officials to Azerbaijan amid new concern about religious prosecution in the ex-Soviet republic, BosNewsLife learned Tuesday March 12.
Keston News Service (KNS), which investigates violations of religious rights, quoted the OSCE ambassador in the Capital Baku, Peter Burkhard, as saying that his organization and its human rights workers "are monitoring new legislation and requirements on religious congregations very closely."
It comes as the authorities are forcing churches and other religious groups to re-register themselves, for the fourth time this decade. "The government would like to control religious activity more closely and more effectively," the human rights activist Eldar Zeynalov told KNS. "This is related to United States pressure and the global war on terrorism, but it started before 11 September," he added.
WAR AGAINST TERRORISM
Some human rights activists have also suggested that the US seems less willing to pressure war ravaged Azerbaijan to respect human rights, as it needs this and other nearby Islamic republics in the global war against terrorism.
Leaders of a broad range of religious denominations – including many of those that had or are likely to have difficulties with re-registration – strongly object to the process, comparing it to (former Soviet official) Trotsky’s "permanent revolution".
"We went through so much hassle to re-register in 1992, then again in 1994, then again in 1999 – only to have to go through it all over again now," KNS quoted one religious leader as saying. "How long is it going to be before we have to go through it all again?," the official wondered.
PROTESTANT PROTEST
Tamara Gumbatova, leader of one of two rival Lutheran congregations in Baku, told KNS that re-registration was "against the law". "There shouldn’t be re-registration – it’s only verification of work that has already been done."
Musfig Bayram, a pastor of the Protestant Greater Grace Church in Baku, was blunter. "They keep asking for re-registration – it is hilarious. Why? They just want to give us a hard time, make us hang in the air, give us a feeling of instability where we do not know hat the future will be."
120 religious organizations have been re-registered thus far, 20 of them non-Muslim, while "about 100" further applications were still being considered, KNS reported to have heard from authorities The cost of registration is about six US dollars, although some Christians say they were forced to pay many times that amount.
Receiving registration for the first time on February 7 was the Baku Lutheran congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia and the Other States (ELKRAS), which had been refused registration with the Ministry of Justice for some years.
AUTHORITIES DON’T TALK
KNS said its delegation was not able to speak with Rafik Aliev, chairman of the State Committee for Relations with Religious Organizations, who apparently said he was "too busy." Other officials were not able to clarify the need for re-registration, KNS noted.
Analysts have expressed their concern about the situation saying that religious tensions and related violence has halted economic progress since the country became independent in 1991, when the Soviet Union was voted out of existence.
Civil unrest has especially continued in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region within Azerbaijan, where the majority of people are known to be Christian Armenians. In 1992 neighboring Armenia occupied the area between its eastern border and Nagorno- Karabakh, while ethnic Armenians took over the region itself.
CEASEFIRE AND HOPE
Although a ceasefire was agreed to in 1994, massive migrations of Armenian refugees lead to serious social problems, with 20 percent of Azerbaijan under Armenia’s control. However some Council of Europe (CoE) representatives still see hopeful signs for the future of this troubled nation.
Azerbaijan lodged its ratification of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights with the Council of Europe (CoE) in Strasbourg this month and as a result, Azerbaijani citizens who believe their rights under the Convention have been violated can now take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights.
"This is an important step towards guaranteeing human rights in Azerbaijan," CoE official Inkeri Aarnio-Lwoff told KNS. In addition analysts note that courts have in recent years ruled in favor of religious freedom, including punishing governments for meddling in religious communities’ choice of leaders and unfounded denial of registration.
