UNCHR Speech of Ilgar Ibrahimoglu Allahverdiev, April 5, 2005United Nations 61st Commission on Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland
Item 11: Civil and Political Rights Including the Question of Religious Intolerance
Speaker: Imam Ilgar Ibrahimoglu Allahverdiev, Imam-jamaat of the Juma Mosque (Baku, Azerbaijan)
THE RIGHT TO WORSHIP FREELY
History of the Juma Mosque
I am the imam of the Juma Mosque which has been located in the Old City of Baku, Azerbaijan for 563 years. I am honoured to be here as a representative of our community of approximately three thousand Muslims. We are a congregation who believe in non-violence and who are committed to protecting our convictions by peaceful methods alone. However, over the last two years, the people of our congregation have experienced many ordeals at the hands of our country’s government, including imprisonment, torture, and slander.
In the early morning hours of the 30th of June 2004, a small group of believers were praying in the mosque. As we bent our heads before the Most High, policemen broke down the doors and rushed into the mosque. They attacked us. They stepped on our prayer carpets with their boots. They dragged us along the ground. They beat us and forcibly pushed us out of our mosque. They hoped that we would respond with violence.
But our way is not to repay violence with violence. Our way is to meet violence with peace.
For nine days after the police first occupied our mosque, we returned to pray. Each day we were beaten, insulted and threatened, but we kept returning to pray. The police arrested eighty-five members of our congregation and when they took them to the police station, they tried to make them sign pledges not to return to the mosque.
In clear violation of the law, the Government tried to compel us to accept their appointed imam. Because we did not want to worship with him, the Government decided to close the mosque under the pretext of renovation. So we had to meet in private houses for prayer. Then the Government began raiding us at home. In such a short time, I can only begin to tell you about all the ways in which the Government has violated our rights, but by far the worst injury to our community has been the loss of our house of worship.
Like a prisoner, our Juma Mosque now stands surrounded by a wall and guarded by police officers. It has now been nine months since our community, one of the largest and oldest religious communities in Azerbaijan, has been deprived of the opportunity to worship together.
The Juma Mosque Wants Independence and Freedom
But why did the Government commit these horrible crimes? The reason is that the Government does not want us to be independent of its control.
Our religious community was one of the first recognized by the Government in 1992 when Azerbaijan became independent. But later the Government changed its mind, and tried to force us to submit to the Government’s Muftiyah, the one that was founded by Stalin. That Muftiyah controls religious communities for the benefit of the Government. This requirement violates our Constitution and violates our freedom of religion. We do not want to be part of the Government’s church, and with God’s help, we never will be.
So why is it that the Government fears our independence?
There are many reasons. We do not want to worship those in power, but God alone. We want to communicate with God in the way that our consciences tell us to. We want to live with dignity. We want to bend our knees only before the Most High. We do not want to violate our most dearly held beliefs. In short, we want religious freedom.
What don’t we want? We don’t want the Government to force us to join the state church. We don’t want the Government to pick our religious leaders for us. We don’t want the Government to tell us what to believe, or how to worship, or where to worship. We don’t want the Government to pit one religious group against another.
We want to live in peace and harmony with the representatives of other religions, confessions, worldviews and cultures. God created us differently, but He ordered us to love those next to us. We want to continue implementing our social projects. We want to fulfill our mission to care for the young, the sick and the elderly.
But this can happen only with religious freedom in Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan Needs Religious Freedom
Today religious freedom is one of the most severely violated human rights in Azerbaijan. The state will not register religious communities that do not accept their choice of leader. The state threatens the leaders of independent religious communities, invades the homes of private citizens, beats and imprisons believers, and suppresses our public expression of religious belief. The victims are many – Muslims, Christians, and others. But the state’s approach is short-sighted.
Freedom of religion is the first freedom because it is the foundation for all others. If a person cannot choose to believe what he or she wants, how can that person be called truly free, even if he or she can talk about many other things? Freedom of religious belief – and the ability to manifest those beliefs in public – allows us to be honest and truthful with one another, to be truly human with one another. To limit that freedom is to limit the dignity of the other. It is in essence to proclaim that the believer is not human, or not as human, or not as valued, as other human beings are.
Azerbaijan is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) on August 13, 1992. According to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the freedom to worship includes the freedom to build and maintain “places of worship . . . .” See United Nations Human Rights Committee General Comment Number 22 on ICCPR Article 18.
The government of Azerbaijan should respect religious freedom because it promised to. But it should also protect religious freedom because it will help Azerbaijan progress. No country can be called democratic and truly free without religious freedom. Religious freedom is a prerequisite to Azerbaijan being received within the family of nations. And it is a freedom that will allow Azeris to be truthful and open with one another. It will allow the citizens of Azerbaijan to become a true community.
I am confident that in the end, the Azerbaijan Government will embrace religious freedom, though the road may be difficult and we may meet many more struggles. Freedom will triumph because the people of Azerbaijan – like the people of every other nation on earth - are human beings created by God to be free. May He bless all of us.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Relevant Cases
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