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

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Wednesday 23 July 2008
AZERBAIJAN: "PROSECUTORS VERY MUCH WANT TO SENTENCE HAMID"

The criminal trial of Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov began in the
north-western town of Zakatala on 22 July, despite the fact that the
prosecution had refused to hand the defence the case materials, Baptist
Union leader Ilya Zenchenko told Forum 18 News Service. The trial resumes
on 28 July. The same court sentenced fellow Baptist pastor Zaur Balaev to
prison in 2007. Shabanov is being prosecuted on charges that he held an
illegal weapon and faces up to three years’ imprisonment. His church and
family insist the weapon was planted during a massive raid on his home on
20 June during which he was arrested. They say he is being prosecuted to
punish him for leading his congregation. "Prosecutors very much want to
sentence Hamid," Zenchenko warned. "This whole case has been staged. We
pray to God for him to come home," Shabanov’s family told Forum 18.
Meanwhile prosecutors in the capital Baku are trying to prosecute Jehovah’s
Witness conscientious objector Mushfiq Mammedov for a second time on
charges of evading military service, although the Constitution and the
Criminal Code ban this.

AZERBAIJAN: "PROSECUTORS VERY MUCH WANT TO SENTENCE HAMID"

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <;

The criminal trial of Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov began yesterday (22
July) with a preliminary hearing in the north-western town of Zakatala
[Zaqatala], Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The full trial – at which he
faces up to three years’ imprisonment – begins on 28 July and could be over
within two days, the head of Azerbaijan’s Baptist Union Ilya Zenchenko told
Forum 18 after the preliminary hearing on 22 July. "Prosecutors very much
want to sentence Hamid," he warned. He views Shabanov’s prosecution as part
of an official campaign against local Baptists which has lasted more than a
decade. Meanwhile a police manhunt has begun for a Jehovah’s Witness
conscientious objector Mushfiq Mammedov, who has already served one
sentence for refusing military service. Prosecutors want to sentence him a
second time for the same offence, although this is banned in law.

Zenchenko – who travelled the 450 kms (280 miles) from the capital Baku to
attend the hour-long hearing – said Shabanov "looked bad". "Hamid was
wearing the same clothes he had been arrested in back on 20 June," he told
Forum 18. "The Zakatala police who are now holding him have not allowed his
family to pass on food or clothes. Hamid’s wife and daughters were crying
in court – it was the first time they had been able to see him since he was
brought back to Zakatala earlier this month. Even then they were kept at a
distance of three metres [yards] and were not able to touch him."

Forum 18 was unable to find out from Zakatala police why they had refused
to accept food and clothes for Shabanov and why family visits had been
denied. The duty officer refused to put Forum 18 through to the police
chief Faik Shabanov (no relation) on 23 July. "Why should I put you
through?" he asked, before putting the phone down.

Shabanov is leader of one of several Baptist congregations in the majority
Georgian-speaking village of Aliabad several kilometres (miles) from
Zakatala, the regional centre. The 51-year-old pastor is married with three
adult children, two daughters and a son. He is being tried at the same
court where fellow Aliabad Baptist pastor Zaur Balaev was sent to prison in
2007.

"We saw him today in court," Shabanov’s family told Forum 18 on 22 July
from their home in Aliabad. They report that about fifteen family and
church members were allowed into the court and say that for the first time
the police did not refuse to accept food and clean clothes for Shabanov.
"We hope they now hand them on to him."

The family insists that all they want is Shabanov back home. "This whole
case has been staged. We pray to God for him to come home."

Zenchenko complained that Shabanov’s lawyer, Mirman Aliev, was only shown
the full case file at the 22 July hearing and can only now begin to prepare
Shabanov’s defence. He said that Shabanov is being tried under Article 228,
part 1 of the Criminal Code, which punishes illegal holding of a weapon
with a sentence of up to three years’ imprisonment. Shabanov’s congregation
and his family insist that a Nagan pistol a Prosecutor’s Office official
claims to have found during the 20 June house search was planted in his
home. Shabanov was arrested immediately after the alleged discovery.

During the search by some ten officers of the police, Prosecutor’s Office
and National Security Ministry (NSM) secret police, Christian literature
was deemed "banned literature" and confiscated (see F18News 7 July 2008
< e_id=1155>).

Zenchenko also complained that the case paperwork includes allegations
that Shabanov was promoting separatism among other members of Azerbaijan’s
Georgian-speaking minority, allegations Zenchenko rejects. "Hamid did not
have an illegal weapon and he did not promote separatism," he told Forum
18. "But he has been accused of trying to create a new Karabakh," he
reported in a reference to the mountainous region populated by ethnic
Armenians which broke away from control from Baku in a bitter war in the
late 1980s and early 1990s.

Forum 18 was unable to find out from Hekimkhan Seferov of the Zakatala
District Prosecutor’s Office why materials on Shabanov’s case had not been
handed to the defence until the first day of the trial. The official who
answered the telephone on 23 July said Seferov was not in the office and
refused to discuss Shabanov’s case.

Zenchenko lamented that unlike with earlier hearings in the prosecution of
fellow Aliabad Baptist pastor Balaev, no observers from the Baku Office of
the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were present
in court.

Balaev was arrested in May 2007 on charges of attacking five police
officers and damaging a police car that he and his church insist were
trumped up and aimed to punish him for leading his congregation. He was
sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, but was freed on 19 March after being
held for nearly a year. He was summoned and threatened with a new prison
term in early May (see F18News 12 June 2008
< e_id=1142>).

Meanwhile Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector Mammedov faces a
possible new sentence for refusing compulsory military service, despite the
fact that he has already served one sentence on this charge. Jehovah’s
Witnesses told Forum 18 on 22 July that the new criminal case could have
been lodged to punish him for challenging the original sentence through the
domestic courts and at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in
Strasbourg, where his case is now awaiting an admissibility decision.

Forum 18 tried to find out why the Prosecutor’s Office is seeking to
prosecute Mammedov for a second time, but the telephone went unanswered on
23 July.

Mammedov was found guilty by Baku’s Sabail District Court on 21 July 2006
of violating Article 321.1 of the Criminal Code, which punishes evasion of
military service with a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment. He was
given a suspended sentence of six months. The authorities have repeatedly –
as in other cases such as that of Pastor Balaev – violated due legal
process in hearing Mammedov’s appeal (see F18News 22 January 2008
< e_id=1075>).

The original prosecution and the new attempted prosecution come despite
Azerbaijan’s commitment to the Council of Europe to have instituted an
alternative sentence by January 2004, three years after it joined the
pan-European organisation. Azerbaijan failed to meet this deadline and has
still not adopted an alternative service law.

Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 that the "harassment" of Mammedov and
his family began soon after he filed the application to the ECHR in March
2008. "Starting from May this year, policemen several times went to the
apartment where Mushfiq is registered," they told Forum 18. "And several
times officials from Sabail District Prosecutor’s Office called his mother
and told her that Mushfiq should come to the Prosecutor’s Office, allegedly
because Mushfiq was accused of committing the crime of stealing a mobile
phone."

On 8 June Mammedov and his mother Sevil Najafova filed a complaint against
these actions with Sabail District Prosecutor’s office. "Up till now they
received no answer from the Prosecutor’s Office," the Jehovah’s Witnesses
complained. Copies of the complaint were also sent to the Human Rights
Ombudsperson Elmira Suleymanova and human rights organisations.

On 7 July a police officer named Javad called Mammedov’s mother and said
that a criminal case has been instigated over his alleged evasion of
military service. He said he had received a written order to find him and
bring him forcibly to the investigator Vugar Alekperov of Sabail District
Prosecutor’s Office. "Interestingly, up till that time Mushfiq did not
receive any written notice from the Prosecutor’s Office," the Jehovah’s
Witnesses commented.

The next day Mammedov’s mother went to the prosecutor’s office where she
was given the written decision that a criminal case had been instigated
against her son. The decision – of which Forum 18 has seen a copy – was
dated 5 June. She was also informed that police would soon declare a
manhunt for him.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses point out that Article 64 of Azerbaijan’s
Constitution and Article 8.2 of the Criminal Code do not allow criminal
charges to be brought against someone twice for the same crime. "Moreover
this should be true in this case when Mushfiq did not commit any crime, but
used his constitutional rights to request alternative service." They said
Mammedov intends to file another complaint shortly with Sabail District
Prosecutor’s Office about the attempt to prosecute him a second time for
the same offence.

Another Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector prisoner, Samir Huseynov,
was freed from jail on 1 May (see F18News 14 May 2008
< e_id=1129>). (END)

For a personal commentary, by an Azeri Protestant, on how the
international community can help establish religious freedom in Azerbaijan,
see < 482>.

For more background information see Forum 18’s Azerbaijan religious
freedom survey at <‘ >.

More coverage of freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Azerbaijan
is at <; 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
< id=806>.

A printer-friendly map of Azerbaijan is available at
< s/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=azerba& gt;.
(END)

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