Forum18 – Some religious leaders and human rights activists told Forum 18 News Service in the Azerbaijani capital in late October that pressure on religious communities had eased as the authorities prepared themselves to ensure victory for pro-government candidates in the 6 November parliamentary elections. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) found that the elections “did not meet a number of OSCE commitments and Council of Europe standards and commitments for democratic elections.”

“This year things have been a little better, as we tried to avoid possible problems,” one religious minority leader told Forum 18 in the capital Baku . Yet in the past few months a disturbing number of police raids on religious communities have continued, especially on summer camps and open air preaching outside the confines of registered religious buildings.

One of the most serious attacks was a raid on a summer camp for 35 children held by Baku ‘s Mehebet (Love) Baptist church in July in the town of Gakh [Qax] in north-west Azerbaijan , close to the border with Georgia . Some thirty ordinary police and KGB secret police officers raided the house where the camp was being held on 21 July, the last day of the five-day camp. “I saw the police arrive in many cars, shouting and swearing, even at the women,” church member Ramil Abdullaev told Forum 18 in Baku on 19 October. “I was hit in front of the children and lost one tooth.” He said all twelve helpers were taken in handcuffs to the police station. “There were many questions – Who are you? Where are you from? – and accusations: You’ve sold out to the Armenians.”

Also taken to the police station for examination was all the Christian literature, which was in Azeri. When the Baptist Union in Baku had faxed through a copy of the church’s statute, which declares that the church works with children, “they saw that everything was OK”, Abdullaev reported. The following morning all those detained were freed. “One secret police officer was hard, the other apologised. The KGB always work like that.”

However, ten of those leading the camp were fined a combined total of 700,000 Azeri Manats (1,012 Norwegian Kroner, 130 Euros, or 152 US Dollars) for hooliganism under the Code of Administrative Offences. “We paid – what else could we do?” Abdullaev told Forum 18. The average monthly salary in Azerbaijan is around 147,300 Manats (213 Norwegian Kroner, 27 Euros, or 32 US Dollars).

Ilya Zenchenko, head of the Baptist Union, told Forum 18 in Baku on 19 October that after the raid on the camp in Gakh, the church informed the local authorities in advance where other summer camps were held and there were no further attempts to harass or obstruct the camps.

The only other problem came over an August day camp at the Baptist church in the southern port town of Neftechala , on the Caspian Sea south of Alat, prompted by complaints from two local residents. “One neighbour complained the camp was noisy,” Pastor Telman Aliev told Forum 18, “then he went on to complain that we shouldn’t be telling Azerbaijani children about Christ.” Aliev said a second neighbour joined the complaints and tried to frighten parents not to send their children. He says this neighbour then hit two of the children and dragged them away.

When Aliev went to the local police chief to ask him to prevent such abuses, he says the police chief responded: “Why should I defend you? You’re preaching Christ!” Aliev told him the church had the legal right to teach children whose parents had given their permission. “He refused to help, refused to write down that he was refusing to help, swore at me and kicked me out of his office,” Aliev told Forum 18.

Ten neighbours then wrote what Aliev described as “false statements” alleging that there had been misbehaviour at the day camp. On 5 September, Aliev was fined 84,000 Manats (121 Norwegian Kroner, 16 Euros, or 18 US Dollars) under the Code of Administrative Offences for allegedly teaching religion illegally. “I refused to sign the document and refused to pay. They told me they’d pass the case on to Baku .” He said an investigator summoned him on 9 October to ask why he had not paid the fine. He responded that he considered it unjustified.

The authorities have repeatedly refused state registration – and hence a legal personality – to the Naftechala Baptists and many other religious communities across the country (see F18News 3 November 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=681).

The Baptist congregation in the southern town of Ali-Bairamali [Ali Bayramli], which meets in the home of a church member, was raided in the early summer, as Mehebet’s assistant pastor Yahya Mamedov reported. “Church members were taken to the police, questioned and then released, though not before they were forced to sign statements that they wouldn’t meet as a church,” he told Forum 18 at the Baptist church in Baku on 19 October. “This was a psychological tactic to exert pressure.” Mamedov also reported that the leader of the Baptist church in another town, whom he preferred not to identify, had been summoned and threatened several times early in the year…[Go To Full Story]