AZERBAIJAN: Large fines for religious meeting in Nakhichevan
By Felix Corley
FORUM 18 (29.07.2025) – Officers were watching a home in Nakhichevan where Christians were meeting. About 20 officers raided a Sunday worship meeting in April. They held three visitors from Baku for two days without food. Police brought cases against them and two local people. Nakhichevan City Court fined the five up to three months’ average wage each on 19 June. The five will struggle to pay the large fines, an individual familiar with the cases said. Also fined and apparently deported were members of a Korean family who allowed the meetings in their home.
A court in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan handed large fines on 19 June to three visitors from the registered Vineyard Christian Church in Baku and two local people for meeting for worship without state permission. The fines represent up to three months’ average wage each. About 20 officers of the police and possibly the State Security Service secret police raided a meeting for Sunday worship in a home in April. The visitors were then detained with no food for two days and questioned.
The court also fined members of a Korean family who allowed the meetings in their home. It appears they were fined and then deported.
The Court held multiple hearings in the cases. This meant that the three from Baku had to make repeated visits to Nakhichevan, which is accessible from Baku only by air. “This is expensive and flight tickets are difficult to find,” an individual who knows the situation told Forum 18. “When they reached the court each time they found the hearing had been postponed” (see below).
The three visitors from Baku and the two local residents chose not to appeal against the fines. “As the leader of the group acknowledged responsibility for the books in the Koreans’ home, the court decisions were in line with the law,” the individual familiar with the cases told Forum 18. Nevertheless, the individual recognised that the fines are so large that the five will struggle to be able to pay them (see below).
In July, court bailiffs started calling the two people from Nakhichevan, demanding that they pay the large fines.
The telephone at Nakhichevan City Court went unanswered each time Forum 18 called. An official from the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations in Nakhichevan answered the phone but said nothing before putting it down. Subsequent calls went unanswered. The telephone at the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations in Baku went unanswered (see below).
Officials from the State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations in Baku or its branch in Nakhichevan do not allow non-Muslim communities to gain the compulsory state registration in Nakhichevan, an exclave wedged between Iran, Turkey and Armenia. This means that anything any non-Muslim communities do in Nakhichevan is illegal and punishable (see below).
In summer 2025, officials warned a Christian in a town away from Baku to halt holding meetings for worship or risk being fired from work. The state assigned a man who had previously attended some of these meetings to keep the individual under surveillance (see below).
All mosques must be subject to the state-controlled Caucasian Muslim Board, and the State Committee names and removes imams. Mosques usually have security cameras both inside the prayer hall facing worshippers and surrounding the mosque. It remains unclear who has access to footage from the cameras (see below).
The State Committee routinely denies registration to new non-Muslim communities. The last community it granted registration to was the Baku community of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known as Mormons) in July 2024. This was the first new non-Muslim community the State Committee had registered since December 2020 (see below).
Several non-Muslim communities are known to be awaiting State Committee registration, one for three years. “One community keeps asking the State Committee what progress there is,” an individual familiar with the application told Forum 18. “We’re considering it,” officials tell the community. “But while we’re considering it, you’re not allowed to hold meetings. If you do, the police will come and you will be fined.”
