CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VII (1, 2) Contemporary-Eurasia-3new | Página 158

CONTEMPORARY EURASIA
aging the president’s visit, the Alley of Heroes was supposed to become a
place for assassination, which V. Putin would obviously have to visit.
A terrorist being in charge of the terrorist act was a citizen of Iraq born
in 1974, so called Chanan Ahmed Rustam, also known as “Abdurrahman
Bukhari, Abu Sayyid Al Kurdi, Magomedov Kanan Ahmedovich”. 64 Be-
ing already noticed in May 2000 by the Azerbaijanis National Security
Services, with the joined actions of Russian Intelligence Services Rustam
was detected when making a call to Khattab. He was a professional terror-
ist with received trainings from al-Qaeda camps, being responsible for sev-
eral terrorist acts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, who later on turned out to
be a trainer of explosive acts. The assassination was planned to be through
the one call: the newest bomb systems were imported in Azerbaijan, which
were linked to a mobile phone SIM cards. It should be mentioned that the
mobile phones in 2000 were considered as luxury items. As planned, the
Alley of Heroes would have to be exploded by one phone call. This is the
unique and a demonstrative example, which shows that already in 2000
Azerbaijan was a hub for terrorists. Probably this is not the only case, while
the signifi cant one, proving the statements of many scholars that Azerbaijan
was a territory for communication between terrorists.
Analysis of domestic factors
Content analysis of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan
“On Freedom of Religious Belief”
The law of the Republic of Azerbaijan “On Freedom of Religious Be-
lief” was fi rst been introduced in 1992, and later been amended twenty
times between 1992 and 2015. The year of 2009 can be considered as a
turning point in government activities, as the authorities came to suppress
the religion with more restrictions by adopting new amendments on 8 May
2009. The further restrictive amendments have been introduced also in Oc-
tober 2015 with new provisions.
There are some contradictions in the law itself. According to the law,
the Muslim Caucasus Board (MCB) is the entity, which all mosques should
belong to. This provision contradicts Article 5, which states “Religion and
religious organizations are separate from the state in the Republic of Azer-
baijan…”. 65 Then, Article 6 states “the state educational system is separate
from religion…religious philosophy and basis of sacred religious books
64
65
“Assassination Attempt: How Muslim Terrorists Planned to Kill the Russian President in
Azerbaijan,” Vesti.ru, March 20, 2018), https://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2997443 (accessed
October 7, 2018).
Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan. On Freedom of Religious Beliefs, (1992), https://www.
ecoi.net/en/fi le/local/1399923/1226_1495184122_azerbaijan-law-freedom-religious-beliefs-
1992-am2015-en.pdf (accessed October 7, 2018).
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