Three months after Baptist pastor Zaur Balaev was freed from prison on what his family and congregation insist were trumped-up charges, another Baptist pastor in the same remote village of Aliabad in the north-western Zakatala Region in Azerbhaijan has been arrested.
Family members told Forum 18 from Aliabad that Hamid Shabanov was arrested last Friday after police claimed to have found a gun during a house search. Family members insist that police planted the weapon.
"He's a criminal," the head of Zakatala regional police Faik Shabanov (no relation) told Forum 18 on Saturday, even though under Azerbaijani law individuals are innocent until found guilty in court. Pastor Shabanov remains in detention at the Zakatala police station, the police chief confirmed.
"This is all being done according to a scenario," Pastor Shabanov's brother Badri told Forum 18 from Aliabad on Saturday. "First they imprisoned Zaur Balaev on fabricated charges, now they're going for Hamid. Their aim is also to bring a criminal case and put him in prison." Badri Shabanov insists the true aim is to close down all Baptist activity in Aliabad.
"Their target is the church."
Condemning the arrest - the latest move in years of official harassment of Baptists in the village - is Ilya Zenchenko, head of Azerbaijan's Baptist Union.
"We're in shock," he told Forum 18 from the capital Baku on Saturday. "This was a provocation by the police, a deliberately targeted action."
Like the overwhelming majority of Aliabad's inhabitants, Pastors Shabanov and Balaev and other church members are from the Georgian-speaking Ingilo minority, which was converted to Islam several centuries ago.
