This paper aims to define the legal framework on religious materials, examine its correspondence with the articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), along with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), prepare a package of recommendations to eliminate voids in the legislation and shortcomings in practice revealed by the monitoring. The report based on the conclusions determined through a special methodology and application of various monitoring tools covers the following:
The introduction of the paper is dedicated to general condition of religious materials in the country, existing problems on this, endeavours of international organizations to solve these problems. It also informs about adopted international norms on this issue. The research revealed that, despite numerous international norms creating obligations on freedoms of conscience and expression for the state, there are significant problems in connection with religious materials under the framework of these freedoms.
The further part of the paper is dedicated to the legislation analysis. During the analysis the legislation and sublegislative norms on religious materials, problems arising from application of these laws and causes creating these problems were investigated. Relevant recommendations were prepared for elimination of these problems. During the legislation analysis the voids and contraditctions in law were underlined, comparisons with the international norms, to which Azerbaijan is a party, were carried out and the names of these norms were mentioned. Principles and standards envisaged by the articles 9 and 10 of the ECHR (adopted in 1950) are benchmarks for analysis of the national legislation.
The analysis revealed that, the relevant legislative acts, particularly the Law on freedom of religious belief and other normative legal acts adopted for its application, are not in line with the Constitution and the relevant international norms, to which Azerbaijan is a party, in majority of the circumstances. This causes violation of human rights.
A number of tools were applied at the monitoring phase to determine the problems existing in practice. These tools are official inquiries addressed to the corresponding state structures, information received from the religious communities, from the experts on this topic, from lawyers and human rights defenders and facts covered in the media. Along with that, it is referred to the national and international reports.
We sent inquiries to three state structures (the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Customs Committee, the State Committee on Religious Associations), but only two of them responded to us – the State Customs Committee and the State Committee on Religious Associations (SCRA).
To our inquiry about titles of religious literature which was prohibited from being imported into the country between 01.01.2017 and 12.11.2017 the State Customs Committee responded that, it could not provide a third party with such information due to confidentiality. The response of SCRA was similar. The Committee responded to our inquiry on import of religious books for the purpose of production, selling and distribution in Azerbaijan, selling and distribution of which is prohibited, that, since this information is for internal use only, it cannot be shared with a third party. We shall note that, none of these grounds are compatible with the articles 15, 22 and 24 ofthe Law on Access to Information. Since the state structures refused to answer our questions, we have referred to information in the media.
Information from the religious communities was taken through survey questionnaires. Various questions are included in these surveys. We can conclude from their answers to our questionsthat, the Muslim communities of Azerbaijan are not engaged in publishing, importing and distributing of religious literature in the country. Printing, publishing and importing of books on Islam is carried out by various persons and selling points. The religious communities, which face problems with import and publishing of books, are Jehova’s Witnesses and Christian Baptists. Independent of their religious affiliation, all religious communities are facing serious problems with important, publishing, distribution and selling of religious literature.
We have used information from experts, jurists, lawyers and victims in connection with this topic. This information reveals that, the courts usually decide against the citizens, when they face problems arising from religious materials. This is caused by legislative voids, absence of alternative independent expertise and absence of impartiality of courts.
The final conclusions and recommendations are reflected in the end of the report. These recommendations are aimed to upgrade the legislation and eliminate shortcomings in practice.
