Baku – Pressure on the Baptist majority of is continuing. The Baku-based church leadership reported to the Forum 18 ( Oslo ) human rights organisation that authorities had prevented a summer children’s camp. It had been planned to hold the camp on private property in the northern village of Avaran close to the Russian border. But even before the camp began, police officers arrived in four cars and searched the vehicles of the Baptist staff already actively preparing for the camp. The police confiscated CDs and Christian literature and used violence to force the Baptists to take down the existing tents. Reports state a police officer had threatened Ilgar Mamedov, the owner of the property, as well as other Baptists. In full view of the children who had already arrived, the officer pulled a 24-year-old by the hair and kicked him in the stomach. The police ordered the group to leave the village.

It was later revealed that village officials had ordered a halt to the camp. On 8 September, Ilgar Mamedov was summoned and informed that he had been fined 15 euros for permitting an undue amount of noise on his property. Yet he refused to pay the fine, for it would have been an admission of guilt in disobeying the law. According to reports, he also criticised that officials had allowed him to read the judgement, but refused to give him a paper copy. He added that the allegations made against him were based strictly on lies. Initially, 120 children were to participate In the summer camp.

In January, the Baptist World Alliance had sent a delegation of experts on religious freedom to . That delegation had concluded that religious freedom was only partially upheld within that country. Muslims and Orthodox were able to meet virtually without any kind of limitation, yet this was not at all the case for Baptists.

In April, three members of the Baptist congregation in Baku were accused by name in public media of being enemies of the state. Together with Baptists from Texas, they had told Bible stories to children in the provincial city of Agdash . The three had been arrested, fined and released.