AZERBAIJAN: Harsh fines cancelled, banned books list publication soon?
ICC Note:
Officials in Azerbaijan routinely confiscate religious books that are on a mysterious “banned list” that the public is yet to see. While they claim that the Bible and Quran are not on that list, a plethora of other religious materials are considered illegal. The list is apparently finally ready to be published. It remains to be seen if that will in fact happen. Religious books being on Azerbaijan’s “banned list” is an infringement on the religious minorities rights to freedom in that country.
By Felix Corley
5/2/2013 Azerbaijan (Forum18)-The State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations has announced that it will make a list of banned books public, but without giving a date for this. And more changes to the Religion Law restricting where religious literature and other materials can be sold and requiring such items to be marked with special stickers before they can be sold have been approved by President Ilham Aliev. Concern has also been expressed about a school textbook that denigrates some faiths (see below).
Banned religious publications list to be public?
The State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations is preparing to publish “soon” a list of religious publications it has banned, Committee Chair Iskenderov told the local news agency 1news.az on 12 April.
State Committee officials have repeatedly stated that they have a list of banned books, but have repeatedly declined to make it public. Forum 18 has been seeking – in vain – a copy of the list of religious books the State Committee has refused to give permission for (see F18News 22 December 2011http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1651).
Orhan Ali, the State Committee spokesperson, told Forum 18 on 30 April it was still not possible to supply the list. “Work in this direction is currently in progress. This will be announced in the near future.”
Forum 18 is aware that since Iskenderov’s announcement that the list is finally to be published, members of religious communities have also asked the State Committee for a copy, so far in vain.
An official of the State Committee’s Expertise Department – which conducts the compulsory prior censorship of all religious literature and which maintains the banned publications list – told Forum 18 on 30 April that “we’re still working on the list”. The official, who would not give his name, was unable to say when the list would be published. He repeatedly refused to say even approximately how many items are on the list. “There are not so many,” was all he would say. “Not as many as 100.”
The official insisted that five key religious texts – including the Koran and the Bible – are not subject to compulsory censorship. “But for other books, people must apply to us.” He refused to explain why the request by the Baptists to import 3,500 Bibles had been rejected. They were allowed to import only 1,000 (see F18News 4 April 2013 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1820).
The official claimed that permission requests took “maybe one week” if a book is short, and “if the book is very long, the review might last more than two weeks”. He refused to explain why the Baptists had to wait three months for a response when they requested permission to import the Bibles.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have repeatedly tried to challenge State Committee censorship of their religious publications in court, so far with no success (see F18News 12 November 2012http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1766).
Seizures
Police and other state officials frequently seize religious literature in raids on religious meetings. In mid-March, Baku-based Muslim Zeka Miragayev lodged a further appeal to Baku Appeal Court in his case against the police and National Security Ministry (NSM) secret police who raided his private home in May 2012 and seized religious literature, including Korans. “They’ve given us no date for when the appeal is due to be heard,” Miragayev’s friends lamented to Forum 18 from Baku on 2 May. They added that the confiscated books have still not been returned, one year after their seizure.
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