Twitter users hijack #HelloBaku to shine spotlight on Azerbaijan’s human rights abuses

10 Apr 15 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, mobile, News and features

From top left: Arif Yunus, Rasul Jafarov, Leyla Yunus, Khadija Ismayilova, Intigam Aliyev and

From top left: Arif Yunus, Rasul Jafarov, Leyla Yunus, Khadija Ismayilova, Intigam Aliyev and Anar Mammadli – some of the government critics jailed on trumped up charges in Azerbaijan

Social media users have hijacked the hashtag #HelloBaku to draw attention to human rights and free speech violations in Azerbaijan ahead of this summer’s inaugural European Games in the capital Baku.

Baku 2015 organisers launched the hashtag contest on 4 March 2015, as part of a promotional push ahead of the games, which start on 12 June. Social media users were invited to enter by posting a photo or video of themselves holding a sign with #HelloBaku written on it. The winner, set to be announced this week, will be awarded two tickets to the opening ceremony, as well as a night at a luxury hotel and flights.

But the campaign backfired, as a number of social media users instead used #HelloBaku to highlight Azerbaijan’s poor record on human rights. According to the latest estimates, there are over 100 political prisoners in the country. Since last summer, authorities have been engaged in an unprecedented onslaught against its most prominent critics, jailing investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, pro-democracy activist Rasul Jafarov, human rights lawyer Intigam Aliyev and others on trumped up charges. On 9 April, prosecutors asked for a 9-year sentence for Jafarov, who stands accused of tax evasion and malpractice, among other things.

On 30 March, the same day the contest closed, Human Rights Watch researcher Giorgi Gogia, who was set to attend the trial hearing of Aliyev and Jafarov, was blocked from entering Azerbaijan. Traveling from his native Georgia, Gogia does not require a visa to go to Azerbaijan. Despite this, his passport was taken away and he was held at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku for 31 hours without explanation, before being sent back to Tbilisi.

Azerbaijan’s authorities, led by President Ilham Aliyvev, have been accused by human rights groups of running an expensive international PR operation to whitewash rights violations, and present the country as a “modern, outward looking state“. According to the Baku European Games Operation Committee (BEGOC), the games will “showcase Azerbaijan as a vibrant and modern European nation of great achievement”.

London-based marketing firm 1000heads, whose clients include Yahoo, Procter & Gamble and Lego, worked with Baku 2015 organisers on #HelloBaku. Index contacted 1000heads to ask whether they were aware of criticisms against Azerbaijan’s human rights record before taking on the job, and their response to the hijacking of the hashtag.

“We were working with BEGOC, the Baku European Games Operation Committee, which is responsible for delivering the event for athletes from the 49 National Olympic Committees of Europe. We are no longer involved,” 1000heads CEO Mike Rowe said in an email.

This article was posted on 8 April 2015 at indexoncensorship.org

Good sports: Which free-speech offending countries should we blow the whistle on?

12 Jun 14 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Bahrain, Brazil, China, Draw the Line, Russia

Protests against increase in public transportation costs in Rio de Janeiro on 13 February (Image: Mauricio Fidalgo/Demotix)

Protests against increase in public transportation costs in Rio de Janeiro on 13 February (Image: Mauricio Fidalgo/Demotix)

The World Cup — arguably the biggest international event on the planet — is upon us once more. But in the past year, Brazilians have been using their rights to free expression to organise large-scale protests to show their dissatisfaction with hosting the tournament. Meanwhile, revelations of serious human rights violations and corruption related to 2022 host Qatar have emerged. This year, human rights are sharing the spotlight with the beautiful game and its stars.

This isn’t the first time politics and sports have mixed. Just think of the Formula 1 Grand Prix races hosted in Gulf kingdom Bahrain, where authorities have cracked down on pro-democracy protesters; or the 2008 Olympics organised by the Chinese communist regime, which employs two million people to help monitor web activity; or the 1978 World Cup held in then-military dictatorship Argentina. More recently, Vladimir Putin’s Russia hosted the Winter Olympics (and will host the 2018 World Cup) not long after implementing homophobic legislation targeting so-called “gay propaganda”, while Belarus, which has been ruled by dictator Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, organised the 2014 Ice Hockey World Championship. Azerbaijan, with its, according to the latest figures, 142 political prisoners, is playing host to the inaugural European Games in 2015.

That’s without even considering the many human rights abuses perpetrated by authorities in participating countries.

The question that often comes up when these huge, prestigious events roll around, is how do we respond to the countries that repress their citizen’s free expression? Should we boycott? Should we use the attention to raise our voice on human rights abuses? Should we engage or ignore? Get involved the discussion using the hashtag #IndexDrawtheLine and tell us — where do you draw the line?

This article was published on June 12, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org