Adventists in Azerbaijan Miss Out on First-Round Re-Registration

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Adventists in Azerbaijan Miss Out on First-Round Re-Registration
April 9, 2002 Silver Spring, Maryland, USA .... [Compiled by ANN Staff]

Baku, Azerbaijan ... [ANN] A Seventh-day Adventist Church in Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan, was not among the more than 100 religious groups to receive re-registration from the Azerbaijani government earlier this month, reports Keston News Service. The State Committee for Relations with Religious Organizations said April 8 that it had granted re-registration to 107 Muslim communities, 11 Christian groups, and four Jewish groups. A spokesperson for the committee said that the Nakhichevan Adventist Church application was among a number that had been sent back for "corrections."

Adventists and other minority religious groups in Azerbaijan have faced increasing legal difficulties over past months. Local authorities broke up a meeting at an Adventist church in Gyanja, western Azerbaijan, February 24, saying the church has failed to obtain a necessary re-registration certificate. Prior to the recent government drive to re-register religious groups, 406 faith communities operated legally in Azerbaijan. So far, the government has only re-registered 125 groups.