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
===============================================Monday 10 January 2005
AZERBAIJAN: WILL CHRISTIAN CHILDREN NOW GET BIRTH CERTIFICATES?
Having repeatedly refused to register 18-month old Luka Eyvazov’s birth,
because his parents gave him a Christian name, the authorities have at last
given him a birth certificate, after Forum 18 News Service reported his
case. Unusually, the authorities also apologised to Luka’s parents
“for making us wait and suffer for so long,” Luka’s mother
Gurayat Eyvazov told Forum 18. Without a birth certificate, Luka was not
able to go to kindergarten or to school, get treatment in a hospital, or
travel abroad. Luka’s case was the last known case of a series of Baptist
parents in the mainly-Muslim town who were refused birth certificates for
their children because they had chosen Christian, not Muslim first names.
However, Mrs Eyvazov said it was unclear if the next time Baptist parents
try to register a child’s birth with a Christian name they will face
similar refusals. “Officials said nothing on this.”
AZERBAIJAN: WILL CHRISTIAN CHILDREN NOW GET BIRTH CERTIFICATES?
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service
At the age of nearly 18 months, Luka Eyvazov has finally received his birth
certificate just weeks after Forum 18 News Service reported the
authorities’ repeated refusals to issue a birth certificate because they
did not wish to register him with a Christian name. Luka’s parents, who are
ethnic-Georgian Baptists, live in the small town of Aliabad in the
north-western region of Zakatala [Zaqatala] close to the border with
Georgia. “The town administration phoned my husband on 17 December to
say the birth certificate would be there and he collected it on 20
December,” Luka’s mother Gurayat Eyvazov told Forum 18 from Aliabad on
10 January. “They said they had no permission earlier to issue the
birth certificate and even apologised to us for making us wait and suffer
for so long.”
Luka Eyvazov is the fourth child of Novruz Eyvazov, the leader of one of
three Baptist congregations in Aliabad. His is the last known case of a
series of Baptist parents in the mainly-Muslim town who were refused birth
certificates for their children because they had chosen Christian, not
Muslim first names. However, Gurayat Eyvazov said it was unclear if the
next time Baptist parents try to register a child’s birth with a Christian
name they will face similar refusals. “Officials said nothing on
this,” she told Forum 18.
Children’s births in Azerbaijan are generally registered at the place where
their parents are registered to live. As Azerbaijani citizens and
registered residents of Aliabad, the Eyvazov couple originally tried to
register Luka’s birth at the local town administration, which is where they
first encountered a refusal. Without a birth certificate, Luka was not able
to go to kindergarten or to school, get treatment in a hospital, or travel
abroad.
Luka’s parents failed too at the regional level in Zakatala, where civil
registration official Aybeniz Kalashova wrote to the Eyvazovs last May
complaining of foreign Baptist missionaries who had come to Azerbaijan in
the early 1990s “spreading the Christian faith of the Baptist sect
among the population”, and who “tried to change surnames and
first names, changing them into Georgian and Christian names”. The
Eyvazovs even took their case to Mehman Soltanov of the Justice Ministry’s
civil registration department in the capital Baku, but this too failed to
break the logjam (see F18News 1 December 2004
).
Other members of Azerbaijan’s ethnic Georgian minority have told Forum 18
that the difficulty of registering children with Georgian Christian names
is particularly acute in the Zakatala region, though it occurs from time to
time in neighbouring regions with an ethnic Georgian minority.
One ethnic Georgian told Forum 18 on 10 January from Kakh [Qax] region
south of Zakatala region that Ingilos – ethnic Georgians who were
converted to Islam several centuries ago and are considered to be
Georgian-speaking Azeris by the Azerbaijani authorities, such as the
Baptists in Aliabad – face great difficulties trying to change their
surnames back to the Georgian form and registering children’s births with
Georgian names. However, the Georgian told Forum 18 that in most of these
cases the motivation for the parents’ desire for Georgian first names is
national, not religious.
Georgian Orthodox priest Fr Ioan Abesashvili confirmed to Forum 18 in Kakh
last November that his parishioners had no problems registering the births
of their children with Georgian Christian names.
Meanwhile, Zaur Balayev, pastor of another Baptist congregation in Aliabad,
told Forum 18 on 4 January that the town authorities have finally agreed to
allow him to open a grocery shop. He said the earlier refusals were part of
systematic local official opposition to Baptists in the town and an attempt
to drive them out by economic means by depriving them of the means to earn
a living (see F18News 9 December 2004
).
Two of the three Baptist congregations in Aliabad have repeatedly tried to
register with the authorities to gain legal status but, despite meeting all
the criteria, have got nowhere with their applications (see F18 News 8
December 2004 ). The third
congregation does not wish to register. Church members have been detained,
fined, threatened and their homes have even been shot at over the past
decade.
Najiba Mamedova, the notary of Zakatala region, angrily refused to discuss
with Forum 18 on 10 January why she is still refusing to notarise the
signatures on the Baptist congregations’ registration applications
necessary for the applications to go further. “You are asking about
such trivial matters when 25 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory is occupied
by Armenian bandits and the country is flooded with refugees,” she
declared, refusing to say why this was relevant to why she would not
notarise the Baptists’ signatures. She then put the phone down. Mamedova
has a record of behaving angrily towards enquirers, having shouted “We
don’t need Baptists here” at Forum 18 (see F18News 8 December 2004
).
For more background information see Forum 18’s Azerbaijan religious freedom
survey at ‘
A printer-friendly map of Azerbaijan is available at
;amp;Rootmap=azerba
(END)
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