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Third refusal for baptist book imports
Keston Institute (12.11.2002) ) / HRWF Int. (13.11.2002) Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - The Baptist church in the Azerbaijani capital Baku has for the third time been refused permission to import 3,000 copies of the Book of Proverbs in Azeri which are currently being held in customs. Pastor Ilya Zenchenko, head of the Baptist Union in Azerbaijan, told Keston News Service on 11 November that Rafik Aliev, airman of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations, was responsible for the latest refusal. Pastor Zenchenko fears that the State Committee may use the incident as a pretext to close down the Baptist Church on grounds of "infringement of the law about the reception of religious literature".
Source: Keston Institute - www.keston.org
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Church Threatened with Demolition
by Stefan J. Bos
Assist news (12.11.2002) / HRWF Int. (13.11.2002) Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - A Baptist church in Azerbaijan is threatened with demolition amid growing concern about wide spread violence and persecution of Christians across the former Soviet Union.
The Keston News Service (KNS), which monitors religious persecution, said an Interior Ministry colonel has threatened an unregistered Baptist church in the capital Baku with demolition if it the refuses to register with authorities of the mainly Muslim nation.
"If you don't register we'll close the church and knock it down," Pastor Ivan Orlov, leader of the Baku church, quoted Colonel Aliev as having told the Baptists verbally. "Colonel Aliev of the national Interior Ministry also threatened to have church members sacked from their work," KNS said.
Some Christians are known to object to register themselves with officials, as they see God as their highest authority. A statement from the church expressed concern about "pressure on believers" and called for support in prayer and appeals to the authorities.
Similar Incidents
The demolition threat of the church seemed a repeat of similar incidents in Russia, that once dominated the Soviet Union. Last month, October 1, an Orthodox Church was reportedly destroyed in Naberezhnyye Chelny, the second largest city in one of the strongest Islamic area's of Russia, following several other violent acts against churches and Christian symbols.
In neighboring Georgia, another former Soviet republic, Christians are also increasingly confronted with violence at a time when believers complain that the authorities seem unwilling to take their complaints seriously.
KNS said that Mikhail Saralishvili, officer manager of the Georgian Bible Society, has withdrawn "in disgust" from criminal procedures against an Orthodox priest, who allegedly lead the mob that attacked him last year.
True Orthodox priest Vasili Mkalavishvili was said to have encouraged people to attack Saralishvili in March 2001. But Saralishvili said that the authorities "failed to take these crimes seriously."
New Violence
Analysts and church officials have attributed the apparent new wave of violence to concern among the authorities and traditional religions to lose followers to the rapidly spreading evangelical movements and sects.
Human rights groups seem to hope that the region will not follow the example of the former Soviet republic of Belarus, which adopted what critics call Europe's most repressive law, last month. Protestant church leaders have pledged to defy the new legislation, which they say only recognizes the Orthodox Church as a true religion.
They have however expressed concern that their intention to continue to preach the Gospel, will lead to fines and jail terms. Several countries, including the United States and the European Union, have expressed concern about the religious situation in Belarus and several other parts of the former Soviet Union.
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Campaign launched to close down Jehovah's Witnesses
Keston Institute: 24.10.2002/ HRWF Int. (24.10.2002) Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Rafik Aliev, head of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations, has said that his office will attempt to have the registration of theJehovah's Witness community in Baku cancelled, accusing them of holding "illegal meetings" and involving children in "unhealthy religious services" which, he laims, is a violation of the country's law on religion and justifies initiating court action.
Aliev had earlier in the week pledged that the Jehovah's Witnesses had nothing to worry about" and that legal action would not be taken to liquidate the community. Aliev has also had closed down the Love Baptist Church and 22 of the country's 26 madrassahs (Islamic schools).
Source: Keston Institute http://www.keston.org
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Third time lucky for stalled book import?
Keston Institute (26.09.2002)/ HRWF (30.09.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - The Baptist church in the capital Baku is hoping its third application to import 3,000 copies of the Book of Proverbs will be successful, but the State Committee in charge of compulsory censorship of all religious literature has only given permission for 500 copies to be released. It has not explained why the State Committee should decide how many copies of any publication a religious community needed. Pastor Ilya Zenchenko, head of the Baptist Union in Azerbaijan, said the Baptists could only speculate as to why the committee had restricted the quantity. "Maybe they don't want it to be in Azerbaijan," he declared. "It's a very beautiful book with nice illustrations. Solomon is very popular in Islam and is respected as a prophet. Maybe they're afraid we'll give out the book to people."
Source: Keston Institute http://www.keston.org
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Official outline censorship procedure
Keston Institute (26.09.2002)/ HRWF (30.09.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - The head of the "expertise" department of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations has told Keston News Service that his department checks between 20 and 30 religious books, magazines and tapes every week before authorising their publication or import, but insists that "This is not censorship. We just give our expert conclusion as to whether each publication is OK or not."
Department officials check religious publications brought in for approval by religious communities, copies of religious books and magazines confiscated from travellers entering Azerbaijan and religious publications sent to them by customs when they open all parcels of books entering the country by post.
Source: Keston Institute http://www.keston.org
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Azerbaijani Catholics' day in the sun
There are just 200 practising Roman Catholics in Azerbaijan
but next week they are receiving a visit from the Pope
By Gulnara Mamedzade in Baku
IWPR (17.05.2002)/HRWF International Secretariat (21.05.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - When Pope John Paul II visits Baku next week, he will be the guest of a surprised and delighted Roman Catholic community, which is so small that it doesn't have a house fit to put him up in.
Azerbaijan's Catholics have suffered persecution, assimilation and emigration and now number only around 200 people - although accurate estimates are hard to come by. Now, they are playing host to one of the Pope's more unusual trips. He will be in Baku for only 24 hours and - for the first time ever - stay in a hotel.
Irina Orlova-Stroganova is one of the community's survivors. Her grandmother was a Pole, who continued to observe Catholic rituals, despite the atheist Soviet state around her, and insisted that her children spoke Polish at home. Irina's husband, Rostislav, who has aristocratic roots, was christened Orthodox, but finally converted to his wife's faith last year.
Elchin Akhmedov also adopted Catholicism, at the prompting of his wife Svetlana, who is of Polish descent. Firuza Mamedov and Tair Karayev inherited the faith from their mothers, despite non-practicing Azerbaijani fathers - their children now go to church.
The vast majority of the community are made up of these mixed families. It proved impossible to find one family in the city, which was entirely Catholic. Even the wife of the head of the community, Ophel Ismailov, is not of the faith, although she often attends services with her children.
"For me the Catholic community is like a family," said Yelena Sheikh-Zade (her married name). "It is a great source of support for us elderly pensioners. If someone insults us, then it will write an official letter and you feel protected."
The Pope's arrival on May 22, which Azerbaijan's Catholics are awaiting with great excitement, should change all this. Father Jsef Daniel Pravda, a Belgian with Slavic ancestry, hopes the Pope's visit will enable those Catholics who have no connection with the local community to learn about the parish for the first time.
Many see a broader purpose behind the event. As well as reviving Catholicism in Azerbaijan, there is a belief that the Pope wants to use the authority of his church to have an influence on the conflict zones of the region.
Presenting his credentials to President Heidar Aliev in April this year, the Papal nuncio for the Caucasian countries, Claudio Gugerotti, said that the Holy See was working hard on planning his visit, despite his poor health. Gugerotti said the aim of his foreign trips was to spread peace between different religious groups.
"In this sense, Azerbaijan, at the crossroads of East and West, can be a symbol of this toleration and of peaceful coexistence between citizens of different faiths," said the nuncio.
The Pope recently visited Armenia and Georgia, but paid no attention to Azerbaijan. His arrival here is therefore an attempt to reassure Azerbaijanis that he does not favour the Armenians. "As the representative of a world religion, the Pope visited Armenia," said Father Daniel. "Now he intends to visit Azerbaijan to demonstrate his balanced position towards these countries."
On arrival, the Holy See will meet President Heidar Aliev. The day after he will celebrate mass in Baku. The congregation, including visitors from neighbouring countries, is expected to number around 5,000 people. He will then meet representatives of the three main religious groups in Azerbaijan, Catholic parishioners, refugees and internally displaced people.
The Catholic community in Azerbaijan is so small that they do not have anywhere to accommodate the Pope. So - for the first time ever on a foreign trip - Pope John Paul II will be staying in a hotel.
To be precise, he will be staying in the apartments of the Hotel Arshad, which is also the office of the head of the State Committee on Religion, Rafik Aliev. Normally a room there - equipped with a mini-bar, jacuzzi and 30 cable television channels - would cost 200 US dollars a night.
"The residence of the Catholic church here does not have suitable facilities for an important elderly person, who has just travelled a long distance, to stay there," explained Father Daniel.
Azerbaijan's Catholic community was only recently re-formed after years of neglect. Its first priest, Father Jerzy Pilus only arrived in Baku in 1997 and under his leadership the church was registered. In 2000 the community managed to find funds to acquire a parish house, which serves as both a meeting place and a house of worship. Asked where the money had come from, Father Daniel replied, "Obviously not from local Catholics and not from the Vatican. From donations by rich believers in Italy."
The first mention of Catholics in Azerbaijan is from the year 1846, Father Daniel says. According to Ophel Ismailov, most of the community were Poles, exiled to the southern Caucasus by the tsarist regime. First of all, not having a church, they used to meet in people's homes and sometimes at the cemetery. Then in 1912 a magnificent church was built in the centre of Baku modelled on Notre Dame in Paris. But in the 1930s the church was destroyed by Stalin's regime and the Catholic community was broken up.
Throughout the succeeding years, the Catholic families did not lose touch with each other or with the church abroad and met wherever they could, including in public canteens. Now, for a day, their years of darkness will be forgotten.
Gulnara Mamedzade is a correspondent with Echo newspaper in Baku.
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OSCE "surprised at liquidation of Baptist church
Keston News Service (08.04.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (09.04.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net 娨C Email info@hrwf.net - Lutz Leichtfuss, democratisation officer at the Baku office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, has told Keston News Service of his "surprise" at the 3 April district court decision to liquidate the Love Church, an Azeri-language Baptist church based in the Azerbaijani capital. Baptist leader Ilya Zenchenko, rejecting the court ruling as "illegal" and "unjust", told Keston of his suspicion that the judge had been told how to rule in the case. The head of the legal department of the State Committee for Relations with Religious Organisations (which brought the liquidation suit) strongly defended the court-ordered liquidation, adding that the church has one month to lodge an appeal against the verdict.
Keston News Service: http://www.keston.org
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Protestant deported
Keston News Service (05.04.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (08.04.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - Nina Koptseva, a Russian living in Baku by invitation of the Greater Grace Protestant Church was forcibly deported from Azerbaijan on Monday 1 April, one of the church's pastors has told Keston News Service. She was taken to the airport and put on a plane to her home city of Moscow, having paid for the ticket herself. Police had attempted to deport her on Saturday.Two other women accused with Koptseva of "distributing religious propaganda" have not yet paid the fines imposed on them, while the pastor who accompanied her to the police station, and was then charged himself, will appeal against his fine.
Keston News Service: http://www.keston.org
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Believers identify religious liberty blackspots
Keston News Service (25.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (27.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - Local authorities in several locations in Azerbaijan have been threatening, fining, detaining, beating and expelling or attempting to expel believers who simply want to practise their faith peacefully, and closing places of worship, Keston News Service was told on a nine-day visit to Baku and the surrounding area at the end of February and beginning of March.
Although believers of a number of religious minorities identified the country's second largest city Gyanja as a leading blackspot, authorities violated believers' rights in many other towns, as far apart as Sumgait, Neftchala, Ismailli, Kedabek district and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan.
The central authorities in Baku have done little to stamp out such violations, despite claims to Keston by officials of the State Committee for Relations with Religious Organisations in Baku.
Keston News Service: http://www.keston.org
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The rise of the state religion
Keston News Service (20.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (21.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net - Since the establishment of the State Committee for Relations with Religious Organisations last June, its chairman, Rafik Aliev, has become arguably the most important figure in determining Azerbaijan's religious policy.
The State Committee has a much larger staff than its predecessor, and extensive powers almost unchecked by any other arm of government. Keston News Service found a largely "wait-and-see" attitude to the committee among religious communities in and around Baku.
Only when the compulsory process of re-registration is complete will they discover whether the State Committee's secrecy, arbitrariness and at times illegal activities are aberrations or an integral part of how religious policy will now be determined.
Keston News Service:http://www.keston.org
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Tightening regulation of religious groups and practices
Radio Free Europe (18.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (21.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net -- The Baku office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe says the OSCE and the Council of Europe will be studying ways that Azerbaijan can bring its religious controls in line with the country's international commitments.
Felix Corley, a religious freedoms monitor, recently completed a two-week visit to Azerbaijan during which he found a widespread clampdown on religious activity.
Corley is editor of the Keston News Service, operated by the Keston Institute, a British NGO specializing in religious freedom issues in the formerly Communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia.
In an interview with RFE/RL, he says Azerbaijan has adopted a variety of methods for limiting religious freedoms for both its majority Muslims and its numerous small Christian groups: "Azerbaijan has one of the heaviest systems of control over religious organizations in that part of the world."
Corley says the most intrusive of Baku's control mechanisms is its latest law requiring the reregistration of religious organizations -- the fourth registration regimen in a decade. He says each registration program has set progressively more stringent requirements.
Some Christian groups he talked to, among them Lutherans, applied repeatedly over five years and only now have been registered. Others, like Baptists, have been told they may register only one congregation, even though they are active across the country. Authorities have also refused entry visas to religious figures from various groups.
Even followers of Islam, in a country where 93 percent of the people are Muslim, are feeling the pinch: "Many religious organizations are not going to get registration [at all]. Muslim organizations outside the framework of the state-sanctioned spiritual administration are by law not allowed to register. Which means any independent mosques -- or mosques that do not like the authority of the administration -- will not be allowed to get registration."
Corley says over the course of his two-week tour, no one could offer an explanation for Azerbaijan's increasingly burdensome religious regulation: "But no one will actually say why this new system is necessary, why it was instituted, and why it is so difficult under the new system for religious groups to get re-registration."
But the impact of the regulation, he says, is unavoidable. Authorities are closing increasing numbers of mosques and churches and forbidding the religious activities of more and more groups: "The state committee [overseeing religious activity] itself estimates that there are some 2,000 religious organizations functioning in the country - 2,000 individual communities. Of those, only 406 had registration under the old system. And the latest figures I was told by the state committee were that 120 had got reregistration [so far in the latest registration program]. About 100 of them were Muslim, and 20 were non-Muslim."
Although Azerbaijani authorities declined to discuss on the record their reasons for tightening regulations, some observers say the government fears that religious leaders with foreign connections -- such as imams from Turkey and Iran and foreign Christian missionaries -- may have politically subversive or other motives for their activities.
Lutz Leichtfuss, democratization officer for the OSCE office in Baku, tells RFE/RL the OSCE is increasingly concerned by Azerbaijan's restrictions on religious liberty: "While acknowledging that it is important to find ways to deal with terrorism -- including religiously-motivated violence -- and that Azerbaijan may have concerns about spreading fundamentalism financed from abroad, freedom of religion is a fundamental human right. And the ability to express one's religion and beliefs freely is a cornerstone of democratic society and a prerequisite for lasting stability in all participating [OSCE] states."
Leichtfuss says the OSCE and its Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) plan to closely examine Azerbaijan's recent actions within the framework of its international relationships.
"The OSCE-ODIHR will therefore be examining the new requirements and looking at how they can be implemented in line with Azerbaijan's international commitments, including the newly assumed commitments contained in the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as the detailed commitments contained in the OSCE's Vienna Concluding Document of 1989."
He says other agencies will join in the examination. In addition to being an OSCE member since 1992, Azerbaijan last year (January 2001) joined the Council of Europe: "We will have, for example, a visit from the Council of Europe next month and [this is] because Azerbaijan has signed now the charter of the Council of Europe and is under the [scrutiny] of the Council of Europe. This is one of the examples."
The Council's Parliamentary Assembly earlier this year passed a resolution urging authorities in Baku to release a number of prisoners it says are being held for political reasons. Holding political prisoners is forbidden in all Council of Europe member states.
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Clampdown on religion draws international criticism
By Don Hill
Radio Free Europe (19.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (21.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net - Four times in the decade following the collapse of the Soviet system, Azerbaijan has ordered the re-registration of religious organizations operating within its boundaries. Each time, Baku's restrictions on religion have grown tighter.
This time, however, Azerbaijan is pushing through further restrictions despite being a signatory to the Council of Europe's charter, which pledges freedom of religion, among other human rights. RFE/RL correspondent Don Hill reports that the Council of Europe and other international organizations are examining Azerbaijan's religious clampdown with a critical eye.
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Believers unhappy over State Committee's "illegal" demands
By Felix Corley
Keston News Service (13.03.2002) / - HRWF International Secretariat (13.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net In addition to their unhappiness over the very need for re-registration of religious organisations and the way the compulsory re-registration process has been run believers of a variety of religious denominations have complained to Keston News Service over the demands made of them by the State Committee for Relations with Religious Organisations, which is handling the process.
On a visit to Azerbaijan between 24 February and 4 March, Keston heard repeated complaints about the State Committee's constant demands over how religious organisations should submit their documentation, the level of state interference permitted under the new system of state control and the subjective way the re-registration process is being conducted.
Believers claim many of these demands go well beyond what is specified in the country's religion law or the new registration instructions issued by the State Committee in the wake of its establishment last June.
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Widespread opposition to religious re-registration
Keston News Service (11.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (13.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - In recent interviews with human rights activists, religious leaders, politicians, academics and diplomats in Azerbaijan, Keston News Service found almost no support for the current round of compulsory re-registration of religious organisations - the fourth in the last decade.
Many people told Keston that re-registration was unnecessary and that the process was overly cumbersome, subjective and secretive. Most linked the process to a heightened level of state control over religious organisations and interference in their internal life.
"They just want to give us a hard time, make us hang in the air, give us a feeling of instability where we do not know what the future will be," one Protestant pastor told Keston.
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OSCE planning review of religion requirements
Keston News Service (11.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (13.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - Amid widespread concern among the religious and human rights community within Azerbaijan about the new system of state control over religion and the re-registration process now nearing completion the ambassador in Baku of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has told Keston News Service that one of the organisation's senior human rights officials intends to visit Baku to discuss these issues with the State Committee for Relations with Religious Organisations, which was founded last June to implement the new system.
http://www.keston.org
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Baptist liquidation hearing postponed again
Keston News Service (07.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (11.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - The hearing in the case to liquidate the Love Baptist Church in the Azerbaijani capital Baku was postponed again yesterday (6 March), the church's assistant pastor told Keston News Service from Baku.
The judge suggested to both parties that the dispute be resolved amicably, but if it is not, a further hearing will take place on 26 March. It is not clear if the repeated delays are a result of official nervousness at the level of international interest about the case.
Speaking to Keston in Baku on 1 March, Pastor Sari Mirzoyev was visibly angry and upset by what he claims is a relentless media and government attack on him and his family, as well as by state officials' efforts to close down the church.
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Gyanja police close Adventist church
Keston Institut http://www.keston.org (27.02.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (05.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - Police in the western Azerbaijani town of Gyanja broke up a service of the local Adventist church last Sunday afternoon (24 February) and have banned any further services until the church gets its re-registration certificate, Keston News Service has learned.
Officials are due to seal the church today (27 February) to prevent access to it. Members of a variety of faiths have told Keston that especially outside the capital Baku, local authorities often put great pressure on religious communities they do not like.
In Gyanja, other Protestant groups have been fined in recent months, but they asked Keston not to publish details of these incidents for fear of making their position worse.
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Baptists reject religion chief's "meddling"
Keston New Service (28.02.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (04.03.2002) C Websitehttp://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - Azerbaijan's Baptist leader has rejected suggestions by the country's senior religious affairs official, Rafik Aliev, as to how the community should structure itself. The proposal that the Russian-language church in Baku become the main Baptist church in the country, with the other churches merely branches of it, is unacceptable "because if the Baku church was suddenly closed we would be left with no registered churches in the country," Pastor Ilya Zenchenko told Keston News Service in Baku on 27 February. Aliev's "suggestions" appear to violate Azerbaijan's international human rights commitments outlawing state interference in how religious organisations structure themselves. Other communities have complained to Keston about such interference. Now Azerbaijan is a member of the Council of Europe, those denied registration for no valid reason will be able to take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights.
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Unregistered religious groups will be banned
Keston News Service (08.02.02)/ HRWF (12.02.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net -. When the controversial re-registration process now underway is complete, religious groups functioning without state registration will be closed down and have their activity halted through the courts, and all future unregistered religious activity will be forbidden,a senior religious affairs official has told Keston News Service.
He refused to discuss another innovation which violates Azerbaijan's international human rights commitments - a new provision banning religious organisations from functioning outside their designated location.
Keston has established that most of the 80 or so religious organisations that have so far received re-registration have been Muslim. The re-registration process is due to be completed at the end of March.
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