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November 16, 2006

Azerbaijan: Two Jailed For "Insulting Islam"

Azerbaijan lies on the Caspian Sea, and is predominantly Muslim. It is officially a Western ally in the "war on terror", and is one of only two Muslim countries to have sent troops to Iraq. It is a poor country, despite its reserves of oil and gas, which in the form of hydrates can erupt in flames through cracks in the ground, and led the Zoroastrians to call it the "Land of Fire". These fuel reserves are being exploited by US and UK petroleum companies. BP is constructing a pipeline from the nation through Georgia to Turkey, to bypass politically volatile regions.

The problem of radical Islam has been met with strict reactions from the current president, Ilham Aliyev of Yeni Azerbaijan, who was reelected on November 6 last year. Officials claim that Islamism is being brought to the country from Chechnya and Iran.

Though officially democratic, there is little freedom of speech in Azerbaijan. This has been proved today with a ruling made by the Azerbaijan Prosecutor General's Office. This has ordered that an author and an editor shall be imprisoned for two years for insulting the child-molesting prophet of Islam in an article published on November 1.

In an article written by Rafiq Tagi, entitled "Europe and Us", which was published in a low-circulation newspaper called Senet, it was stated that Islam has impeded humanity's development. The article also said that all misunderstandings connected with Islam were the responsibility of Mohammed himself.

The edior-in-chief of Senet, Samir Sedagetolu, will also be jailed for two years, states RIA Novosti. Earlier, the pair had been arrested under a court warrant and charged with "inciting ethnic, racial or religious hatred through the mass media".

The spokesman for the prosecutor's office, Vugar Aliyev, told Interfax today: "Both were accused of instigating ethnic, racial and religious enmity using their office, and will spend two months in a detention facility."

The case had been investigated by the Department for Serious Crimes, the spokesman said. the prospects for the editor and author remain bleak. They have already been subject to death threats.

At the village of Nardaran, outside the capital of Baku, an unauthorized rally was held, where protesters demanded the death sentence. This habit of calling for the death of people who insult the so-called "prophet" of Islam is becoming increasingly common globally.

There is scriptural support for demanding death to those who "wage war" against the so-called prophet. The Koran, 5.33 states: - "The punishment of those who wage war against God and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter."

Samir Sedagetolu issued a public apology on Azeri television for any offence the article caused, but despite this, phoned death threats have been made to him and to his staff at Senet. He has asked prosecutors for protection.

The Russian press has reported on this case, but Russia itself is guilty of the same intolerance. In February, a Volgograd newspaper, Gorodskiye Vesti was closed down by the city mayor for depicting a cartoon of Mohammed.

In April, Anna Smirnova, editor of weekly newspaper Nash Region was fined 100,000 roubles ($3,609 US) by a Vologda city court for reproducing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. She was found guilty of inciting religious strife.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 16, 2006 8:11 AM

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