International bodies question Azerbaijani government`s willingness to  protect and preserve religious, cultural heritage sites in  Nagorno-Karabakh - USCIRF

ArmInfo.In 2022, religious freedom conditions in Azerbaijan trended negatively. The government continued  to exert significant control over all religious practice, primarily through enforcement of the country's law On Freedom of Religious Beliefs (religion law), according to a report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. 

The religion law requires religious communities to register to  legally engage in religious activity, requires state review and  approval of religious literature and related materials, and places  numerous other limitations on freedom of religion or belief. In  March, President Ilham Aliyev signed into law amendments to the  religion law that reassigned the power to appoint imams from the  nominally independent Caucasus Muslim Board (CMB) to the official  State Committee for Work with Religious Associations (SCWRA), further  entrenching state control over the practice of Islam. In May, the  SCWRA fired Shi'a imam Mirseymur Aliyev after he reportedly held  Ramadan prayers on a different day than mandated by the state.

That same month, the CMB announced the imposition of an age  restriction that barred citizens over the age of 65 from performing  the Hajj. Authorities also raided, seized religious literature from,  and fined about 20 Muslims across the country who met for worship in  private homes or held religious events with children. 

While religious minorities have generally noted positive strides for  religious freedom in Baku, others have shared that local authorities  outside of the capital have surveilled Christians.

During the year, the government failed yet again to register any  non-Muslim religious communities, leaving some communities of  Protestant Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses without registration  and therefore unable to operate legally. Meanwhile, the SCWRA  disclosed registering approximately 22 Muslim communities. Officials  continued to reject requests for a civilian alternative to mandatory  military service despite the allowance of such an option in the  constitution.  In a reversal of recent practice, Azerbaijan resumed  detaining Jehovah's Witnesses who sought to conscientiously object.  In July, conscription authorities detained Royal Karimov and held him  for more than three months. In September, a local court sentenced  Seymur Mammadov to nine months in prison for his refusal to serve in  the military before converting that punishment in December to a  one-year suspended sentence. 

Azerbaijani nongovernmental organizations tracking political  prisoners in the country documented as many as 19 individuals  imprisoned at the end of the year for their religious activism, the  majority of whom are members of the Muslim Unity Movement (MUM).  Throughout the year, law enforcement regularly detained additional  members of the MUM, which the group characterized as a "provocation  and pressure against the movement." In June, MUM member Elgiz  Mammadov alleged that he was raped while in police custody. In a  positive development, a court granted early release to Muslim  theologian Elshan Mustafaoglu, who had served seven and a half years  of his 10- year prison sentence.

International bodies and other organizations continued to question  the Azerbaijani government's willingness to protect and preserve  religious and cultural heritage sites in Nagorno-Karabakh and  neighboring territories under Azerbaijani control. In February, then  Minister of Culture Anar Karimov announced the creation of a working  group to remove Armenian Apostolic inscriptions from churches that he  characterized as "fictitious." The government seemingly backpedaled  on the plan following international outcry, and in March the European  Parliament condemned "Azerbaijan's continued policy of erasing and  denying the Armenian cultural heritage in and around  Nagorno-Karabakh." During the reporting period, Caucasus Heritage  Watch, a research initiative supported by Cornell University,  documented through satellite imagery the destruction of St. Sargis  Church. In past years, Azerbaijan has claimed that Armenian forces  also damaged religious sites.