Local police chief Mukhtar Mukhtarov used "Soviet, KGB methods" in breaking up the Sunday school attached to Baku's Greater Grace Protestant Church on 31 August, one of the church's pastors complained. " Mukhtarov said we do not have the right to teach kids and convert Azeri children," Pastor Fuad Tariverdi told Forum 18 News Service. But Mukhtarov rejected any criticism and blamed the church. "They're acting illegally," he told Forum 18. "There was nothing bad, but this must be done with the permission of the Committee for Work with Religious Organisations." The director of the club where the Sunday school met has told church leaders that he has been threatened that if he lets them in again he will be imprisoned.
Pastor Fuad Tariverdi
of the Greater Grace Protestant Church in the capital Baku has accused the
local police chief of using "Soviet, KGB methods" in breaking up the
children's Sunday school last Sunday, 31 August. "Lieutenant-Colonel
Mukhtar Mukhtarov said we do not
have the right to teach kids and convert Azeri children," Pastor
Tariverdi told Forum 18 News Service from Baku on 2
September. "He asked us to take the kids back to their parents." But
Lieutenant-Colonel Mukhtarov, chief of police in
Baku's Nasimi district where the
church is located, vigorously denied doing anything wrong and blamed the
church. "They're acting illegally," he told Forum 18 on 4 September.
The raid came as the Sunday school was almost ending. Pastor
Tariverdi said the only children present in a club near the
church were the children of church members. "Actually the parents asked us
to take care of their children while they sit in the church service," he
reported. "We even had written permission from each parent."
He said Mukhtarov had ordered the local police to
make sure that the director of the club where the Sunday school is held
"never lets us back in again". Pastor Tariverdi
quoted Mukhtarov as saying that the church and its
members are bad and "should be out of his area".
But Mukhtarov insists all he did was to call the
Sunday school leaders to act in accordance with the law. "There was
nothing bad, but this must be done with the permission of the Committee for
Work with Religious Organisations," he told
Forum 18. "They must list all the parameters of what they are doing, all
the subjects they are teaching." He brushed aside as irrelevant church
claims that all the parents had given written permission for their children to
be present.
Mukhtarov then complained that the club where the
Sunday school was held "is not designated for such use". But he
denied that he had banned the Sunday school from meeting again and insisted he
was not "against the church".
Pastor Tariverdi told Forum 18 that the church can no
longer use the club, as the director is now too afraid to lend it. "We met
him on Tuesday. He's been told if he lets us in he'll be imprisoned." The
church does not know where it will take the fifty or so children for the Sunday
school from now on.
Pastor Tariverdi claimed Mukhtarov
has been "persecuting our church for years". "He always sends
people to invite our leadership to talk to him and tries to prove to us that we
are wrong, bad, illegal and tries to intimidate us, using Soviet/KGB ways and
mentality," Pastor Tariverdi maintained. He said
Mukhtarov had even turned up at the church one Sunday
– a day when he was not working - and summoned the elders. "The elders
have been summoned four times since January – each time without anything in
writing."
Pastor Tariverdi believes Mukhtarov
hates his church and is abusing his position to push his own private views.
"He violates the Constitution of Azerbaijan and human rights, using his
power and putting his personal dislikes ahead of Azeri law and government
policy."
Azerbaijani officials at all levels have obstructed the work of many minority
religious communities, especially Protestant churches which have many ethnic Azeris as members (see F18News 25 June 2003).
The Greater Grace church was registered with the Justice Ministry in 1993. It
has been seeking re-registration with the Committee for Work with Religious Organisations for the past two years. "Hopefully we're
now at the last stage of this re-registration process," Pastor Tariverdi declared.