Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr. К.Zarbaliyeva / There are forces who will to politicize religion in Azerbaijan. Such forces want religion to serve interests of different forces and persons, chairman of the State Committee on Work with Religious Associations Hidayat Orujev said during a lecture in the place for serving sentence 6.
State Committee on Work with Religious Associations jointly with Central Penal Service Department of the Justice Ministry implement religious popularization projects among prisoners.
Orujev said that there were forces who want to politicize religion. "There are forces which want to serve to a range of foreign countries and follow their policy. Most foreign countries want to apply own state religious model in Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani society does not accept such models," Orujev stated.
Orujev expressed alarm due to increase of activities of different radical and extremist religious groups in the country. In the most cases radical religious groups draw poor people to their groups.
Some foreign forces want to spread Christianity in Azerbaijan. A Russian political scientist and chairman of the Russian Islamic Organization Heydar Jamal stated in the interview to Trend agency that there were secret forces which render support to Vahabism in Azerbaijan.
"Non-official organizations of the Saudi Arabia want to spread Vahabism in Azerbaijan. Such organizations will attempt to prevent development of Shiism in the country. Spread of Vahabism meets interests of the United States. In spite of the United States frozen bank accounts of some companies of Saudi Arabia the States do nothing to eliminate such forces. Vahabism will be used against Shiism in conflicts within countries in the future," he said.
The Deputy Justice Minister Nazim Alakbarov said that the Azerbaijani Government creates conditions in prisons for prayers. About 20% of prisoners are prayer.
Azerbaijan is a secular government. About 96% of population is Muslims, 65% Muslims- Shiits and 35% - Sunnits.