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The leadership of Sunni Muslim mosque in Qobustan has been transferred at the state's behest to new leadership "closer to the authorities", constituting a part of a long-running campaign to close down Sunni Muslim mosques or transfer them to Shia Muslim control loyal to the Azerbaijani authorities, “Forum 18” News Service reports.

According to the article Sunni mosque Juma was built by the imam in the 1990s on his own land. It was originally named in honor of Umar ibn Al-Khattab, the second caliph. However, as many Shias are critical of Umar, the mosque came under pressure to change the name and it subsequently called itself by the more neutral Juma Mosque. It was originally registered by the Justice Ministry and re-registered again by the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations in 2001. However, the State Committee did not approve the community's 2009 re-registration application.

In January 2015, the State Committee official for Baku, Anar Kazimov, telephoned Mosque leaders and threatened to sue them, as a result of which the imam who had originally founded the Mosque, was officially removed, the community members told “Forum 18”.

According to them, more than 500 worshippers regularly attend Friday prayers at the Mosque, and it was so full for all to fit inside, that some prayed in the garden outside. They also said that the state had refused to authorize the ousted imam's son to work in the Mosque as an imam. He had studied in an Islamic University in Saudi Arabia, and since 2009, the Religion Law has banned men who have gained their religious education abroad from working as imams, a restriction which is not applied to other faiths

As the article has it, about three weeks after the enforced transfer of leadership, police raided the mosque and spent about four hours checking every room in the building. They took 178 religious books without giving any record of any confiscation. The community members claim that there was no radicalism and nothing political in those books.

“Forum 18” notes that this was not the first case of Sunni mosque leadership transfer. The leadership of a mosque near Baku was transferred to new control in 2014. Other Sunni mosques in Baku, one of which known as the Turkish Mosque, have been closed on various pretexts since 2008. The only Sunni Muslim mosque in Azerbaijan's second city Gyanja was also forcibly closed in 2009. The authorities in Baku have also attempted to close the Lezgin Mosque – which also follows Sunni worship – but the community has so far been able to resist such attempts

It’s also highlighted in the article that Azerbaijan insists that the religious communities register at the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations, in defiance of its international human rights obligations. Lack of state registration can lead to police raids, confiscations of religious literature, fines and even criminal prosecutions. However, religious communities have repeatedly complained of registration denials. Particular targets of obstruction to registration or re-registration attempts are Sunni Muslim communities, Muslim communities outside the control of the Caucasian Muslim Board, Protestant churches and Jehovah's Witness communities. Jehovah's Witness community’s application is being rejected since 2009.