FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway 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 ================================================= 21 June 2008 AZERBAIJAN: SHOCK AT SECOND BAPTIST PASTOR ARREST http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1146 Ilya Zenchenko, head of Azerbaijan's Baptist Union, has condemned the arrest yesterday (20 June) of Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov after police claim to have found an illegal weapon in his home. "We're in shock," Zenchenko told Forum 18 News Service. "This was a provocation by the police, a deliberately targeted action." The pastor's brother told Forum 18 the police's aim is to halt Baptist activity. "Their target is the church." Pastor Shabanov is the second Baptist pastor in the remote village of Aliabad to face imprisonment on what local Baptists insist are trumped-up charges. His arrest comes three months after Pastor Zaur Balaev was freed from prison. Shabanov's family insist he has no weapon and that police planted the gun they claim to have found. But the local police chief appears to have made up his mind. "He's a criminal," the head of Zakatala regional police told Forum 18, even though under Azerbaijani law individuals are innocent until found guilty in court. * See full article below. * 23 June 2008 BELARUS: HIGHEST FINE YET FOR BAPTISTS http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1147 Belarus has imposed a fine of more than two months' average wages on a Baptist who "organised choir singing and conducted conversations on religious topics" outside Ushachi public market, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. After a plain clothes policeman told a group of Baptists from outside the area to stop, Vladimir Burshtyn replied that they were not disturbing public order and cited religious freedom guarantees in Belarus' Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The fine is, to Forum 18's knowledge, the highest yet imposed on Baptists for unregistered religious activity. Higher fines have been imposed on members of other communities. Olga Karchevskaya, an official who witnessed the incident, defended the state's response and the Religion Law's restrictions because "we need to know who's coming to us - they could be destructive or acting against people's interests." In a separate incident, a Baptist congregation's worship in Osipovichi was interrupted by officials, and the congregation's deacon was fined about two week's average wages for leading an unregistered religious community. 25 June 2008 TAJIKISTAN: GOVERNMENT'S SYNAGOGUE DEMOLITION ENDS JEWISH WORSHIP, PROTESTANT CHURCH NEXT? http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1149 Tajikistan's bulldozing of the country's only synagogue - in the capital Dushanbe - has forced the Jewish community to halt worship and stop its food aid programme. "We do not have a place to hold our worship," Chief Rabbi Mikhail Abdurakhmov told Forum 18 News Service. "We also have no place to feed the elderly and the poor." Faced with the authorities' determination to destroy the synagogue, the community requested that they be allowed to dismantle the building themselves. Rabbi Abdurakhmov commented to Forum 18 that every part of the building is sacred, so "it would be an abomination for the Jewish religion to bulldoze the synagogue." However, "the Chief Engineer came to the site and showed his dissatisfaction with the speed of our work and had the remaining wall bulldozed." Yusuf Salimov of the Tajik Presidential Administration (which the community has tried to get compensation from) claimed to Forum 18 that he is not aware of the problem. "They should complain to the higher courts," he said. When Forum 18 told him that Jewish community leaders were already discouraged from doing so, thinking that the authorities were indifferent to their plight, he responded: "Let them write to us about it." The state's next demolition target, as part of a controversial city reconstruction plan, is the Nani-Hayat (Bread of Life) Protestant Church. Church members told Forum 18 they have been given until early July to vacate the building ahead of demolition. 25 June 2008 UZBEKISTAN: PROTESTANTS REJECT GOVERNMENT'S RELIGIOUS HATRED ENCOURAGEMENT http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1148 Leaders of 26 Protestant congregations across Uzbekistan have published an open letter rejecting state-controlled TV stations' repeated broadcasts of a film encouraging intolerance and hatred of religious minorities, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Protestant leaders also condemn "garbled facts, aggressive attacks, lies and slander" against named individuals and churches by the state TV broadcasts, and accuse the state and those who took part in the film of violating Uzbek criminal law through the broadcast. The leaders also complain that the state-controlled leaderships of schools and colleges strongly encouraged students to watch the film and so encouraged religious hatred and intolerance amongst young people. State-run newspapers and websites carried linked articles attacking religious minorities and their sharing of their beliefs, one such article stating that religious minorities "have one aim: to infringe on human freedom with all the consequences that flow from it." Officials Forum 18 has spoken to now either say they know nothing of the protest, or refuse to discuss the film. But one participant defended it. 27 June 2008 UZBEKISTAN: PROTESTANT IN DETENTION FACING CRIMINAL CHARGES, BAPTISTS JAILED FOR 10 DAYS http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1150 A Protestant from north-west Uzbekistan, Jandos Kuandikov, was arrested on 14 June and is still in detention before facing criminal trial on terrorism charges, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Uzbek police have also recently falsely accused a Protestant refugee in Kazakhstan of terrorism charges. Amongst other recent violations of freedom of thought, conscience and belief, four Baptists in Tashkent Region - Natalya Ogai, Filipp Kim, Dmitri Kim and Nurlan Tolebaev - have been fined and sentenced to ten days' imprisonment, because of their peaceful religious activity. Fines continue to be imposed on other Protestants. However, in a highly unusual move, a court in the capital Tashkent found that charges against a Protestant had been fabricated and ordered police to be punished for this. But members of Tashkent's Hare Krishna community have been banned from taking part in a music and environment festival. 21 June 2008 AZERBAIJAN: SHOCK AT SECOND BAPTIST PASTOR ARREST http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1146 By Felix Corley, Editor, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> Three months after Baptist pastor Zaur Balaev was freed from prison on what his family and congregation insist were trumped-up charges, another Baptist pastor in the same remote village of Aliabad in the north-western Zakatala [Zaqatala] Region has been arrested. Family members told Forum 18 from Aliabad that Hamid Shabanov was arrested yesterday (20 June) after police claim to have found a pistol during a house search. Family members insist that police planted the weapon. "He's a criminal," the head of Zakatala regional police Faik Shabanov (no relation) told Forum 18 bluntly on 21 June, even though under Azerbaijani law individuals are innocent until found guilty in court. Pastor Shabanov remains in detention at the Zakatala police station, the police chief confirmed. Fabricated evidence and lack of due process were also evident in the case of Pastor Balaev (see F18News 9 August 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1005>). "This is all being done according to a scenario," Pastor Shabanov's brother Badri told Forum 18 from Aliabad on 21 June. "First they imprisoned Zaur Balaev on fabricated charges, now they're going for Hamid. Their aim is also to bring a criminal case and put him in prison." Badri Shabanov insists the true aim is to close down all Baptist activity in Aliabad. "Their target is the church." Condemning the arrest - the latest move in years of official harassment of Baptists in the village - is Ilya Zenchenko, head of Azerbaijan's Baptist Union. "We're in shock," he told Forum 18 from the capital Baku on 21 June. "This was a provocation by the police, a deliberately targeted action." Like the overwhelming majority of Aliabad's inhabitants, Pastors Shabanov and Balaev and other church members are from the Georgian-speaking Ingilo minority, which was converted to Islam several centuries ago. The several Baptist congregations in Aliabad have faced repeated raids, threats and confiscation of religious literature. The congregation Balaev leads has existed for more than fifteen years and has repeatedly been barred from gaining state registration. Forum 18 believes it to be Azerbaijan's religious community that holds the record for the longest denial of registration. Children given Christian first names by their parents in Aliabad have been denied birth certificates by officials angry at their choice of name. Pastor Shabanov's home was among those searched when Pastor Balaev was arrested in May 2007. Christian literature confiscated during the raid has still not been returned. Pastor Balaev was freed from prison in March 2008 after a worldwide campaign for his release, including support from former US President Jimmy Carter. Since his release police have threatened Balaev with a further prison term if he continues his religious activity with his congregation (see F18News 12 June 2008 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1142>). "Without this international campaign Zaur Balaev would never have been freed," Zenchenko of the Baptist Union told Forum 18. "Taking his case through the local courts brought us nothing." Pastor Shabanov's family told Forum 18 that some ten police officers from both Aliabad and Zakatala had come to the family home in the village at about 5 pm on 20 June. "We believe they already had the intention to seize him," the family reported. "They threatened him because we meet for worship and pray together - they said we shouldn't do it." The family accuse the police of planting "evidence" to use against Pastor Shabanov. "They came in claiming to be looking for drugs and guns," they reported. "They searched the house and claim to have found a gun, but they planted it themselves. He has got no weapons." The family say the search and the arrest were all over in about twenty minutes. But police chief Faik Shabanov insists the pastor is guilty of a crime, harbouring an illegal weapon. Told that the family vehemently reject the accusation, the police chief told Forum 18: "They can say what they like." Asked why, if the police was solely concerned with an alleged illegal weapon, officers had threatened the pastor over church meetings in his home, police chief Shabanov responded: "Who are you to talk to the chief of police like that?" He then put the phone down. Reached on 21 June, Jeyhun Mamedov of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations immediately put the phone down each time Forum 18 tried to ask him about Pastor Shabanov's arrest. Officials in Zakatala Region have a history of restricting religious freedom, not only for Aliabad's Baptists. In 2007 a police officer banned Muslim men from attending a prayer room at Zakatala's market if they had beards and ordered them to shave. Local Jehovah's Witnesses have also faced harassment, most recently with a police raid on the home of Matanat Gurbanova and her family on 25 March. Police confiscated religious literature they claimed is "banned" and threatened members of her family (see F18News 12 June 2008 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1142>). Meanwhile, still imprisoned is Said Dadashbeyli, a Baku-based Muslim teacher who received a 14-year sentence at a closed trial in December 2007. His lawyer and family insist that he and eight of those sentenced with him are innocent of the serious terrorism-related charges levelled against them. Dadashbeyli founded an Islamic group called Nima in 2005 and, his family say, promoted a "European style of Islam", mutual respect and unity between Shias (the largest Muslim tendency in Azerbaijan) and Sunnis, and rejected fundamentalism (see F18News 28 May 2008 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1134>). (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>. 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/
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