FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway

http://www.forum18.org/

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

=================================================

9 August 2007

AZERBAIJAN: TWO-YEAR PRISON TERM FOR BAPTIST PASTOR

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1005

Baptist Pastor Zaur Balaev was yesterday (8 August) sentenced to two years in jail, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The Pastor from Aliabad in northern Azerbaijan was convicted of using violence against a state representative, and was also accused of holding “illegal meetings under the guise of religious activity without concrete authority and without state registration,” attracting young people to worship services and playing loud music at services. Azerbaijan’s authorities have changed their accusations whilst Balaev has been held, initially claiming that he set a dog on police during a raid on a Sunday worship service. After more than 50 people signed a written statement testifying to Balev’s innocence, the dog disappeared from the authorities’ claims and Balaev was instead accused of attacking five policeman and damaging a police car door. The authorities’ claims are strongly disputed. Prosecution witnesses admitted that they had not witnessed the alleged assault by Pastor Balaev. They stated that they had only heard about it from people at the market, teahouse, or because police pressured them into testifying. “We’re preparing to submit an appeal,” Ilya Zenchenko of the Baptist Union told Forum 18. A court official told Forum 18 that Judge Seifali Seifullaev was not available for comment and had been transferred to a new position. * See full article below. *

6 August 2007

MOLDOVA: WILL NEW RELIGION LAW END ARBITRARY LEGAL STATUS DENIALS?

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1003

Moldova’s new Religion Law, now awaiting promulgation, may end the state’s arbitrary denials of registration, and hence legal status, to religious communities it dislikes. These include all Muslims, smaller Orthodox Churches and many Protestant Churches, and has led to two large fines being imposed on Moldova by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. But some have told Forum 18 News Service that they are sceptical. Serghei Ostaf of the Resource Centre for Human Rights told Forum 18 that “I fear there will be problems. Nothing functions in Moldova as it is supposed to. Officials are very creative in finding obstructions, when they don’t want to do something.” Without legal status, religious communities cannot carry out a wide range of peaceful religious activities. Ostaf fears officials will pressure members of disfavoured religious communities not to sign registration applications. “Leaders of one Muslim community told me their members are already being pressured not to take part in religious activity.”

8 August 2007

RUSSIA: ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS, REAL AND IMAGINED

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1004

Russia’s pursuit of religious and other extremists has intensified with recent amendments to the Extremism, Media and other laws, Forum 18 News Service notes. The legal definition of incitement to religious hatred is no longer restricted to activity involving violence or the threat of violence. Journalists describing a religious or other organisation that has been banned as extremist must now state this or face a heavy fine. Some prominent Russian Muslim representatives are deeply unhappy about state policy on extremism. They allege that justice has been misapplied in some recent trials and that, at the middle and lower tiers of authority, “state policy has become distorted and turned into the opposite of what it is meant to be.” Mikhail Ostrovsky of the Presidential Administration responded that most of the cases raised lie within the competency of the judiciary and urged Muslims to refer concrete violations to the law enforcement agencies “in the prescribed manner”. Opinion on Islamic extremism in Russia is polarised, being influenced by shifting and ambiguous definitions, rivalry between Islamic groups and state preferences for some Muslim organisations over others.

9 August 2007

AZERBAIJAN: TWO-YEAR PRISON TERM FOR BAPTIST PASTOR

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1005 By Geraldine Fagan, Moscow Correspondent, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

Pastor Zaur Balaev was sentenced to two years in prison yesterday (8 August) by a court in the north-western regional centre of Zakatala [Zaqatala]. Simply announcing the verdict at 4pm local time, Judge Seifali Seifullaev gave no explanation for his decision, the head of Azerbaijan’s Baptist Union reported shortly afterwards. “It’s very sad news,” Ilya Zenchenko remarked to Forum 18 News Service from the Zakatala-Baku road. “We’re preparing to submit an appeal on Friday (10 August).”

The 44-year-old pastor was convicted under Article 315, Part 1 of the Criminal Code, which punishes the application or threat of application of violence, including to a state representative when he or she is carrying out official duties. It carries a maximum three-year prison term. His trial began on 16 July and the latest indictment also complained that Balaev “conducts illegal meetings under the guise of religious activity without concrete authority and without state registration”, attracts young people to services and plays loud music at services (see F18News 16 July 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=994>).

At Judge Seifali Seifullaev’s number on 9 August, a court representative confirmed that Zaur Balaev was yesterday sentenced to two years’ imprisonment under Article 315, Part 1. When Forum 18 raised doubts about the trial – in particular how Balaev could have attacked five policemen – he remarked that he had “nothing to do with it”, and that only Judge Seifullaev was familiar with the case. Asked when Judge Seifullaev would be available for comment, the court representative told Forum 18 that the Balaev case had been his last in Zakatala, and that he had been transferred to a new – but not senior – position. The court representative insisted that he did not know where this was.

Present at packed Zakatala court hearings on 25 and 27 July, Ilya Zenchenko told Forum 18 that five police officers claimed Balaev had beaten them when they visited his home in the village of Aliabad during 20 May Sunday worship. Village Policeman Khalid Memedov explained that he called in “because what was happening in the house was a violation of public order and an illegal act and I went to have a chat as a preventative measure.” Queried about the presence of four other officers, Memedov reportedly responded: “It just turned out that way.”

According to Zenchenko, four local witnesses unexpectedly maintained that they did not actually see the alleged beating, but only heard about it from people at the market, teahouse or Memedov, who pressured them into testifying. The Baptist Union leader also told Forum 18 that the court ignored the absence of evidence proving that the policemen’s bruises and scratches were caused by Balaev rather than sport or gardening.

According to Aliabad church members, police demanded that worship be stopped, the congregation disperse and Balaev accompany them to the police station on 20 May, which he did peacefully. They and other villagers categorically deny the police accusations that the pastor attacked them (see F18News 22 May 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=961>).

Pastor Balaev was initially accused by police of setting a dog onto them during the raid. The congregation vehemently denies this accusation. When more than 50 people, including villagers who are not Christian, signed a statement testifying to the Pastor’s innocence “the dog completely disappeared from the accusation,” Zenchenko of the Baptist Union told Forum 18 on 12 July. The authorities then changed their accusation to allege that Balaev, described by Zenchenko as a “thin man,” beat up five “strong” policeman and damaged a police car door. Like the original accusation, the authorities’ latest version of events is also strongly denied by the church (see F18News 12 July 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=993>).

Pastor Balaev has been in detention since 20 May, and there is increasing concern about his deteriorating health. Born with a heart defect, he suffered heart attacks on 23 July and 5 August, Zenchenko told Forum 18, and is also experiencing kidney pain. On 4 June the pastor was transferred from the police station in Zakatala to the city of Gyanja [G ¤nc ¤], 250 kilometres (150 miles) away. According to the Baptist Union leader, he is being kept there in what is colloquially known as the “frog pool” (“lyagushatnik”), a remand cell where detainees normally spend only a few hours or days. “The conditions there are terrible – there is no proper toilet or ventilation,” Zenchenko explained. The Baptists expect that Balaev will remain in the “frog pool” until his appeal is heard.

While in jail, Balaev has been beaten by police. His family has had to go into debt to pay to take food to him, and the authorities have denied his family the opportunity to meet him since his arrest (see F18News 22 June 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=979>).

The Baptists now suspect that there may be an additional financial motivation for Balaev’s prosecution. According to Zenchenko, Gyanja prison workers have been ridiculing the nature of the pastor’s “brotherhood”, seeing that it is not prepared to pay a bribe for his release. In what is common practice in Azerbaijan, he told Forum 18, the going rate to buy someone out of prison is 5,000 US Dollars (4,260 Azeri Manats, 28,840 Norwegian Kroner or 3,627 Euros). Zenchenko believes that Balaev could have been seen as a lucrative target because he owns land and a tractor.

Zenchenko also reported that local state representatives have not harassed the Aliabad congregation since briefly detaining its second pastor, Hamid Shabanov, and confiscating the church library in the wake of the 20 May raid (see F18News 4 June 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=968>). “We started going there from Baku and they stopped causing problems,” he told Forum 18. The church library has not yet been returned, however.

Aliabad village lies close to the border with Georgia in the north-western region of Zakatala [Zaqatala]. Its 10,000-strong population is largely of the Ingilo minority, ethnic Georgians converted to Islam several centuries ago. The reason the police gave for raiding the Aliabad church on 20 May was that, because the church did not have state registration, it could not meet (see F18News 22 May 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=961>).

Officials of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations in Baku frequently deny legal status to religious communities they do not like, including non-state controlled Muslims, Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses and others. Azerbaijan’s bureaucratic registration procedures also allow local officials to obstruct a registration application even before it reaches the State Committee. When Forum 18 visited the notary Najiba Mamedova in Zakatala in November 2004, to find out why she persistently refused to notarise the signatures on the Aliabad church’s registration application, she shouted: “We don’t need any Baptists here”. She then threw Forum 18 out of her office (see F18News 8 December 2004 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=471>).

Unregistered religious activity is not formally illegal in Azerbaijan, though officials often act as though it is. As Zenchenko of the Baptist Union has pointed out, there is a bitter irony in officials obstructing the Pastor Balaev’s Aliabad congregation’s applications for registration, then punishing it for meeting without registration (see F18News 16 July 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=994>). Baptist churches in Aliabad have been repeatedly denied state registration since the early 1990s (see eg. F18News 1 December 2004 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=466>).

As well as being repeatedly denied legal status over 13 years, Aliabad’s Baptists have been subjected to vilification by local officials for their Christian faith. One example of this has been officials denying church members’ children birth certificates, as their parents’ choice of Christian names were deemed unacceptable by officials of Zakatala Registry Office. Without a birth certificate, it is impossible for children to, amongst other things, go to kindergarten or school, or to get hospital treatment. (see eg. F18News 22 June 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=979> and 22 May 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=961>).

Baptists in the area have also faced forced unemployment, postal censorship, literature restrictions, threats and intimidation (see F18News 9 December 2004 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=473>. (END)

For a personal commentary, by an Azeri Protestant, on how the international community can help establish religious freedom in Azerbaijan, see <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=482>

For more background information see Forum 18’s Azerbaijan religious freedom survey at <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=92>

More coverage of freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Azerbaijan is at <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=23&results=50>

A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806>.

A printer-friendly map of Azerbaijan is available at <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=azerba> (END)

 © Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved. ISSN 1504-2855 You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to F18News http://www.forum18.org/