Forum 18 | Felix Corley | June 18, 2020
Former parliamentary staff member Rahim Akhundov, who says he was dismissed from his job at the Milli Majlis in December 2018 on the orders of the secret police because of his Christian faith, will take his suit for reinstatement to Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court. He failed to overturn the earlier rejection of his suit at Baku Appeal Court on 10 June 2020, and told Forum 18 that he is still waiting for the written decision so that he can appeal to the Supreme Court.
Rahim Akhundov, 2016Rahim Akhundov [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]Akhundov – who from 1998 worked at the Milli Majlis (Parliament) – met friends and relatives at his Baku home for Christian worship, study, and discussion. However, the State Security Service (SSS) secret police learnt of these meetings and began spying on them. In 2017, the SSS spied on who came to the meeting, tried to recruit one participant as a spy and sent an officer to attend a meeting on false pretences (see below).
Akhundov said the SSS secret police wrote to the Milli Majlis demanding his dismissal. Milli Majlis officials denied this to Forum 18. Ilqar Farzaliyev, head of the Milli Majlis Human Resources Department both in December 2018 and now, denied that Akhundov had been fired because of his faith. “It was not because of his Christianity, absolutely,” he told Forum 18 (see below).
The SSS secret police refused to answer any questions from Forum 18 on 18 June.
Akhundov has made numerous appeals, including twice in court. Courts rejected his arguments that his dismissal letter is illegal because it is unsigned, and that he could not submit an appeal before he did because the Milli Majlis waited nine months to give him the dismissal letter in writing.
Farzaliyev of the Milli Majlis Human Resources Department claimed to Forum 18 that the signed original was in the archives and Akhundov was sent an unsigned copy, and that “we sent him the letter when he asked for it” (see below).
Akhundov told Forum 18 that “the courts cannot be independent here when it comes to face the Parliament and high ranking officials. So their ruling was a predetermined and ordered issue” (see below).
Secret police surveillance
Milli Majlis, Baku, September 2017Shankar S. [CC BY 2.0]Rahim Akhundov began work at the International Relations Department of the Milli Majlis in Baku in June 1998. By February 2010, after spending some years translating parliamentary documents and interpreting for visitors, he had worked his way up to become Head of the Milli Majlis Section for Work with International Parliamentary Organisations.
Some of Akhundov’s friends and relatives met for Christian worship, study, and discussion in his Baku home. However, the SSS secret police learned of the meetings and began spying on them. Akhundov says that at least on two occasions, one in 2017 and one in 2018, an officer was seen hiding in the courtyard by his home on Sundays, spying on who was arriving.
The SSS officer then came to one meeting in August in either 2017 or 2018, Akhundov said, with someone who used to come to the meetings, although neither had been notified of the date and time. The man claimed to be a military officer from Tovuz District in north-western Azerbaijan and asked for prayer for healing. He later came to thank Akhundov for the prayer, and said he had been healed.
The same SSS officer called the management of the flats where Akhundov lives at least twice in 2017 and 2018, Akhundov said, asking if he was criticising the government. Akhundov also thinks that the SSS secret police was interested in knowing if he shared his faith with other residents of the block.
In April 2017, two other SSS secret police officers twice in a tea house approached one person who had come to the meetings. Claiming to be concerned for the person’s safety, the SSS officers asked questions about Akhundov and the meetings, and offered money for the person to become an informer. However, they refused. Another person who came to the meetings separately confirmed the encounters to Forum 18 in June 2020.
SSS officers also asked a local Christian leader in 2018 if he knew Akhundov, and which Christian community he belonged to.
“This could not have happened. We have complete tolerance here”
In 2017 and 2018, police and SSS secret police surveillance on people holding religious meetings in their homes frequently led to raids. Officers raiding such meetings – including of Muslims, Protestant Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses – seized religious literature, with courts subsequently fining many leaders and participants.
Akhundov told Forum 18 that a friend, who led a similar home Christian meeting elsewhere in Baku, told him that the SSS secret police also conducted surveillance on people who came to those meetings.
The then Head of the Milli Majlis International Relations Department Rashid Ibrahimov, now an ordinary staff member, denied to Forum 18 on 17 June 2020 from Baku that SSS secret police surveillance of Akhundov’s home had happened. “This could not have happened. We have complete tolerance here,” he claimed.
Ibrahimov put the phone down when Forum 18 reminded him about SSS secret police surveillance and raids on homes, with confiscations of religious literature and subsequent fines of meeting participants. “I am not ready to answer your questions,” he claimed, before putting the phone down.
Forced resignation or dismissal?
While Akhundov was being treated as an outpatient at the Special Treatment Health Complex in Baku in late November and early December 2018, Milli Majlis officials phoned the hospital and ordered that they halt treatment and send him back to the Milli Majlis “for dismissal due to my acceptance of Christianity”, Akhundov told Forum 18. “The doctors treating me told me this and the doctors were very afraid of keeping me there.”
On 26 November 2018, officials of the Milli Majlis began pressuring Akhundov to resign, as he wrote in his subsequent suit to court.
“When I came back from the Kazakh capital Astana [now Nur-Sultan] on 26 November 2018, the very first question to me from the Parliament leadership was whether I was a member of a sect or not,” Akhundov told Forum 18. “Some deputies confirmed to me that the SSS secret police sent a letter about me, saying that Rahim has accepted Christianity and that he was a member of a sect and involved in proselytising at home.”
The SSS letter to the Milli Majlis leadership called for Akhundov to be fired, he told Forum 18.
On 18 June 2020, Forum 18 asked Ilqar Jafarov, head of the Milli Majlis Division for Work with Confidential Documents, about the SSS secret police letter and what reason it contained for the demand to dismiss Akhundov. Jafarov immediately put the phone down. Subsequent calls went unanswered.
Akhundov said the then head of the Milli Majlis International Relations Department, Rashid Ibrahimov, told him in December 2018 that when they get a letter from the SSS secret police they cannot keep an employee in their job.
However, Ibrahimov denied to Forum 18 that he had any knowledge of an SSS secret police letter ordering Akhundov’s dismissal.
Ilqar Farzaliyev, head of the Milli Majlis Human Resources Department both in December 2018 and now, refused to comment on Akhundov’s contention that the SSS secret police had asked the Milli Majlis to fire him. “I don’t know about that,” Farzaliyev claimed to Forum 18 from the Milli Majlis on 12 June 2020.
On 3 December 2018, Akhundov wrote to President Ilham Aliyev to complain of this pressure. “They threaten me with dismissal .. and the leadership of the Milli Majlis demands that I resign, saying that if I do not write a voluntary resignation they will dismiss me on other grounds. In this case my employment record will be tarnished.”
The Presidential Administration sent on his complaint to the Milli Majlis on 6 December 2018, asking it to investigate. However, Akhundov received no response from the Milli Majlis, despite the requirements of the Labour Code and the Civil Service Law.
On 18 December 2018, several media outlets claimed that Akhundov had been fired “for converting to Christianity”.
On the afternoon of 25 December 2018, Akhundov lodged a resignation letter. However, earlier in the day the Milli Majlis dismissed him.
Farzaliyev of the Milli Majlis Human Resources Department denied that Akhundov had been fired because of his faith. “It was not because of his Christianity, absolutely,” he told Forum 18. “It wasn’t because of that. He uses this to pursue his case.”
Similarly, the then Head of the Milli Majlis International Relations Department Ibrahimov also denied that Akhundov had been dismissed because he was a Christian. “His faith played no role in his dismissal,” he claimed to Forum 18.
Asked why Akhundov had been fired, head of the Milli Majlis Human Resources Department Farzaliyev responded: “He knows the reason.”
Fired for “translation mistakes” 18 years earlier?
Farzaliyev of the Milli Majlis Human Resources Department then claimed that Akhundov had been fired because of mistakes in his work. “He had two warnings about serious mistakes in his work.” Asked to identify them, Farzaliyev claimed Akhundov had made “very serious mistakes” in his translations during a visit to Baku of Russell Johnston, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1999 to 2002. Johnston died in 2008.
Akhundov told Forum 18 that he translated for Johnston in 2001 or 2002. “I have never heard that for an ordinary mistake you dismiss a person after 18 years.”