B a k u / P r a g u e – Azerbaijan apparently practices double standards on issues of religious freedom. That was the conclusion of a panel of experts on religious freedom sponsored by the European Baptist Federation (EBF) and the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) after visiting the country. The European Baptist Religious Freedom Monitoring Group presented the trip's findings in a letter addressed to the country's President, Ilham Aliyev (Baku). Though the government's State Committee for the Work with Religious Associations and many traditional religious groups reported full religious freedom, conversations with Baptists showed that its members and congregations are victims of intolerance and discrimination.

The report cites deficits in four different realms. Baptists have been harrassed and intimidated by the police. This has included hostile interrogation, threats against them and their families and even imprisonment. Baptists noted that the arrest of Baptist pastors Zaur Balayev and Hamid Shabanov from Aliabad had made headlines around the world. It is widely considered that the two were convicted on false charges and had been targeted because they are Baptist pastors of unregistered churches. Shabanov is still being held under house arrest, but the delegation has hopes that he will soon be released. Baptist congregations are also being hampered in their efforts to obtain government registration. Zaur Balayev has been attempting for 15 years without success to register his congregation in Aliabad. The Baptist congregation in Neftcala still lacks one document necessary for its official registration: proof that the building in which it has been meeting since 1966 also belongs to them. Yet the document had been submitted earlier along with other papers and is now regarded as lost. No government office has been willing to re-issue the document. Baptists have also been discriminated against at their places of employment. The denomination's General-Secretary, Elnur Jabijev, lost his job as a police officer after it became known that he was a Baptist. Baptists also suffer from the fact that buildings which the Soviet government confiscated have not been returned to them. These include a Baptist church built in Baku in 1911. It was expropriated in 1931 and is still being used as a movie theatre.

The monitoring group, which also met with the US-political officer, Joanna Ganson, in Azerbaijan, consisted of: EBF General Secretary, Tony Peck (Prague); Director of Baptist World Aid, Paul Montacute (Falls Church Washington); EBF-Representative for Religious Freedom, Christer Daelander (Stockholm); Academic Dean of International Baptist Theological Seminary, Parush Parushev (Prague), and attorney Ebbe Holm (Copenhagen).

Ninety percent of the country's eight million inhabitants are Muslim. Twenty-five congregations with 3.100 members belong to the country's Baptist union.