USCIRF: Religious situation in Azerbaijan is worsening

  Despite societal religious tolerance in Azerbaijan, governmental respect for religious freedom continued to deteriorate in 2014, along with a sharp decline in respect for democratic norms. The past year witnessed a marked increase in arrests of civil society activists and members of Pre-Soviet independent Azerbaijan was the world’s first Muslim-majority secular parliamentary republic.

According to the State Department, 96 percent of Azerbaijan’s population is Muslim, of whom about 65 percent  are Shi’a Muslims and 35 percent Sunni Muslims. The remaining 4 percent of the population includes: Russian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, and other Christians (including Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Baptists, Molokans, and Seventh-day Adventists); some 20,000 Jews; Baha’is; and nonbelievers. Among Muslims and Russian Orthodox, religious identity is usually based on ethnicity. Shi’a Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Russian Orthodox, and Jews are officially seen as the country’s “traditional” religious groups.

During the reporting period, there was a marked increase in arrests and repression of civil society  activists and peaceful members of religious groups in Azerbaijan. In 2014, the parliament also increased reporting requirements for NGOs and religious groups to the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations (SCWRO), purportedly to prevent the spread of religious extremism and foreign missionary activity.

Azerbaijan’s 2009 religion law is used to limit religious freedom and to justify fines, police raids, detentions, and imprisonment. The law’s provisions include: compulsory state registration with complex and intrusive requirements; no appeal for registration Azerbaijan’s 2009 religion law is used to limit religious freedom . . .denials; religious activities limited to a community’s registered address; extensive state controls on the content, production, import, export, and dissemination of religious materials; and required state-approved religious education to preach, teach religion, or lead ceremonies. Individuals or groups violating the religion law are subject to administrative fines. In 2010, fines for religious organizations increased 16-fold. In 2012, the CoE’s Venice Commission and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) issued a legal opinion finding that Azerbaijan’s religion law  failed to meet its international human rights commitments. In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found that Azerbaijan’s 2009 religion law gives authorities “unlimited discretionary power” to define and prosecute “illegal” religious activity.

Religious Freedom Conditions 2014–2015 Government Control through Registration Registration is mandatory, and religious groups denied registration or that refuse to register are deemed “illegal.”

Members of unregistered religious communities often face raids, confiscation of religious texts, and other penalties. Yet even registered religious groups are only allowed to conduct activity at their legal address and subject to other restrictions. The State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations claimed in February 2014 that the country’s total number of registered religious groups was 588.

The Azerbaijani NGO Legal Protection and Awareness Society Public Union (LPASPU) has compiled a list of Muslims jailed for the non-violent practice of their  faith or advocacy for religious freedom. Most were sentenced for publicly protesting what is in effect a ban on headscarves in school: 11 members of that group are still imprisoned, seven were released in 2014; two were pardoned by President Aliev in March 2015. The trial of lawyer Rasul Jafarov, LPASPU leader, began in January 2015 although witnesses’ testimony did not support the official charges of financial manipulations; he was sentenced to 6.5 years. Leila and Arif Yunus, noted human rights activists who also drew attention to religious freedom, have been jailed since August 2014; their worsening health status is ignored in the penal system.

In November 2014, nine Sunni Muslims arriving to pray in a Sumgait home were detained for several hours; police claimed to have found weapons. In February 2015, a Baku court sentenced the home’s owner, Zohrab Shikhaliyev (who offered his home for prayer because all local Sunni mosques were closed) to a six-month term on false weapons charges. Islamic  theologian Taleh Bagirov, who publicly criticized the naming of a CMB imam to serve in his mosque, was  sentenced in 2013 on fabricated drug charges and released in late 2014. The trial of three Muslims – Eldeniz Hajiyev, Ismayil Mammadov and Revan Sabzaliyev – for allegedly reading “illegal” religious literature and organizing an “illegal” religious group began in Baku in December 2014. If convicted, they face three to non-violent practice of their faith .

All Muslims in Azerbaijan are subject to official restrictions. All Muslim religious leaders are named by the statebacked CMB and must be citizens educated in Azerbaijan;  all mosques must belong to the CMB; and only citizens can establish Islamic religious communities. By 2014, all Islamic communities that did not belong to the CMB lacked legal status and were vulnerable to police action.

Police still enforce a 2008 decree that does not allow prayer outside of mosques. In 2010, the Ministry of Education introduced a school uniform, in effect banning the Islamic headscarf. In 2013 that ban was extended to universities, leading to petitions and unauthorized protests.

In 2014 the government and the CMB stepped up its apparent campaign to close Sunni places of worship.  The Lezgin Mosque – one of two Sunni Muslim mosques  open in Baku – was threatened with closure. In 2014, a Sunni mosque near Baku was put under new control; the SCWRO claims the mosque’s first community dissolved by “choosing” to admit Shi’a members.

Restrictions on Religious Minorities

Most Protestant denominations do not have legal status, including Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Pentecostals, as well as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Two Georgian Orthodox communities are registered, but Gakh region authorities restricted worship services to 30 minutes per day in three Georgian Orthodox churches. The

When Azerbaijan joined the CoE in 2001 it promised to allow alternative service, but has yet to enact such a law. While the Constitution allows for alternative service, other laws set two-year prison terms for those who refuse military service. Jailed since October 2013, Jehovah’s Witness Kamran Shikhaliev lost his court appeal in August 2014 against a one-year term in a military discipline unit where he must serve until August 2015.

Residents of the Nakhichevan exclave face more severe religious freedom restrictions than elsewhere in Azerbaijan. Local Sunni Muslims have nowhere to pray. In November 2014, up to 200 Shi’a Muslims were arrested; according to Forum 18 News Service, up to 50 are detained and up to 50 mosques – particularly those officially seen as close to Iran – reportedly were closed.

During the Shi’a Muslim Ashura commemoration, police outside mosques prevented children and students from entering. Many state employees reportedly are afraid to attend mosque. Baha’is, Adventists and Hare Krishnas are banned. The ancient Armenian cemetery near Juga village repeatedly has been vandalized since 2005.

Recommendations

In order to promote freedom of religion or belief in Azerbaijan, USCIRF recommends that the U.S. government should:

• Urge the Azerbaijani government to reform its religion law to bring it into conformity with its international human rights commitments, as recommended by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2012;

• Urge the Azerbaijani government to cease detention and imprisonment of members of religious groups, as well as activists, jailed for peaceful religious activity or religious affiliations;

• Ensure that the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan maintains appropriate contacts with human rights activists and press the government of Azerbaijan to ensure that every prisoner has regular access to his or her family, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, and a lawyer, as specified in interna-tional human rights instruments;

• Encourage public scrutiny of Azerbaijan’s violations of international religious freedom and related human rights norms at the UN and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and urge the OSCE to engage these issues publicly;

• Urge the Azerbaijani government to agree to visits by UN Special Rapporteurs on Freedom of Religion or Belief, as well as Independence of the Judiciary and Torture; set specific visit dates; and provide the necessary conditions for such visits;

• Press the government of Azerbaijan to allow religious groups to operate freely without registration, and advocate for amendments to the religion law’s registration process to make it voluntary;

• Specify freedom of religion as a grants category and area of activity in the Democracy and Conflict Mitigation program of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Democracy Commission Small Grants program administered by the U.S. Embassy, and encourage the publicly-funded National Endowment for Democracy to make grants for civil society programs on tolerance and freedom of religion or belief;

• Increase U.S. government-funded radio and Internet programs, particularly in Azeri, of objective information on relevant issues, such as religious freedom, including its role in U.S. foreign policy. -02D-