No Justice for Word of Life in Baku The Cathedral of Praise Church (Word of Life’s church in Baku, Azerbaijan) is now battling for its right to keep its church building, which the authorities have confiscated. Over the past few days, Pastor Rasim Khalilov has been in Uppsala, visiting Word of Life as well as a couple of members of the Swedish Parliament with an update on the current situation.
A member of the international network, Evangelical Christian Faith Churches (an organisation made up of congregations associated with Word of Life), Cathedral of Praise was started in 1994. Today, with more than 1,000 members, it is the largest Protestant church in the country. Since 1999, when the President of Azerbaijan issued an edict that all churches had to be officially registered – which Cathedral of Praise did – they have been able to run all their activities publicly, and in 2003 they managed to purchase their own land.
“Up until then, we’d had to rent various premises for our meetings”, explains Pastor Rasim.
“So, we were overjoyed when the victory came and we were able to buy our own land, on which there were three buildings. It was only through great sacrifice by our members that we were able to pay it off in three years. We also managed to fit out two of the existing buildings and we pulled down the third to make way for the building of a bigger meeting hall.”
“Our total investment was around $200,000 – and its present value is now $570,000”, he says. |  |
 | | Pastor Rasim Khalilov |
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No compensation
Then in August, last year, things started to go seriously wrong for the church, when the authorities confiscated their church building. The church’s purchase of the building was registered in the proper way, and the church has been regular with its payments of rates to the authorities. Despite all that, the local government awarded the state-owned oil company, Azerneftyag – previous owners of the property – rights to one third of the land, which they claimed was still theirs. After several rounds of appeal to the courts, the decision was taken to confiscate the church’s meeting hall. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested in building work and renovations, and now the church is to receive no compensation whatsoever. Pastor Rasim, the congregation and Word of Life in Uppsala are now hard at work to restore the church’s right to its premises as well as to make the world around them aware of the situation, and that it highlights the injustices suffered by Christians in Azerbaijan.
Last week, Pastor Rasim visited Word of Life in Uppsala, where he preached at a Wednesday evening meeting. He also took the opportunity whilst visiting Sweden to meet with parliamentarians Mikael Oscarsson (Christian Democrats) a strong proponent of human rights issues, and Cecilia Wikström (representing the People’s Party), who is very much involved in issues relating to Christians around the world. Pastor Rasim spoke to them about the position his church found itself in as well as the unjust conditions frequently experienced by Christians in his country. Both Oscarsson and Wikström took his circumstances very seriously and promised their involvement and support.
Meetings in a tent
During recent months, the church has had to hold its services in a big tent which has been erected on the site set aside for the planned new church building. According to unofficial policy, public buildings may not be rented out to religious organisations. Because, for a variety of reasons, the appeal was not presented in time, the local court passed down their decision that the appeal will not be permitted to be taken to a higher court. But Pastor Rasim and the church are continuing their fight for justice. They are demanding compensation of the money they have expended – or their church back!
“I believe that pressure from the outside will influence the authorities”, he says. “So, we’re asking you to pray that justice will prevail in this situation.” | |
 | | Rasim i möte med riksdagsledamöterna Mikael Oscarsson (KD) och Cecilia Wikström (FP) |
 | | Rasim möter den norske partiledaren Dagfinn Høybråten. |
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Word of Life’s Missions Director, Christian Åkerhielm has also been able to get to Azerbaijan and, together with Pastor Rasim, has been working on a solution to the situation.
“We’re not suggesting this is necessarily religious persecution, but we are deeply disturbed that, in this case, the church is by and large without any rights”, he says.
“The state has to give guarantees when it comes to security of rights – even for religious minorities. If their legal rights are not protected, there remains no other recourse than for them to take the matter before the European Court”. |
