The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
11 July 2012
AZERBAIJAN: "They were praying where they weren't allowed"
Police and secret police officers raided the home of local Muslim Zeka Miragayev in the capital Baku, confiscating copies of the Koran and other Muslim books, as he told Forum 18 News Service. Officers also took money from his home. Police declined to comment to Forum 18. In Azerbaijan's second city Gyanja, police raided a private home where the hosts and three visiting Turkish students were praying the namaz. Two family members and the students were questioned for eight hours at the police station. The Muslims say police beat at least some of them. The three students were given heavy administrative fines, but the orders to deport them were overturned on appeal. "They were praying where they weren't allowed," the local police chief explained to Forum 18. He denied anyone was beaten.
28 June 2012
AZERBAIJAN: Not arrested, merely detained
Police in Azerbaijan have threatened six Baptists with criminal prosecution for sharing their beliefs with others, Forum 18 News Service has learned. The passports of three have been confiscated, as has Christian literature and a car. Deputy police chief Misir Imamaliyev, who interrogated one group held at a police station, claimed to Forum 18 that they were not arrested but merely detained. "Distribution of any religious books without state permission is illegal", he stated. Elsewhere, Baku's Greater Grace Protestant Church is awaiting its appeal against a court ruling that it be liquidated.
18 May 2012
AZERBAIJAN: "No-one was raided"
At least 20 police officers – including the local police chief – took part in a raid on a Seventh-day Adventist Church in Gyanja in Azerbaijan on 12 May, Forum 18 News Service has learned. The local head of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations took part in the raid, but denied this to Forum 18. Police initially searched for foreigners in the congregation, and when they found none then started checking whether all the approximately 50 children present had written permission to be present from both their parents. After questioning church members and children for several hours, police warned those they questioned that prosecutions would follow with fines. At least one congregation member has been heavily fined, without going through a court trial. The raid came two weeks after the home of a Jehovah's Witness in Sumgait was also raided and religious literature confiscated. Sumgait Police told Forum 18 that "no-one was raided". Baptists have also been stopped while sharing their faith, and a court in the capital Baku has handed down a verdict liquidating Greater Grace Protestant Church. The Church will appeal against this, the first enforced liquidation of a religious community since a harsh Religion Law was adopted.
26 April 2012
AZERBAIJAN: Court liquidates Church
A court in the Azerbaijani capital Baku has ruled to liquidate the Greater Grace Protestant Church, the Judge's assistant told Forum 18 News Service. At a 15-minute final hearing on 25 April in the Church's absence, Judge Tahira Asadova upheld the suit lodged by the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations. Asked how the Judge could have taken a decision which means that any activity the Church engages in would be illegal and subject to punishment, Judge Asadova's secretary Sevinj Ahmedova told Forum 18: "The court has decided." She said the decision will enter into force a month after the written verdict is issued, unless the Church lodges an appeal. Church members told Forum 18 they intend to challenge the decision through every court, even to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Ilya Zenchenko, head of Azerbaijan's Baptist Union, says he is troubled by the decision. "I protest against it – it is not just," he told Forum 18.
25 April 2012
AZERBAIJAN: Waiting for state approval to sell religious books
An official of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations – which operates Azerbaijan's harsh religious censorship system – admitted in mid-April that about 100 shops wishing to sell religious books are still waiting for the necessary licences. Only 16 such licences have been issued since the system's introduction in 2009. Forum 18 News Service notes that selling religious books without a licence risks a maximum punishment for a first offence of two years' imprisonment. Baku's Metro banned the sale of religious books in early April. One religious publisher told Forum 18 that after the compulsory licensing system was introduced, several bookshops returned books as they were too afraid to sell them without a licence. Jehovah's Witnesses have failed in about 15 legal cases challenging State Committee religious censorship decisions.
17 April 2012
AZERBAIJAN: Religious freedom survey, April 2012
Ahead of Azerbaijan's hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest, Forum 18 News Service notes that freedom of religion or belief and related human rights such as the freedom of expression and of assembly remain highly restricted. Among issues documented in Forum 18's religious freedom survey are: state attempts to counter discussion of violations with claims of inter-religious harmony and religious tolerance; officials behaving as if the rule of law places no limitations on their actions; unfair trials lacking due legal process; steadily increasing "legal" restrictions on and punishments for exercising freedom of religion or belief, often prepared in secret, forming a labyrinth of restrictive state controls; "legal" denials of international human rights standards Azerbaijan has agreed to implement; a highly restrictive censorship regime; enforced closures of places people meet for worship; a ban on praying outside mosques; jailing of prisoners of conscience exercising the right to conscientious objection to military service; arbitrary deportations of foreign citizens exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief; and severe denials of human rights in the Nakhichevan exclave. Azerbaijan is likely to remain a place where fundamental human rights are violated with impunity, and the state tries to make exercising human rights conditional upon state permission.
13 April 2012
AZERBAIJAN: Judge "has already decided in her own mind to liquidate us" ?
A court in Azerbaijan's capital Baku is likely to decide on 19 April whether Greater Grace Protestant Church should be liquidated, a court official told Forum 18 News Service after the latest hearing on 12 April. If the court upholds the liquidation suit lodged by the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations, all the Church's communal activity will become illegal. "The conduct of the Judge during the hearing testifies that she has already decided in her own mind to liquidate us", church members complained to Forum 18. They note that the Judge has acted with the State Committee in trying to dismiss the Church's defence arguments. The authorities have already closed down Muslim mosques they do not like – mostly Sunni mosques. Police and the courts have raided and warned Muslims who continued to worship in private homes. Also, a "temporary" ban on Muslims praying outside mosques, imposed in 2008, is still being enforced. No text of the ban appears to have ever been made public.
30 March 2012
AZERBAIJAN: 12 April liquidation for Baku church?
Judge Tahira Asadova at Baku's Administrative Economic Court No. 1 will hand down her decision on 12 April whether Greater Grace Protestant Church in the Azerbaijani capital is to be liquidated, her assistant told Forum 18 News Service. If she rules to liquidate the Church's legal status, all its activity will become illegal and its members will be liable to prosecution. The Church insists that one state agency – in this case the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations – cannot seek the liquidation of legal status granted by another – in this case the Justice Ministry, which registered the Church in April 1993. The Church insists it has never broken the law, but the State Committee told the Court it has "secret documents" – which it refused to reveal – testifying to violations. Meanwhile, the second known raid on a Muslim home in March has seen further works by the late Turkish Muslim theologian Said Nursi confiscated and handed to the State Committee for "expert analysis".
15 March 2012
AZERBAIJAN: Raids continue, liquidation case adjourned
Muslim and Christian meetings in Azerbaijan continue to face raids involving the ordinary police, NSM secret police, and officials of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. A Baptist pastor working in Neftechala and two Muslims holding a religious meeting in Sumgait were fined in separate cases in February. The Baptist Pastor, Telman Aliyev, has not been told how much he is being fined, and the State Committee has stated that he cannot carry out religious activity in his church. Police and NSM secret police officers who raided Mehman Halilov's private home in Shamakhi in early March seized books by Muslim theologian Said Nursi. They are now with the State Committee for an "expert analysis", after which their fate will be decided. Halilov's home was raided because he is claimed to have distributed the books. The Interior Ministry's announcement increased the number of books seized, and a police officer denied that the raid took place. "I don't know and no-one here knows", he told Forum 18. Meanwhile, the State Committee's legal case to close Baku's Greater Grace Church has been adjourned until 29 March.
13 March 2012
AZERBAIJAN: "Illegal liquidation"
Azerbaijan's State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations has moved to close down Greater Grace Church in the capital Baku for failing to regain the compulsory re-registration, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. This is thought to be the first attempt to compulsorily close a religious community through the courts since compulsory re-registration was imposed by the harsh 2009 Religion Law. If successful the Church would lose the legal right to exist. The unregistered exercise of freedom of religion or belief is illegal under the Religion Law, against international human rights standards. Church members reject the suit, insisting to Forum 18 that "illegal liquidation" of its legal status – which it has had since 1993 – would violate the "Constitutional rights to freedom of religion" of members. "The case begins properly on 15 March at 4 pm," Judge Tahira Asadova told Forum 18. Commenting on the state-imposed closure of a Muslim prayer room in a building rented out by a charity for deaf people, a charity official told Forum 18 that: "It's not a bad thing if people pray – indeed it's good. But they need registration. The government doesn't like it otherwise."
1 February 2012
ARMENIA: After Strasbourg punishment, will government resolve alternative service issue "for ever"?
On 10 January the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) again ordered Armenia to pay compensation to two Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector former prisoners for violating their rights to religious freedom. The punishment followed two critical Opinions from the Council of Europe's Venice Commission and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) of the 2011 proposed amendments to the Alternative Service Law. They say these do not go far enough to bring in a fully-civilian alternative to military service which is not punitive in length. But Deputy Justice Minister Ruben Melikyan told Forum 18 News Service that a government Working Group is already preparing new amendments to the Alternative Service Law "fully taking into account the OSCE and Venice Commission views" and the ECtHR rulings. He said it would be adopted "this year". However, he said until it is adopted, the courts cannot free the 57 imprisoned conscientious objectors nor halt the prosecution of a further 14.
17 January 2012
NAGORNO-KARABAKH: Conscientious objector jailed for 30 months
Jehovah's Witness Karen Harutyunyan has been sentenced in the unrecognised entity of Nagorno-Karabakh to 30 months' imprisonment, for refusing compulsory military service. Even before his trial, he had been transferred to the prison in the hilltop town of Shusha where he will serve his sentence, Forum 18 News Service has learned. The entity's latest prisoner of conscience, who refused military service because of his religious beliefs, is intending to appeal against the sentence. However, the entity's Human Rights Ombudsperson Yuri Hairapetyan insisted Harutyunyan broke the law, and doubted that anyone could refuse the entity's compulsory military service. He asked Forum 18: "How can this be justified? Maybe he's not even a Jehovah's Witness." Ashot Sargsyan, Head of the government's Department for Ethnic Minority and Religious Affairs, described the jail sentence as "absurd" because he claimed it is too mild. He has called for the Criminal Code to be changed to make anyone refusing military service pay a massive fine and do some form of alternative service. Harutyunyan's imprisonment comes as revisions to the Religion Law are being prepared, which could make the restrictive Law even harsher.