E/CN.4/2005/61/Add.1 Page 4 7. The Government indicated that the men claimed that they had applied to the Prosecutor General and to local enlistment offices to do alternative service. The request had been denied since the relevant legal provisions did not exist at the time. The visiting group also found that the men considered that the alternative service established by the new legal provisions to be of too long a duration and therefore still did not want to do it, although they did not consider the alternative service to be in contradiction with their religious beliefs. 8. Finally, the Government informed the Special Rapporteur that the visiting group explained to the men the legal procedures that would help them to transform their detention into alternative service, in order to have a clear their records. As to the alternative service conditions, the Government also noted that each state has its own legislation in that regard. Observations 9. The Special Rapporteur is grateful for the details provided in the reply of the Government and, referring to the concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of 14 August 2002 (A/57/18, paras. 269-291), encourages the Government to take all the measures to ensure freedom of religion to all without discrimination. Azerbaijan 10. On 12 March 2004, the Special Rapporteur advised the Government of Azerbaijan that she had received information according to which Azeri authorities had ordered Muslims in Baku to leave the “Juma” mosque. Nubaris Kuliev of the city administration had allegedly written to the mosque leaders on 15 January 2004 to tell them that the Muslim community had to leave the mosque within 15 days and hand it over to the “appropriate authorities”. The authorities reportedly wanted to turn the mosque into a carpet museum, the use to which the 1,000-year-old mosque was put in Soviet times. The mosque’s imam, Ilgar Ibrahimoglu Allahverdiev, has reportedly been repeatedly detained by local authorities. 11. By letter dated 1 April 2004, the Government of Azerbaijan responded that the building referred to in the communication of 12 March 2004 is under the protection of the Ministry of Culture as one of the historical monuments of Baku. This is the place where the Carpet Museum had been functioning until 1992. After 1992, the building was seized by Ilgar Ibrahimoglu Allahverdiev and Azer Ramizoglu Samddov, inhabitants of Baku. They established the society of "Islam Ittihad", an alleged religious community. 12. The Government stressed that any religious community willing to use a building as a mosque should conclude a contract with the Ministry of Culture and then assume the responsibility to preserve it in appropriate conditions. Moreover, only registered religious communities can use a mosque and the above-mentioned community is not registered. According to the information received from the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations, representatives of the religious