On April 14,  47 members of the opposition Musavat (Equality) Party were detained for participating in a demonstration in Baku, in the first political rally ahead of Azerbaijan’s parliamentary elections in November 2010.  Demonstrators carried placards calling for freedom of speech, association and assembly, and one called for President Ilham Aliyev to resign. Article 19 has called on the government to ensure that international standards are upheld in the conduct of the elections. “Journalists must also be able to exercise their profession unimpeded and must have the freedom to report on political events”, said Dr Agnès Callamard, Article 19’s executive director.