BAKU: US commission’s religious freedom report is biased

AzerNews, Azerbaijan
May 8 2013

US commission’s religious freedom report is biased: Azerbaijani
official (UPDATE)

8 MAY 2013, 16:37 (GMT+05:00)

The report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
published last week, has been analysed by the Azerbaijani State
Committee for Work with Religious Organisations, the committee’s head
Elshad Iskandarov told Trend news agency, commenting on the provisions
of this document concerning Azerbaijan.

According to the chairman of the committee, the named organisation is
not a public entity, but a non-governmental body that prepares
recommendatory documents for U.S. government agencies.

“The leaders of the organisation are lobbyists for various religious
communities. Therefore, these reports do not reflect the interests of
the American state, but the interests of persons supporting various
religious structures,” Iskandarov said.

The State Committee head believes mistakes in the report are traced in
three directions.

“In the first place, double standards are clearly visible. On the
other hand, a number of facts related to Azerbaijan are either
distorted, or do not take into account the reality of the country. A
subjective assessment is very obvious in this regard. Finally, the
report itself is biased. It can therefore be seen as a document
prepared in accordance with double standards and on the basis of
incorrect facts and bias,” Iskandarov said.

“If we look at the geography covered in the report, we see double
standards. For example, none of the European countries in which there
are numerous problems with the construction of minarets, sounding the
azan, where there are facts showing the killing of Muslims by
neo-Nazis and numerous protests related to hijab, was included in the
report,” he said.

According to him, the report does not contain a single word about the
problems faced by Muslim communities in these countries.
“The report mainly contains information about the Islamic and Eastern
countries which are in the sphere of interests of international
missionary organisations which turned into transnational corporations.
And that is another manifestation of double standards,” the head of
the committee said.

“Moreover, a special section of the report notes that Azerbaijan
exerts pressure on those who do not do military service on religious
grounds. Of course, the authors of the report do not care how
dangerous these evasions are for the National Security of Azerbaijan,
20 per cent of whose territory is occupied. But there is not a word
about the occupying country, Armenia,” Isgandarov said.

“For example, in Armenia a lot of members of the religious sect
Jehovah’s Witnesses were arrested for refusing to serve in the
Armenian occupation army, but Armenia is not the object of this report
at all.

“On the contrary, the decision of the European Court related to
Armenia was placed in the part of the report concerning Azerbaijan. It
is called laying the blame on someone else’s doorstep,” Isgandarov
said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress