Swiss-based APD told BosNewsLife that at least five Seventh-day Adventists and three visitors were allegedly questioned, fined and warned not to meet again after what the small congregation described as "a government raid" on their meeting hall last Saturday, December 8..
Church members said the problems began when seven men in police uniforms and six wearing plainclothes interrupted their gathering at mid-morning “initially demanding passports of those attending," APD said.
However soon, some 13 officials reportedly began searching the premises, confiscating books and other religious materials while arresting the worshippers, apparently on charges of "meeting without state registration."
SIMILAR INCIDENT
The incident follows a similar intrusion targeting Seventh-day Adventists earlier this year, APD said. The Oslo-based human rights group Forum 18 added that security officials also attempted to force the members to sign statements denying their faith in Christ. They were allegedly held for five hours at the local police station and fined, before being released.
In published remarks, the local Pastor Rasim Bakhshiyev, said officers threatened imprisonment if the church members continued to meet. Upon release, Bakhshiyev was fined 16.50 manats (US$20) and others members 11 manats, a huge amount for most people in Azerbaijan where poverty is rampant despite huge oil revenues.
However officials have denied that people were threatened. Police officer Elhan Sokhbetov, who took part in the December 8 raid on the church’s worship service reportedly described the alleged raid as no more than “a check-up. " Asked why police officers had raided the service and why eight worshippers had been detained, he said: "No-one was threatened. It was just a check-up," Forum 18 reported.
Pastor Pastor Bakhshiyev disagreed. "This was a crude violation of the law…All our documents are in order and they have no reason to raid the congregation or to fine our members."
PRIVATE BUILDING
The Azeri-language Adventist congregation meets in a privately owned building in Baku, which church leaders say falls under the registration of the city’s central Adventist Church, APD said. Registration is required in order to hold legal church services in Azerbaijan.
APD told BosNewsLife that it has learned from what it described as "Christian sources" that controls on religious communities in Azerbaijan “have become tighter” since Hidayat Orujev took over in July 2006 as chair of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations from the former chair Rafik Aliev. Officials declined to comment.
In a statement published by APD, Adventist Church liaison to the United Nations, Jonathan Gallagher, said securing individual registrations for church groups in Azerbaijan “is a case-by-case process fraught with delays and denials”. Other Protestant denominations and Jehovah’s Witnesses in the country face similar challenges to religious liberty, he said.
"Given all our attempts to develop a good relationship with the government of Azerbaijan," Gallagher said, "we are very disappointed they have chosen to treat our members in such a way."
TALKS SCHEDULED
The director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the Adventist Church’s Euro- Euro-Asia region, Victor Vitko, is planning to meet with government officials and religious leaders in Azerbaijan at the end of the month, APD told BosNewsLife. .
Nearly 700 Adventists worship in the country of 8.5 million, according to church estimates. The perceived autocratic President Ilham Aliyev has come under international pressure to allow more political and international freedom in the mainly Islamic former Soviet republic.
Aliyev took over as president from his late father, Heydar, in 2003. When his father died, Ilham Aliyev was already prime minister, vice chairman of the state oil company and deputy leader of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (NAP).
He won the 2003 presidential elections by a landslide, but Western observers said the poll was overshadowed by voter intimidation, violence and media bias. Many pro-democracy activists and others deemed dangerous for society, including devoted Christians, have been detained by government forces. (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos, BosNewsLife Research and reporting from Azerbaijan).
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