The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has recently published its updated 2025 report on Azerbaijan. Among other issues, it notes that historic Armenian religious sites in Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding territories continue to remain at danger. In July 2025, satellite imagery documented at least 8 destroyed and 10 damaged religious sites.
Days after the report’s release, several additional cases of vandalism became known. Satellite images confirmed that the Holy Mother of God Cathedral and St. Hakob Church in Stepanakert were completely demolished, while the fate of many other churches remains unknown.
The report also documents pressure exerted on more than two dozen Christian Armenian detainees. They were tried behind closed doors without adequate legal counsel, have received beatings, psychological abuse, lack of access to medical care and proper food, denials of Bibles, and the erasure of cross tattoos through burning.
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Among cases of religiously motivated repression, the report also notes violence against Shia religious figures and their detention in extremely harsh conditions. It further records persecution of representatives of civil society.
Any report or statement that includes even mild criticism or points out problems is quickly dismissed in Baku as biased and provocative.
The report also drew a response from the Caucasus Muslims Board (CMB), which argued that these assessments fail to reflect Azerbaijan’s efforts to promote religious tolerance both at home and internationally. On April 27, the CMB issued another statement defending the demolition of churches, claiming they are “symbols of occupation” and therefore their removal cannot be regarded as the destruction of religious or cultural heritage.
As one may notice, the assessments in the report are in clear contradiction to the narrative of “Baku’s tolerance.” The key question is how the notion of “tolerance” can possibly encompass practices such as the destruction of monuments, their alteration and appropriation, and the outright denial of their Armenian identity. Moreover, all of this is carried out openly and without restraint, while the proclaimed “tolerance” appears primarily to serve as part of the country’s external image-building for international audiences.
The term “tolerance” has a clear meaning: sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own. “Tolerance”—tolerantlıq in Azerbaijani—is not merely a word; it is a phenomenon, a concept that either exists or does not. As the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom suggests, there are sufficient grounds to keep Azerbaijan on the Special Watch List in this regard.
“GEGHARD” SCIENTIFIC ANALYTICAL FOUNDATION
