ALIABAD, Azerbaijan — Hamid Shabanov, a Baptist pastor in Aliabad in the Central Asian country of Azerbaijan, was arrested June 20. Elnur Jabiyev, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Azerbaijan (BUA), reported that the “police claim to have found an illegal weapon in his home.”
Denying the allegations against Shabanov and suggesting that the weapon was planted by the police, Jabiyev stated that the arrest “was a provocation by the police” and that it was “a deliberately targeted action.” The BUA leader asserted that “the police’s aim is to halt Baptist activity and close the church in Aliabad.”
Shabanov’s arrest follows the May 2007 arrest of Zaur Balaev, who also pastors a Baptist church in Aliabad. Balaev was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison in August 2007 but was released in March after protests from the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) and the European Baptist Federation, one of six continental unions of the BWA. Both Balaev and Shabanov are pastors of house churches with memberships of between 50 and 60 members each.
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