Fr Daniel Pravda, head of the small Catholic community in Azerbaijan, said he is shocked by the reported warning by the government's senior religious affairs official that he has been conducting "illegal religious propaganda", an offence under Azerbaijani law punishable by deportation. "I don't know what Rafik Aliev means by propaganda, but all I do is serve our Catholics," Fr Pravda told Forum 18 News Service. According to the local media, Aliev issued the warning to visiting Vatican foreign minister Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran on 24 September. Forum 18 was unable to reach Aliev to find out whether he had indeed warned Fr Pravda, if so why he had done so and why Azerbaijani law bans foreigners and people without citizenship from conducting "religious propaganda" in defiance of international human rights conventions.
The head of the Catholic Church in Azerbaijan has expressed
his shock over remarks attributed by the local media to Rafik
Aliev, the head of the government's State Committee
for Work with Religious Organisations, accusing him
of engaging in "illegal religious propaganda". "This was a
little unexpected," Fr Daniel Pravda told Forum 18 News Service from the
capital Baku on 29 September. "I don't know what Rafik
Aliev means by propaganda, but all I do is serve our
Catholics." He insisted that everything he has done is in accordance with
Azerbaijani law.
Aliev issued the warning during a meeting with the
visiting Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, in Baku on 24 September. Fr Pravda told Forum 18
that Archbishop Tauran had told him nothing of the
apparent warning and that he had only read of it in press articles.
Forum 18 was unable to reach Rafik Aliev to find out whether he had indeed warned Fr Pravda as
reported, if so why he had done so and why Azerbaijani law bans foreigners and
people without citizenship from conducting "religious propaganda" in
defiance of international human rights conventions to which the country is a
signatory. Officials at the State Committee told Forum 18 on 29 September that Aliev had begun a one-month holiday, and his assistant, Namik Allahverdiev, was not in
his office.
The Azerbaijani news agency Trend reported on 24 September that Aliev had asked Archbishop Tauran
for the Vatican "to specify the mandate of its representative in
Azerbaijan who is violating the Azerbaijani law on religious propaganda".
Aliev pointed out that Azerbaijani law allows only
Azerbaijani citizens to conduct religious propaganda. "Up till now, he
said, several representative offices of foreign religious missions have been
closed, but nothing of the sort has happened with regard to the Catholic
Church," the agency quoted Aliev has having told
the archbishop. "The Baku government's loyal policy can be explained by
its respect for the Vatican, he said." The Interfax-Azerbaijan
news agency carried a similar report.
The Trend agency said that Archbishop Tauran promised
that "the issue raised by Aliev would be
urgently solved".
The Catholic Church has one registered parish in Azerbaijan – in Baku – with
about 200 members. In October 2000 the Vatican upgraded its representation in
the country to a "missio sui
iuris", which means that it is directly subject
to the Vatican. In addition, the Azerbaijani state maintains full diplomatic
relations with the Vatican, whose nuncio, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, lives in neighbouring
Georgia.
Fr Pravda – a Slovak-born Belgian citizen - told Forum 18 he was surprised by
the reported remarks because relations between Rafik Aliev and the Catholic Church have been "very
good". "We are grateful that we Catholics enjoy respect, while
relations with others – such as Protestants – are not so respectful." He
said he and his colleagues – another priest and a monk – have had no
indications of any official dissatisfaction with their activity. He believes
the press reports of Aliev's remarks might have been
made up by the journalists.
Aliev has a history of issuing warnings to religious
communities through the press. He told Lider
television in May that his State Committee was preparing a list of religious organisations which "violate the law", declaring
that the Baku-based Greater Grace Protestant Church was "top of the
list". "Both the Interior Ministry and the committee have seriously
warned the church. If the latest warning does not have any effect, serious
measures will be taken." Greater Grace leaders told Forum 18 they never
received any complaint in writing and so ignored Aliev's
threats.
In the same interview, Aliev declared that he would
be recalling the more than 600 Azerbaijani students receiving religious
education abroad "illegally". He said he would be submitting the list
of their names to the Ministry of Education. However, it remains unclear why he
believed he had the power to order the students to abandon their studies and
return home and whether any attempt was made to enforce his threat.
In a December 2002 interview, also to Lider
television, Aliev claimed that the Jehovah's
Witnesses had had their registration stripped from them, although Jehovah's
Witness representatives told Forum 18 this is not true and the community is
still listed as registered on the State Committee website (www.addk.net).
In defiance of international commitments to free speech and religious freedom,
the ban on foreigners and people without citizenship – even if legally resident
in the country – from engaging in "religious propaganda" is enshrined
in Azerbaijani law, although the term is never defined. "Foreigners and
persons without citizenship shall be prohibited to conduct religious
propaganda," Article 1 of the religion law declares.
Article 300 of the Code of Administrative Offences punishes such religious
propaganda by foreigners and persons without citizenship with a fine of between
20 and 25 times the minimum monthly wage or deportation from Azerbaijan. This
article has been used on a number of occasions. Numerous Iranian Muslim
clerics, Lutheran pastor Gunther Oborski
and some Western Protestant religious workers have been deported from the
country in recent years. In the most recent known case Nina Koptseva,
a Russian citizen living in Baku by invitation of the Greater Grace Protestant
Church, was forcibly deported in April 2002 after being accused of conducting
"religious propaganda".
In an apparent move to avoid similar problems the Russian Orthodox hierarch in
Azerbaijan, Bishop Aleksandr (Ishchein),
renounced his Russian citizenship and took Azerbaijani citizenship in November
2001. (Azerbaijan does not allow dual citizenship.) The Russian-born Bishop Aleksandr only came to Azerbaijan to take up a fulltime
position in 1995.
Fr Pravda is among those who believe this ban on "religious
propaganda" by foreign citizens and people without citizenship is
"not compatible" with internationally-accepted values. "This
provision should be abolished," he declared.