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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Thursday 21 January 2010
AZERBAIJAN: NAKHICHEVAN AUTHORITIES CRACK DOWN ON ASHURA COMMEMORATIONS
Authorities in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan warned employees of
state enterprises and students not to attend mosque during Shia Muslim
commemorations of Ashura in December, local human rights activist Malahat
Nasibova told Forum 18 News Service. She said she had seen plain clothes
police officers turning away young men from a Nakhichevan city mosque. A
massive crackdown in the Nakhichevan village of Bananyar the day after
Ashura saw dozens detained, including some in psychiatric hospital, though
it is not clear if this was official punishment for their Ashura
commemoration or to prevent potential opposition. Parliamentary deputy
Ismail Hajiev denied to Forum 18 any crackdown in Bananyar, adding: "All
mosques in Nakhichevan are working normally." Nasibova also said three
young men who attended the Turkish-built Sunni mosque in Nakhichevan city
were detained for 15-days in November and told to go to a Shia mosque
instead. Forum 18 notes that small Adventist and Baha’i minorities have
already been forced out of Nakhichevan.
AZERBAIJAN: NAKHICHEVAN AUTHORITIES CRACK DOWN ON ASHURA COMMEMORATIONS
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <;
The authorities in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan prevented young
men from attending mosques to commemorate the Shia Muslim festival of
Ashura on 26 and 27 December, local human rights activist Malahat Nasibova
complained. "I was at one of the mosques in Nakhichevan city to mark Ashura
and saw with my own eyes young lads being turned away by plain clothes
police and told to go home," she told Forum 18 News Service from
Nakhichevan city on 21 January. "Most of those present were women or older
men." She said that employees of state enterprises had been warned at work
not to attend Ashura commemorations, as had students. She added that apart
from in a few villages in Nakhichevan, commemorations were confined to
mosques and were not allowed on the streets.
Nasibova’s comments came amid continuing debate over why the authorities
launched a massive crackdown in the village of Bananyar in Nakhichevan’s
Julfa District on 28 December, the day after some 2,000 villagers had held
a mass Ashura commemoration. Many villagers were detained and a number were
held for several days in psychiatric hospitals. The village was sealed off
by Interior Ministry troops as well as police, the Azerbaijani press
reported.
Nasibova – who heads the Democracy and NGO Development Resource Centre –
believes the Nakhichevan authorities are trying to prevent crowds from
gathering and would have cracked down whether it had been a religious or a
political meeting. "This was a violation of freedom of assembly and freedom
of religion," she told Forum 18.
The Day of Ashura, the tenth day of the month of Muharram, is for Shia
Muslims a day of mourning. The Azerbaijani authorities have banned Muslims
from beating themselves with whips until the blood flows and banned the
import of whips from Iran and other countries. They have instead organised
blood donor sessions at larger mosques.
The Bananyar crackdown
Press reports, as well as Nasibova and Baku-based human rights activist
Saadat Bananyarli (whose grandfather was from the village), say police did
not intervene during Ashura commemorations on 26 and 27 December. However,
on 28 December they arrested about five participants and non-participants
and took them to the police station at a nearby village, questioning them
about their participation in the Ashura commemoration. Some of those held
were beaten, Bananyarli quoted residents as telling her.
Relatives, mainly women, went to the police station trying to find out what
had happened to those the police had detained and to call for their
release. "They too were intimidated," Bananyarli told Forum 18. Yunis
Aliev, the son of one of the detainees, then threatened to douse himself in
petrol and set himself on fire. When police told him to go ahead and do so,
he did. Relatives and the police then doused the flames, though not before
Aliev had sustained serious burns. In early January he was transferred to a
hospital in Tabriz in neighbouring Iran, where Bananyarli said he is
recovering and is now able to talk to relatives.
As a number of villagers remained in detention, on the night of 4 to 5
January Interior Ministry troops moved into Bananyar. "It was a punitive
measure," Bananyarli told Forum 18. "People were detained, some in their
night clothes. If they refused to open the door the troops just broke it
down." She estimates up to 150 people were held, with women being freed
some three days later and then most of the men. The village was sealed off.
Nasibova told Forum 18 that about seven of those detained were held in
psychiatric hospital. She added that they were not forcibly treated with
any harmful drugs and are all now free. She said it is not the first time
the Nakhichevan authorities have detained people in psychiatric hospitals
as punishment. "We have a custom not to put people in prison but in
psychiatric hospital."
After publicity about the crackdown in the Azerbaijani media in early
January and a visit to Baku by representatives of the families, who visited
the office of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) and the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office, the Interior Ministry
troops were withdrawn. However, police control of the village remained
tight.
Norwegian and United States’ diplomats tried to visit Bananyar on 13
January but, as a statement on the Royal Norwegian Embassy website noted
the following day, "a group stopped their vehicle as it entered the
village, verbally threatened them and forced them to leave before any
contacts with village residents were made". The two embassies called for a
full investigation into the incidents in the village.
The heads of the two embassies were summoned to the Foreign Ministry on 15
January, where according to the Turan agency Deputy Foreign Minister Vagif
Sadikhov accused their diplomats of violating the Vienna Convention on
Diplomatic Relations.
Nasibova said she had heard earlier on 21 January that all but one of the
detainees have now been freed.
Bananyar was known for its Islamic devotion even during the Soviet period,
Bananyarli told Forum 18. Many natives of the village return there during
Ashura to be with their families.
Some speculate that local tensions were as much behind the authorities’
desire to crack down as religious issues, pointing out that several
opposition Popular Front activists – who appear not to have participated
prominently or at all at the Ashura commemoration – were detained. Some
believe that the crackdown and detentions were timed for Ashura as this was
when many people would be present in the village.
But even those who believe the crackdown was motivated by an official
desire to suppress potential political opposition or clan rivals point out
that this could make villagers afraid to commemorate Ashura or other
religious festivals so prominently in Bananyar in future.
Official denials of crackdown and restrictions
Officials denied to Forum 18 that any crackdown had taken place in Bananyar
or that Muslims had been pressured or prevented from attending Ashura
commemorations in Nakhichevan. "Nothing happened in Bananyar," member of
the Azerbaijani parliament from Julfa and member of its human rights
committee Ismail Hajiev told Forum 18 from Nakhichevan on 21 January.
"Everything is normal there. All mosques in Nakhichevan are working
normally." Asked about the mass detentions in Bananyar, he responded: "It’s
not true. Only journalists said this. A normal person never tells lies."
Forum 18 was unable to reach anyone at the Nakhichevan Interior Ministry on
21 January. The same day, a colleague of Idris Abbasov, the senior
Religious Affairs official in Nakhichevan, said that he was out of the
office and that no-one else could answer Forum 18’s questions.
The telephone of Ali Alizade, the head of the Nakhichevan Department of
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry, went unanswered the same day. However, an
official of the Political Department there, who asked that his name not be
given, insisted to Forum 18 that "no-one was arrested because of Ashura".
He said an investigation is still underway, but believed the problems were
caused by an individual "who had personal problems". The official said
visiting foreign diplomats visiting Nakhichevan "are hosted well" and said
he did not know what had happened to the Norwegian and US diplomats.
Equally insistent that "nothing happened" in Bananyar is Mirjafar Seidov,
Nakhichevan’s Chief Mufti since late 2009. "Diplomats and journalists say a
lot," he told Forum 18 from Nakhichevan city on 21 January. "Nakhichevan is
a good place. The government is very good." He then put the phone down
before Forum 18 could ask why the authorities also restricted access to
Ashura commemorations elsewhere in the exclave.
The Nakhichevan exception
Nakhichevan – an exclave wedged between Armenia, Iran and Turkey – is an
Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan. However, it often appears to operate as
an independent entity not subject to control from the government in the
Azerbaijani capital Baku even though its political leader, Vasif Talybov,
is a relative by marriage of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev.
Human rights activists and journalists have long complained that
Nakhichevan is even more authoritarian and restrictive than the rest of
Azerbaijan. Opposition political parties and non-governmental organisations
have been crushed or face severe restrictions, while journalists have been
harassed.
Religious policy is run locally, not from Baku. Faik Farajov, an assistant
to Religious Affairs official Abbasov, told Forum 18 in December 2009 that
the compulsory re-registration required of all religious communities across
Azerbaijan in the wake of the highly restrictive new Religion Law does not
apply in Nakhichevan. Elchin Askerov, the Deputy Chair of the State
Committee for Work with Religious Organisations in Baku, told Forum 18 on
21 January that Abbasov reports directly to Nakhichevan’s Supreme Soviet,
not to his Committee. He added that he did not know if re-registration is
being undertaken in Nakhichevan or not.
The Nakhichevan authorities have cracked down hard on small communities of
Seventh-day Adventists and Baha’is. Farajov of the Religious Affairs Office
told Forum 18 that no non-Muslim communities exist. "The Adventists and
Baha’is have all left," he claimed, insisting that "of course" they would
be allowed to function (see F18News 21 December 2009
< e_id=1389>).
Farajov said the approximately 250 mosques in the exclave are all Shia,
with the exception of one Sunni mosque in Nakhichevan city. The Turkish
Consulate General in Nakhichevan confirmed to Forum 18 on 21 January that
the Sunni mosque had been built with Turkish government funding, "but it
belongs to Nakhichevan". One imam from Turkey serves at the mosque "as a
missionary sent by the Turkish government", the Consulate General added.
Sunni mosque worshippers imprisoned for 15 days?
Three young men who attended the Sunni mosque in Nakhichevan city were
arrested in November 2009 and sentenced to 15 days’ detention, human rights
activist Nasibova told Forum 18. She said they were probably punished on
charges of hooliganism but which were in reality aimed at discouraging them
from attending the mosque. "They were told to attend the Iranian [i.e.
Shia] mosque instead," she said. "Many people are afraid to visit the
mosque now."
Forum 18 has been unable to confirm the detentions independently. The
Turkish Consulate General declined to comment. "Even if we had such
information we would not comment on it," an official told Forum 18.
The official of the Foreign Ministry Department in Nakhichevan told Forum
18 he had no information on the reported detentions. Parliamentary deputy
Hajiev told Forum 18 he had not heard of any detentions. (END)
For a personal commentary, by an Azeri Protestant, on how the international
community can help establish religious freedom in Azerbaijan, see
< _id=482>.
For more background information see Forum 18’s Azerbaijan religious freedom
survey at < 1192>.
More coverage of freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Azerbaijan is
at <; religion=all&country=23>.
A compilation of Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) freedom of religion or belief commitments can be found at
< id=1351>.
A personal commentary on the European Court of Human Rights and
conscientious objection to military service is at
< id=1377>.
A printer-friendly map of Azerbaijan is available at
< s/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=azerba& gt;.
(END)
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