a capitulation peace.
The statement of the Azeri government officials happened simultaneously with the annual report of the U.S. Department of State on global terrorism. Iran is characterized as "one of the main supporters of terrorism in the world" in that report. And last week, Ali Hasanov, Azeri deputy prime minister, accused Iran in using of the territories of Azerbaijan as a transit of drugs. Several days ago, an Azeri frontier was killed in the shooting with a group of armed persons that attempted to enter to the Azeri territories by breaking the border from the territories of Iran. It is expected that that group was either religious emissaries or persons attempting to transit drugs by illegal ways.
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Jailed Azeri Christian forced to quit job
Local pastor calls court-ordered fine 'illegal'
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (03.05.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (07.05.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - An Azeri Christian jailed for 10 days for allegedly "disobeying police orders" in the town of Ismailly has since been forced to resign from his accounting job at a local hospital.
Azer Gasymov, 21, was released April 20 from prison in Ismailly, about 120 miles west of Baku. But as soon as he returned to his job as assistant accountant at Ismailly's Central Hospital, Gasymov came under considerable pressure from his director and fellow employees to resign.
"They said it would be better if he writes his own resignation," a local church source told Compass yesterday. "Anyway it would be hard to stay there, because everyone is just mocking and pointing at him, putting him under a lot of pressure." Gasymov reportedly submitted the requested letter of resignation at the end of April.
According to a representative of Baku's Greater Grace Church who met Gasymov last week, the convert was not physically mistreated during his prison detention. "What happened was that he just shared the gospel with the people there in prison," the source said.
Together with fellow Christian Akif Mardanov, Gasymov had been accused on April 10 of committing an "administrative misdemeanor" against a police officer. The alleged incident occurred on April 7, when seven members of their house church were arrested during a picnic and held for seven hours.
"The court proceedings were very fast," recalled Gasymov's pastor, Roman Abramov, who was present in the courtroom on April 10 after the two believers were re-arrested at their homes. "The judge didn't listen to the objections of the attorney and rendered a decision according to the request of the police."
Mardonov was given a seven-day jail sentence at the same hearing, despite his protest to the judge that he suffered from diabetes. However, his court-appointed lawyer promptly appealed the decision, and several hours later, Mardonov was called back to court and informed that due to his diabetic condition, his sentence had been commuted to a fine.
Only a few days later, on April 13, Mardonov's home was robbed by unknown thieves, who made off with most of his mother's kitchen pots and pans when no one was at home. "Such utensils are very precious in the village environment," a church source noted. "We don't know who did it, but we decided to report it to the police."
To date, Mardonov has received no notification of any specific fine he has been ordered to pay in lieu of his confinement.
Meanwhile, Pastor Abramov has refused to pay a fine assessed against him by the local prosecutor's office on April 5. He was fined 55,000 manats ($12) for violating Clause 22 of the national law on religious freedom.
Although the public prosecutor found Abramov not guilty of violating Article 168 of the Criminal Code, as charged by his police accusers, he ruled that the pastor's distribution of Christian literature was illegal, since he had failed to get permission from local authorities.
"I disagree with that," Abramov wrote in a letter of complaint to Interior Minister Ramil Usubov on April 7.
"I ask you to reverse the illegal resolution of the Police Department of Ismailly region on March 28," Abramov continued, "as it does not have a legal basis and contradicts the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan, international accords and the legislation of the Republic of Azerbaijan."
According to a Baku church source, Abramov was distributing Azeri-language New Testaments, all of which had been brought into the country in 1997 by permission of the Council of Ministers. "So this administrative fine is not right," the source said. "He did not violate any law."
The April 7 arrest of Abramov and six others appeared to be a reaction to the pastor's refusal two days earlier to pay the fine, as a matter of principle.
"The main accusation which we heard from the chief of the criminal police division, Tagiev, and from Major Askerov, was our service to God in spreading our faith in Jesus Christ among the population of Azerbaijan," Pastor Abramov said in a written statement forwarded to Compass.
Abramov said Major Askerov handled Gasymov roughly during the April 7 arrest, hitting him twice in the head after isolating him in a room away from the others. "Major Askerov spoke with us very cruelly, and even yelled at us when we said that they, the police, were breaking the law."
Complaints against Abramov's "dissemination of the Christian religion" throughout the Ismailly region had been filed on February 5 by Yusif Asadaga Mamedov, mullah of the Dzhuma Mosque. According to his accusations, which were corroborated by three other Muslim prayer leaders, Abramov was enlisting people to distribute Christian literature, carrying on meetings in many places and delivering religious sermons.
However, the Muslim leaders admitted that the Christian pastor had not contradicted the tenets of Islam, nor had he violated citizens' rights or exerted financial enticements, as forbidden by law.
Ismailly's two-dozen-member house church has been subjected to growing harassment by local police and government officials for the past two years. It is affiliated with the Greater Grace Church, which has been registered as a legal Christian denomination by the Azerbaijan Ministry of Justice since 1993.
According to last year's religious freedom report from the U.S. State Department, quasi-government harassment of Christian activities in traditionally Muslim Azerbaija "appeared to reflect the strong popular prejudice against ethnic Azerbaijanis who have converted to Christianity."
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Police arrest two Christians in Azerbaijan
Local officials and Muslim leaders harass house church
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (11.04.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (17.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net Two Christians were sent to jail yesterday for seven days on charges of "disobeying the police" in the town of Ismailly, 120 miles west of the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.
Asif Mardanov and Azer Gasymov were arrested at their homes on Tuesday, three days after police had detained them and five other Azerbaijani Christians for several hours. Gasymov was reportedly fired from his job because of the first detention.
The seven Christians were picnicking together near Ismailly last Saturday when they were accused by the police of conducting "mass evangelism." No villagers in the area were known to have complained to the authorities, Baku church sources said.
The Christians are members of a house church in Ismailly linked with Baku's Greater Grace Church. Pastor Roman Abramov, an Azeri citizen of Jewish descent who converted to Christianity some nine years ago, was among those detained.
When apprehended, the four men and three women had their bags, cars and pockets searched by police without a legal search warrant, as required by Azeri law. Their personal belongings were confiscated, including notebooks, mobile telephones, audio and video cassettes of the "Jesus" film and various legal documents.
The seven Christians were held for seven hours on April 7 before police returned their mobile telephones and said they were "temporarily released." They were told they could recover all their belongings on Monday, April 9. According to a church source, "The policemen were rude, and they would provoke, mock and abuse."
The Ismailly house fellowship, now numbering some 24 members, has faced growing pressures from local police, government officials and Muslim leaders over the past two years, a church leader confirmed from Baku today.
In December, Ismailly police began to harass Abramov regularly, demanding that he leave the city, stop distributing Christian literature and discontinue meetings with Christian believers. The authorities based their demand on the repeated premise, "Azerbaijan is a Muslim country."
The pastor politely declined to stop his activities, saying that the church was operating within the rights of religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution of Azerbaijan.
When it was clear the pastor would not be dissuaded, a group of mullahs (Muslim religious leaders) filed an official complaint on February 5 with local police, who forwarded it with their own accusations to the regional prosecutor. The documents accused Abramov of violating Article 168 of the Criminal Code, which calls for a three-year jail sentence if convicted.
When the prosecutor's office found Abramov not guilty and refused to register the accompanying police accusation, the Ismailly police notified the pastor that he must pay a fine, claiming his distribution of Christian literature had violated Clause 22 of the laws on religious freedom.
The pastor refused to pay the minimal fine as a matter of principle. He then sent a letter of protest on April 7 to the Interior Minister, requesting that local authorities stop their illegal campaign of harassment against his church. The picnic detention occurred later that same day.
"There is great pressure from the government, police and mass media," an Azeri Christian leader said yesterday. He emphasized that over the past year, members of the Ismailly house church have been so intimidated by repeated summons to police headquarters for interrogation that they are becoming frightened to attend church services.
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Catholic Church in Azerbaijan welcoming first converts
Interview with superior of Catholic mission in Baku
Zenit (11.02.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (14.02.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Imagine arriving in a country and finding only 30 Catholics.
That is how many of the faithful a priest found when he arrived in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1997.
Nestled between Russia and Iran, Azerbaijan borders the Caspian Sea. It has 7.7 million inhabitants, mostly Muslim. About 10% belong to the Orthodox Church, and 2% to the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Since the time of the Communist revolution, Baku had a Catholic parish. But its church was destroyed in the 1950s. Father Stefan Demurov, the last Catholic priest, is believed to have died in a Siberian concentration camp.
In 1997, Polish priest Father Jersey Pilus, a member of the Neo-Catechumenal Way, arrived in Baku, where he found about 30 Catholics.
With the help of seminarians, who have come, alternately, from Warsaw, London and Copenhagen, Father Pilus has prepared some 20 catechumens. Today, Catholics there include foreign diplomats, oil company employees and technicians.
John Paul II created the Catholic Mission of Baku, entrusting it to the Salesians. Its current superior, Slovak Father Joseph Daniel Pravda, 50, is assisted by a lay colleague. Father Pravda recently spoke with the international agency Fides at the end of an "ad limina" visit to see the Pope.
--Q: Your mission has only a few dozen Catholics, but 20 catechumens are preparing for baptism. What makes them embrace the faith?
--Father Pravda: In this region, formerly part of the Soviet Union, it is mainly intellectuals, doctors, teachers and scientists who are attracted to the Church, but there are also believers among the ordinary people. All of them are obviously in search of the meaning of life.
We find that many have already joined Oriental sects or movements; however, they realize that only Christ is the answer to their aspirations. This is the difficulty of our task: to give them the right answers.
--Q: Was there a change with the fall of the Berlin Wall?
--Father Pravda: There were many changes, mostly for the worst. Of course, now there is freedom to believe, to witness to Christ; but when Communism pulled out, it left [in its wake] poverty, delinquency, corruption and crime. Many still look to the past with nostalgia. They are hungry for food, but not necessarily spiritual food. In those days there was some food and much security.
--Q: What is the current economic situation?
--Father Pravda: Over the last four years, corruption has gone haywire. Even at the government level, there is a network of corruption that concentrates economic power in the hands of a few.
--Q: Is Muslim fundamentalism a problem here?
--Father Pravda: Thankfully, in our mission, we are not aware of this. However, this threat is feared by both the people and the government, which is anxious to keep it away by all possible means.
Perhaps a few clandestine groups of Muslim fundamentalists exist, but they have little influence. The Azerbaijanis took steps to rid the country of all fundamentalists -- Muslim and pseudo-Christian sects -- to avoid social tension.
--Q: What major challenges have you identified?
--Father Pravda: The principal one is to bring Christ to the people. There is spiritual poverty, a crisis. Communism removed people's conscience and desire for the common good. The greatest gift we Christians can give them is to help them re-form their conscience. Communism eliminated personality, culture, the very nature of the people.
People often say to me: "A person without faith is a bad person. A person without faith has no morals or ideals; he is only interested in satisfying himself."
The city is living a serious economic crisis. A million refugees have come from Nagorno-Karabakh [a region disputed over by Azerbaijan and Armenia] in search of food and work; 200,000 are in Baku.
Ordinary people have little to eat, while local authorities drive around in new cars and spend money on new buildings. Many children don't go to school because they have no coats or shoes to wear. Fortunately, the sense of family is still strong among ordinary people, who share the little they have and are ready to lend a hand.
--Q: Is the mission recognized as a Church?
--Father Pravda: We are registered as a Catholic community, not as a Church, but then, I think that not even the Orthodox Church here, which has a far larger community, is registered as such. Their parishes are registered as bodies. We have a church building that includes a chapel for liturgy and a few rooms for social activities. The Salesian center, where we teach catechism and assist the poor, is in the same building.
However, first of all, we are witnesses to the faith. As foreigners, we are not allowed to engage in missionary work, although a law on freedom of belief does exist. Azerbaijan considers itself a democratic, secular state, but it has introduced a law that restricts the activity of foreign missionaries. People are free to come to us, but we may not go to them. There is also a certain social pressure, as many [believe] that Catholic converts betray the national culture.
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Complaints of restrictions on religious freedom
HRWF International Secretariat (08.01.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - On the basis of a 1996 amendment to the 1992 Religion Law prohibiting religious propaganda by foreigners in Azerbaijan, attempts are being made to limit the import of religious literature and to deny visas to religious ministers from Western countries.
Lutherans, Jehovahs Witnesses and Hare Krishna face problems every time religious publications are sent to them from abroad. The customs authorities refuse to deliver them or impose long waiting periods or only authorize the import of a limited quantity, according to the official estimate of their membership.
During a fact-finding mission carried out in December 2000, Human Rights Without Frontiers heard complaints from Jehovahs Witnesses about restrictions on the import of religious literature. After a long waiting time, they could only get a few hundred copies of their magazines ? Awake ? and ? The Watch Tower ?. Eldar Zeylanov, director of the Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan, confirmed with Human Rights Without Frontiers that other religious groups were applied that policy which aims at preventing religious propaganda.
Interviewed by Human Rights Without Frontiers about such restrictions, Mustafa Ibrahimov, the Administrations acting chairman for Religious Affairs, answered ? People do not like to be proselityzed and public order must be respected. That is why we only allow the import of publications according to the needs of the concerned religious group. ? He also claimed that the same policy was applied to Shiite and Sunnite Muslim groups to avoid any interreligious conflicts.
In January 2000, Azerbaijani Baptists who had been operating a Christian street library in the western town of Gyanja were threatened twice by police ? to halt preaching the gospel among Muslims. ? Two of them were detained and held for nine hours in the local police station.
At Christmas 2000, the Administration for Religious Affairs tried to prevent visiting German Lutheran pastor Reinhard von Loewenich from conducting Christmas services at the invitation of Bakus Lutheran congregation. Mustafa Ibrahimov claimed that his activity would violate the countrys ban on religious propaganda by foreigners. However, the pastor was due only to conduct services in the Lutheran church for those who had chosen to attend. The administrations decision was finally overridden by Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry after a phone call from the German Embassy in Baku.
In late 1999, German pastor Gnther Oborski was expelled from the congregation and since then the Lutherans have been without a resident clergyman. This congregation has been repeatedly denied registration by the Justice Ministry. Every time, Fazil Mamedov, the director of the Department for registration of religious and social organisations, refers to the split in the congregation as a reason for refusing the application.
Mustafa Ibrahimov told Human Rights Without Frontiers that he had controlled religious groups for 30 years and that at the time of communism he knew everything about their activities because there were regular meetings between the Departments of Religious Affairs of the various Soviet republics.
Since the fall of communism, a number of new religious movements have settled in Azerbaijan : the Apostolic Church, the Church of Greater Grace, Word of Life, Cathedral of Praise, Nehemia Church, Jehovahs Witnesses. Mustafa Ibrahimov said they were not taken seriously by the population because their names were too bombastic, they were not stable and split into several groups, they were too numerous and too small in membership (just a few dozens or a few hundreds). ? Every time these groups practise proselytism, they intrude on the right to privacy of other people and we want to avoid that ?, he said.
In late 1999, President Haidar Aliev made a public pledge to US Ambassador Stanley Escudero, promising to enforce constitutional guarantees of freedom of conscience and religion in the oil-rich Central Asian state. Since then, the administration still run by former communist apparatchiks has been arm-wrestling with the president on a number of issues such as the registration of new Christian movements, visas for foreign clerics or import of religious literature.
Iran and Azerbaijan are the only predominantly Shiite Muslim countries in the world. Yet, the two states could not be more different. Azerbaijan is a secular state which has inherited the separation of state and religions from the Soviet period. Women are dressed in the Western style and even wear mini-skirts. Ramadan is not followed strictly, especially by the younger generation. Azerbaijan is every bit as religiously laissez faire as Iran is single minded. Azeri Islam has a very strong undercurrent of animism reflected in numerous superstitions, holy places and ceremonies with pre-Islamic and Zoroastrian influences. Christianity first arrived in Azerbaijan within a century of Christs death. By the 4th century, like Georgia and Armenia, Azerbaijan had been heavily christianised. However, unlike its neighbours, it adopted a Nestorian-Assyrian style faith. Arab attacks in the 8th century began the long, slow conversion to Islam.
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