CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VII (1, 2) Contemporary-Eurasia-3new | Page 160

CONTEMPORARY EURASIA
Measuring the religiosity of Azerbaijan’s society
To understand the dynamics of the government repressive policies,
Figure 1. is presented to show the number of imprisonments for religious
belief by years. The numbers of prisoners of 2014, 2015, 2016 years are
taken from “Azerbaijan 2014 International Religious Freedom Report” 71 ,
“Azerbaijan 2015 International Religious Freedom Report” 72 , “Azer-
baijan 2016 International Religious Freedom Report” 73 , and from “The
Working Group on Unifi ed List of Political Prisoners Presents Updated
List” 74 for the data of 2017, and “Azerbaijan: an Updated List of Political
Prisoners” for the data of 2013. 75
Figure 1.illustrates the deterioration of the situation in Azerbaijan, as
the tendency of increased number of imprisonments for religious belief
has been identifi ed. While the number of prisoners decreased from 2014
to 2015, probably the amendments presented in 2015 triggered the in-
crease of number of imprisonments. In addition, the press release of “The
Working Group on Unifi ed List of Political Prisoners Presents Updated
List” 76 (2018) states that as of March 22, 2018, 83 people were impris-
oned expressing freedom of religion.
Figure 1. Number of imprisonments for expressing religious belief
120
97
100
86
80
75
60
52
46
40
20
0
2013
71
72
73
74
75
76
2014
20152
0162
017
United States Department of State, “Azerbaijan 2014 International Religious Freedom Re-
port,” https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/238568.pdf (accessed May 7, 2018).
United States Department of State, “Azerbaijan 2015 International Religious Freedom Re-
port,” https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/256377.pdf (accessed May 8, 2018).
United States Department of State, “Azerbaijan 2016 International Religious Freedom Re-
port,” https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/269034.pdf (accessed May 12, 2018).
“The Working Group on Unifi ed List of Political Prisoners Presents Updated List 2018,” Sm-
dtaz.org, August 27, 2017, https://smdtaz.org/en/the-working-group-on-unifi ed-list-of-politi-
cal-prisoners-presents-updated-list/ (accessed December 7, 2018).
“Azerbaijan: an Updated List of Political Prisoners,” Civic Solidarity, October 1, 2013, http://
www.civicsolidarity.org/article/800/azerbaijan-updated-list-political-prisoners (accessed Octo-
ber 7, 2018).
The Working Group on Unifi ed List of Political Prisoners Presents Updated List 2018
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