28 Jan 14 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, News and features, Religion and Culture
Azerbaijani campaigners have called on their government to refrain from preventing public events amid claims the country’s authorities recently blocked the screening of a documentary on freedom of artistic expression.
“Art claims democracy” was set to run at the Park Inn Hotel, Baku, on January 24 as part of the Art for Democracy campaign; a suspicious power cut halted all activity.
The power outage was limited only to the second floor of the building, the floor on which the documentary film was to be aired. Organisers confronted hotel staff at the time who informed them of a technical problem. According to Art for Democracy some hotel employees later unofficially admitted the power shortage was a result of pressures on the hotel management.
A public statement was published by Art for Democracy in-light of the incident: “Prevention of the screening of a film, which features critical opinions about several top ranking officials including Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, could have been organised by no one except law-enforcement agencies under the instructions of high-ranking officials. By taking this step, the government attempted to make the hotel, a private enterprise, and civil society representatives to confront each other.”
The campaign stated the Azerbaijani government needs to be weary of preventing such events and to respect human rights, emphasising how such restrictions only reflect badly the international image of the country.
This article was posted on 28 January 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
01 Nov 13 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, News and features
Narimanov Park, Baku, 15 May 2010. Police forcibly detain a political activist during an unsanctioned protest. Photograph by Abbas Atilay
Press release from the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS)
Azerbaijan’s government has unleashed a massive crackdown on the civil society and media in the wake of the October presidential election, the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS) said today.
A group of police investigators yesterday raided the office of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDSC), the independent election watchdog that enraged the government by reporting irregularities surrounding the Azerbaijan’s election.
The raid began around 11:00 am yesterday in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku and lasted for five hours. Computers and documents were seized. The Prosecutor General’s Office launched investigation “regarding irregularities recorded at the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre”.
The raid on the election watchdog NGO signalled a sharp and very serious escalation of the country’s deepening human rights and political crisis. “It’s a clear message to the government’s critics: ‘Don’t get involved in any issues that question legitimacy of the presidential election”, IRFS CEO and chairman Emin Huseynov said.
“The Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre’s work for free and fair elections contributed to the implementation of Azerbaijan’s international commitments notably within the Council of Europe and the OSCE. The authorities must recognise this work and immediately stop harassment of the organisation”, Huseynov said.
IRFS believes that the government is conducting a carefully coordinated witch hunt aimed at discrediting critics of the government, and particularly those active in the election period.
In a separate case, one of the most vocal critics of the government, a Baku-based opposition newspaper Azadliq faces revenge in court for exposing the government corruption and reporting electoral fraud. The bank accounts of the newspaper are frozen (arrested) over huge defamation debt. ‘It’s a fairly urgent situation. The newspaper faces closure after 24 years of operation. The government has never gone so far in silencing the media’, Huseynov said.
IRFS calls on the Azerbaijani government to end its harassment of media, civil society and activists and take steps to assure that freedom of expression becomes a reality for all.
“Instead of attacking civil society organisations in Azerbaijan and beyond, the government must begin having open dialogue with them. This would allow Azerbaijani citizens to become involved in the decision-making process”, Emin Huseynov of IRFS said.
IRFS reminds that, less than a month after the presidential vote, independent media outlets and human right defenders are still facing unprecedented levels of repression and harassment and the number of prosecutions are on the increase. IRFS calls on the Azerbaijani Government to immediately release all journalists, opposition activists and human rights defenders.
IRFS condemns the failure of the Azerbaijani Government to heed calls from international and regional bodies, such as the Council and Europe, the European Union (EU), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations (UN) to respect and protection of human rights, including freedom of expression.
08 Oct 13 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, News and features
Looking forward to another election win. (Photo: PanArmenian / Demotix)
Tomorrow, on 9 October, Azerbaijan will hold a presidential election, with incumbent President Ilham Aliyev seeking a third term in office. Although the government and its supporters have been working hard to promote a positive image of Azerbaijan abroad, at home, they continue to crack down on citizens’ ability to exercise their basic rights and fundamental freedoms, in an apparent effort to silence all voices of criticism and dissent.
Despite superficial efforts to make the election look like a serious competition – for example, by registering a staggering 10 candidates – there is not an even playing field for all candidates. The only candidate widely agreed to be independent, united opposition candidate Jamil Hasanli, is fighting an uphill battle with limited resources against a powerful incumbent with the full resources of an oil-rich state behind him.
Below, I examine five of the main underlying issues presenting challenges to the fair and free conduct of this election, unsavoury truths that the authorities would rather not be included in reporting on this election. As a result of these and other issues, regardless of what now happens on election day, the chances of a democratic election have effectively been eliminated. The underlying climate has simply not allowed for a fair competition.
1. There are 142 people locked up for political reasons in Azerbaijan
At a press conference in Brussels in June, President Aliyev stated: “None of my political opponents is in prison. There are no political prisoners in Azerbaijan”. These claims simply are not true. A new list from the Baku-based Human Rights Club outlines 142 current cases of politically motivated detention and imprisonment in Azerbaijan. These include journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders, civic and political activists, religious followers, and ordinary citizens, many of whom were targeted for exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association.
One of Azerbaijan’s political prisoners is the Republican Alternative (REAL) movement’s would-be presidential candidate, Ilgar Mammadov, who has been detained since February. After visiting the region of Ismayilli to investigate on-going protests, he was then charged with inciting violent protest, and faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted. Although REAL was able to gather the more than 40,000 signatures required to register a presidential candidate, the Central Election Commission declared some of the signatures invalid and refused to register Mammadov’s candidacy.
2. Aliyev has gotten far greater media coverage in the country than any of his opponents
Azerbaijan’s state-controlled broadcast media rarely shows opposition figures. Out of Azerbaijan’s nine national television stations, three are directly owned by the state, five are privately owned but controlled by the state, and the public service broadcaster, Ictimai, is failing to fulfil its role as a public service broadcaster as it does not provide balanced and varied programming. In contrast to the hours of television coverage incumbent President Aliyev receives every day throughout the year, the other presidential candidates have received only 18 minutes of airtime each week for the three weeks of the campaign period.
Three independent media outlets which have been relegated to the Internet since a 2009 ban took them off the air – the Azerbaijani services of the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Voice of America – have been accused by the Central Election Commission of being in “propaganda mode” during the campaign period – presumably for daring to cover the opposition’s campaign activities, and not just the president’s.
3. The opposition is challenging Aliyev’s right to run for a third term
This is perhaps the most significant factor making this election stand out from previous elections in Azerbaijan, and may account for the unprecedented crackdown in the run-up to the election: the opposition claims that Aliyev does not have the constitutional right to run for a third term in office. The united opposition candidate, Jamil Hasanli, has filed a legal appeal in this regard, which will be examined by the Baku Court of Appeals today.
What is the basis of this appeal? When Aliyev came to power in 2003, and when he was re-elected in 2008, there was a two-term limit on the Azerbaijani presidency. This limit was removed through a Constitutional referendum in 2009. Hasanli and his supporters argue, however, that the changes do not apply retroactively to Aliyev, but should apply instead to his successor, meaning he does not have the right to run for a third term.
Further, University of Sydney Professor Wojciech Sadurski issued a legal opinion arguing that Azerbaijan’s removal of the term limitation was done in an undemocratic manner, contrary to the principles of openness and transparency. Sadurski considered this action to be a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Azerbaijan is party.
4. Azerbaijan has not had a fair and free election since Aliyev came to power
Including the election that brought Ilham Aliyev to power in 2003, Azerbaijan has held two presidential elections and two parliamentary elections in the past 10 years. All fell far short of meeting international standards for democratic elections, largely due to restrictions of freedom of expression and assembly in the pre-election period, resulting in a lack of robust competition and vibrant political discourse.
The Azerbaijani government seems intent on repeating its past mistakes with this election. The most recent interim report issued by the OSCE/ODIHR’s election observation mission highlighted similar problems to previous election periods, noting that the campaign period “has been marred by some reported incidents of intimidation of family members of political figures.” The report also concludes that “the campaign has lacked substantive debate and has focused on personality rather than concrete political platform” and states “the incumbent President received a much greater amount of coverage in news programmes on television in comparison to other political actors.”
5. Azerbaijan is failing to fulfil its human rights obligations with all major international bodies
The fact that Azerbaijan is failing to fulfil its human rights obligations with the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the United Nations (UN), and its human rights agreements with the European Union, is the elephant in the room, both in the context of this election and in broader international relations with Azerbaijan.
The pattern of systematic and widespread violations of human rights by the Azerbaijani authorities is well documented. Just last week, three UN special mandates, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, and the Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner all spoke out with concerns related to human rights violations in the pre-election period.
Despite this knowledge, the political leadership of these bodies and their member states remain reluctant to seriously address these shortcomings. As a result, the Azerbaijani authorities continue to act with impunity, certain that their failure to implement their human rights commitments will not result in serious consequences for other areas of their bilateral and multilateral relations. How then can they be expected to behave differently in this election period?
But rather than write off this election – as some international media outlets have already done, pre-emptively declaring another victory for Aliyev – the international community must take note of what happens and take a stand. International observers must report accurately and fully on the election, and the government must be held accountable for shortcomings through the full political weight of the organizations behind the reports and their individual member states. Azerbaijan cannot continue to be treated as a privileged member of the international democratic community without the credentials to back it up.
And most importantly, the international community must sustain attention to Azerbaijan well beyond the election period. Local journalists, human rights defenders, and activists fear a post-election crackdown even harsher than what occurred in the run-up to the election. If these remaining few critical voices are successfully silenced, then many more elections in Azerbaijan will follow suit as foregone conclusions.
This article was originally published on 8 Oct 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
02 Oct 13 | Azerbaijan News, News and features
An opposition protest in Baku, September 2013 (Image Demotix/Aziz Karimov)
The tone was set the day we arrived in Azerbaijan, 17 September 2013. Journalist Parviz Hashimli, was arrested and detained by officers of the Ministry of National Security after a raid on the office of newspaper Bizim Yol.
Hashimli is an influential journalist as the editor of Moderator.az website and chair of the Center for Protection of Political and Civil Rights. He was accused of drugs smuggling and the illegal possession of weapons. According to the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS) in Baku, “it is unclear exactly what prompted the arrest of Hashimli and raid on BizimYol newspaper. However, some experts believe it was linked to a series of leaks reporting on developments in the state machinery, published shortly before his arrest on www.moderator.az news source.”
Human rights activists that we met believe that Hashimli’s arrest is yet another attempt to intimidate the press in the run-up to the October election. This week, the editor of Tolyshi Sado newspaper, Hilal Mamedov, was sentenced to five years in prison.
At least eight journalists are currently imprisoned in retaliation for their reporting on sensitive issues. This is the backdrop to Azerbaijan’s election next week, an election that is being fought in one of the least free countries on earth.
Journalists are not the only group affected by arrests under fabricated charges. Youth movements have been particularly targeted since March 2013. Index met with relatives of some of the seven NIDA members arrested last March and April for “drug possession” or “suspicion of inciting violence”. NIDA is a youth movement calling for more democracy in Azerbaijan. The seven members arrested were particularly active on social media and known for their criticism of the authorities.
On 19 September, we met former Index on Censorship award winner Rashid Hajili, who is a lawyer and chair of the Media Rights Institute. “Since 2003, the situation has gradually worsened,” says Hajili. While the human rights situation is deteriorating on the eve of the presidential elections, Hajili sees the situation as the result of a decade-long “shift toward authoritarianism”. Not only have the authorities of the country ignored their international commitments – such as decriminalising defamation – but they have adopted legislation imposing new restrictions on fundamental freedoms.
Rashid Hajili with his Index on Censorship Award (Image: Melody Patry)
In May, Azerbaijan’s parliament adopted regressive legislation extending criminal defamation provisions to online content. Azerbaijanis now face potential fines of up to AZN 1,000 (approximately USD $1,280), or prison sentences of up to three years for items they post online, including on Facebook. The chilling effect is so severe that individuals refrain from even “liking a friend’s controversial status”, says a young Azeri. “We are aware that social media are monitored,” she adds.
As the Aliyev regime tightens the screws, space for free expression is shrinking and prospects for free and fair elections grow slimmer. Three years after receiving Index’s Law and Campaigning Award, Rashid Hajili is still busy fighting repression against the right to freedom of expression in the country. The number of his clients prosecuted for being critical to the government keeps increasing. “There is very limited space for free expression,” says Hajili. “Many independent or critical voices go online, to online newspapers and to social media”. But the online space is not safe. While many in the civil society or international diplomacy have denounced criminal prosecutions for online publications, and intimidation of journalists, Azerbaijan routinely ignores criticism of its human rights record by international bodies.
