{"id":57300,"date":"2014-05-08T09:00:51","date_gmt":"2014-05-08T08:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=57300"},"modified":"2017-03-27T12:38:47","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T11:38:47","slug":"five-things-remember-azerbaijan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=57300","title":{"rendered":"Five things to remember about Azerbaijan"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week eight young Azerbaijani activists were sentenced to between six and eight years in jai<\/a>l. The members of the N!DA Youth Movement, which works for democracy and social change, were convicted for possession of drugs and explosives, and for intending to \u201ccause public disorder\u201d. The charges are widely believed to be trumped up, and the trials have been criticised by foreign observers over \u201cirregularities<\/a>\u201d and \u201cshortcomings<\/a>\u201d, including inconsistencies in testimonies and mishandling of evidence.<\/p>\n

This is just the latest addition to a long list of human rights abuses by authorities in the oil rich country. As the repression has largely been allowed to take place away from international attention, this is a good moment to remember a few things about Azerbaijan, especially as the country prepares to take\u00a0over a six month chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers.<\/p>\n

1) The\u00a0six\u00a0are far from the only political prisoners in Azerbaijan<\/h2>\n
\"(Image:<\/a>

(Image: Aziz Karimov)<\/p><\/div>\n

According to the latest figures, there are 142 political prisoners<\/a> in Azerbaijan today. These include human rights defenders, youth activists,\u00a0and a large number of religious activists, among others. There are currently 17 people serving life sentences.\u00a0Ahead of the country’s presidential election last October, candidate Ilgar Mammadov was arrested<\/a>. In March, he was sentenced to seven years in prison<\/a> for\u00a0\u201corganizing mass disturbances\u201d and \u201cresisting the police\u201d. Meanwhile, President Ilham Aliyev insists that there are no political prisoners<\/a> in Azerbaijan.<\/span><\/p>\n

2) You may escape imprisonment, but\u00a0you could still face\u00a0violence and intimidation<\/h2>\n
\"5--Azerbaijan-Aziz-Karimov-IMG_0913\"

(Image: Aziz Karimov)<\/p><\/div>\n

Attacks, threats and intimidation are regular occurrences for\u00a0political opponents, activists and press in Azerbaijan. Following protests in the capital Baku as Aliyev secured his third consecutive term in power last October, demonstrators were beaten<\/a> and detained by police. Police also raided the offices<\/a> of independent Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDSC) which reported irregularities in the election.\u00a0<\/span>In 2012, reporter Idrak Abbasov was brutally beaten<\/a> when filming the demolition of a house\u00a0by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, allegedly by employees of the company and police<\/a>. The same year, fellow journalist\u00a0Khadija Ismayilova, known for covering corruption among the country’s powerful elite, was blackmailed<\/a> with intimate images of her and her boyfriend. She continues to face intimidation today<\/a>. These\u00a0abuses are\u00a0often allowed to happen with impunity<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3) Independent and critical media are under threat<\/h2>\n
\"Rahim<\/a>

(Image: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)<\/p><\/div>\n

Azerbaijan’s critical press have long been subjected to an array of attacks<\/a>.\u00a0Independent news outlets face economic sanctions<\/span>, and are often barred from distribution networks. Some 70% of distribution is controlled by the government. Most of the nine national TV channels are either directly owned by the state or controlled by the authorities. Journalists also fall victim to legal threats. In the first six months of 2013, 36 defamation suits were brought against media outlets or journalists, four of which were criminal defamation suits. One victim of this hugely restrictive media environment is\u00a0leading independent paper and Index Award<\/a> winner Azadliq. The\u00a0paper has been hit with\u00a0\u00a352,000 worth of fines<\/a> following defamation suits, state-owned press distribution company Gasid has not been transferring payments that reflect the paper\u2019s sales. Azadliq claims Gasid owe them some\u00a0\u00a344,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

4) Authorities are on an ongoing PR mission<\/h2>\n
\"(Image:<\/a>

(Image: Zeljko Joksimovic\/Wikimedia Commons)<\/p><\/div>\n

While the situation inside the country shifts between bad and worse, authorities have focused their attentions on a wide-reaching international PR campaign. Ahead of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest, authorities ordered\u00a0urban renewal that saw\u00a0<\/span>houses demolished and families evicted<\/a>. Vast sums have in recent years been poured into the radical\u00a0regeneration and beautification of Baku, and there’s more to come<\/a>.\u00a0There is also the posh London\u00a0bar Baku, owned by the Aliyevs; the glossy, internationally distributed Baku magazine, edited by first daughter Leyla and\u00a0co-published by Conde Nast; and the sponsorship deal with Champions League finalists Atl\u00e9tico Madrid<\/a>.\u00a0Next year, Baku will again play host to a prestigious international event — the inaugural European Games<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5) They are about to take charge of one of Europe\u2019s most important human rights bodies<\/h2>\n
\"(Image:<\/a>

(Image: Sandro Weltin\/Council of Europe)<\/p><\/div>\n

“The Committee of Ministers supervises the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights<\/span>\u00a0the Council of Europe…The Committee of Ministers’ essential function is to ensure that member states comply with the judgments and certain decisions of the European Court of Human Rights,” the Council of Europe declare on their website<\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0Next week\u00a0Azerbaijan will assume the chairmanship\u00a0of this very Committee of Ministers. But one could say that COE is only sticking to form in its relationship with the country. Only last year, a majority in its\u00a0Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) voted down a resolution on the existence of\u00a0political prisoners in Azerbaijan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on 8 May 2014 at indexoncensorship.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sentencing of eight youth activists this week is just the latest addition to a long list of human rights abuses by Azerbaijani authorities <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":57312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[7145,8867,4059,581],"tags":[4236,115,6023,3424,1295,4423,6419,727],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57300"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57300"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87590,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57300\/revisions\/87590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}