Islamic Tolerance Alert from Compass Direct:
September 28 (Compass Direct News) — Born on June 18 to a Christian family in northern Azerbaijan, three-month-old Ilya Eyvazov still has no official name.
Local authorities in the town of Aliabad at first refused to issue a birth certificate when the baby”s father, Novruz Eyvazov, tried to register his son’s birth on June 21.
“Impossible,” city administration officials told Novruz Eyvazov when they saw his son’s name was the Russian form of Elijah.
“They said it was because it was a Christian name,” said the Baptist church member….
But an official in the regional registration office in Zaqatala said that Baptists in Aliabad were facing difficulties because their attempt to take non-Azeri names was part of a plot to cede Zaqatala to neighboring Georgia.
“I have a letter here with the signatures of 3,000 residents of Aliabad, sent to the president and the European Council, complaining that they [Baptists] want to make [Aliabad’s residents] Georgians,” Aybeniz Kalashova told Compass.
“The letter says, “˜They [Baptists] want to change our names, make us Georgian and then claim that this area is part of southern Georgia.” Why have they become Christians and started serving a foreign country?”…
The majority of Aliabad’s residents belong to the ethnically Georgian Ingilo minority who converted to Islam several centuries ago….
Without a birth certificate it is impossible for an Azeri to receive medical care, go to school or travel abroad. It is not yet clear what practical problems Ilya Eyvazov will face if his official I.D. carries no name….
Soltanov, who had been instrumental in securing a birth certificate for Luka Eyvazov, was skeptical of the Eyvazovs” motives for giving their children foreign names.
“Why is it that Novruz wants to give his sons foreign names?” Soltanov asked Compass, continuing speculations, initially made to Forum 18, that the Christian family was being forced to choose the foreign names by “some religious sect.”
Zaur Balayev, pastor of Aliabad’s first Baptist church formed in 1993, told Compass that he knows at least five families from his congregation that have faced opposition from local officials in giving their children Christian names….
Pastor Shabanov told Compass that members of his congregation are constantly being called in to the police station to answer questions about their worship activities.
“They can’t actually keep us from worshipping, but they do everything they can to scare away people who are interested in attending our services,” Shabanov said. He told Compass that new converts to Christianity were often told to return to Islam or their relatives would lose their jobs….
“No one in the whole world recognizes the Baptists,” Kalashova of Zaqatala’s registration office commented to Compass. “They are Muslims who converted to Christianity and received help from foreigners. They don’t intermarry or have relations with [people outside their group].”
Azeri churches outside of the capital city of Baku have found it difficult to register with the government, a move that would in theory allow them to worship with minimal government interference.