Author: George Mamian

IWPR



Public outcry after footage emerges of officers beating man for
violating lockdown.




Public outcry after footage emerges of officers beating man for
violating lockdown.
By IWPR

Civil society activists in Azerbaijan have accused the government of
using the coronavirus quarantine as a means of facilitating and
excusing police violence.

On June 7, footage emerged of police beating and forcibly detaining a
citizen who was putting out the rubbish in front of his building in
the Yasamal district of Baku. They claimed he was violating quarantine
rules.

In the video, neighbours looking out at the scene started throwing
rubbish at the police car to protest the violence.

The following day, the police themselves broadcast footage of a raid
at the same address in whihc they dragged out 11 people, some only
half-dressed.

Gular Suleymanova, a resident of the building, said that the police
had not even allowed her son to put his clothes on.

“My son was taken out of  bed, beaten and not allowed to get dressed,”
she said. “Although we said that there were children and they would be
afraid, they didn't pay attention. They beat my son at the 29th police
station, his eyes are black and there are signs of violence on his
body.

“If someone violates the quarantine or protests, they need to explain
their mistakes in words or punish them in some other way. Aren't these
people criminals? Such violence does not fit into any law,”
Suleymanova said, adding that she had filed a complaint against the
police for their actions.

Javad Javadov, a lawyer providing the family with legal assistance,
said that Article 25, paragraph four of the law on police prohibited
officers from entering a house wthout a warrant.

“The entry of police into homes violates [citizens’] right to the
inviolability of the home,” he continued. “Certain conditions must be
observed when the police enter the apartment.”

The Yasamal operation was met with great outrage on social media, with
many people using the hashtag End to Police Violence, and a number of
activists and journalists launched petitions.

Investigative journalist Khadija Ismayil, along with several human
rights activists, signed a letter of complaint to the prosecutor
general’s office over the alleged police violence.

“We demand that legal action be taken so that violent police do not go
unpunished,” she said. “We don't have high hopes, but we still want
the new prosecutor general to do his job. If he does not, we will
continue legal proceedings and complain about the inaction of the
prosecutor’s office.”

Well-known activists and former poitical prisoners also joined the protests.

Giyas Ibrahimov, who was detained in May 2016 after he and a friend
wrote “Happy Slaves’ Day” in Azeri on a monument to ex-president
Heydar Aliyev, hung a banner from his roof reading “Statue Prisoner”
to protest the violence.

Police arrived shortly afterwards and arrested Ibrahimov, detaining
him for several hours before fining him 50 manat (30 dollars) and
releasing him.

“I was protesting against police brutality and they were ordered to
detain me... and even after being detained, struck me,’’ Ibrahimov
told IWPR.

Activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev said that given that people in Azerbaijan
were persecuted for the slightest ctiticism or infraction of the rules
– and the lack of an avenue for legitimate, peaceful protest – the
outcry came as no surprise.
“In many countries around the world, both government officials and law
enforcement officers are attacked with eggs, tomatoes or rubbish bags
when they take steps that anger citizens,” he said. “All this is
happening in countries where the population has the freedom of
peaceful assembly. In this case, officials think, ‘What mistakes have
we made against a citizen that there is such a harsh reaction?’”

Political commentator Arastun Orujlu said that the government’s goal
was to completely subjugate all protest, especially among the
opposition.

“This pandemic period in Azerbaijan has been used for many political
purposes,” he continued. “The authorities punished many dissenting,
free-thinking people. There were those who were arrested and fined.
For example, the police violence in Yasamal was a provocation. The
police could detain the person who violated the quarantine rules and
tell him to go home quietly.

The government is using this period to exert pressure by showing its
power,” he continued. “They know that the population is exhausted and
they are intimidated. There are only political motives in events in
Azerbaijan - either intimidation or protest.”



 

                                        Wednesday, 

Armenian PM Denies ‘Political Persecution’ Of Opposition Leader

        • Anush Mkrtchian

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian addresses the parliament, 

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian dismissed on Wednesday opposition claims that 
Gagik Tsarukian, the leader of the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), is 
prosecuted for political reasons.

“In the past the authorities used such criminal cases to keep those [opposition] 
forces under control, force them into coalitions and so on because they lacked 
legitimacy,” said Pashinian. “Our government does not have such an objective. We 
don’t need to turn criminal cases into subjects of political horse-trading so 
that they make fewer [anti-government] statements or watch their language.”

“We know the [right] method of making them watch their language,” he said “We 
will teach them.”

“They won’t even talk here anymore because the people will kick them out of here 
altogether,” he added during the Armenian government’s question-and-answer 
session in the parliament.

Pashinian spoke there the day after the parliament’s pro-government majority 
voted to allow law-enforcement authorities to prosecute and arrest Tsarukian on 
charges of buying votes during parliamentary elections held in 2017.


Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (L) attends the inauguration of a 
ceramics plant mostly owned by Gagik Tsarukian (R), November 7, 2019.

Tsarukian and his party, which makes up the largest opposition group in the 
National Assembly, reject the accusations as baseless and politically motivated. 
They say that Pashinian ordered the criminal proceedings in response to the BHK 
leader’s recent calls for the government’s resignation.

Addressing his senior loyalists on June 5, Tsarukian accused the government of 
mishandling Armenia’s coronavirus crisis and failing to mitigate its 
socioeconomic consequences. Pashinian and his political allies reacted angrily 
to that speech.

Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian denied that the case is politically motivated 
when he spoke in the parliament on Tuesday. He said that the National Security 
Service (NSS) launched the vote buying investigation in February.

The NSS interrogated Tsarukian again immediately after the parliament lifted his 
immunity from prosecution. It went on to ask a court in Yerevan to allow 
investigators to place one of the country’s richest men under pre-trial arrest.

The court began hearings on the NSS demand on Wednesday evening.




Armenia’s Coronavirus Hospital Beds ‘Still Sufficient’

        • Susan Badalian

Armenia -- A medical worker wearing protective equipment moves a patient into 
the Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center in Yerevan, June 9, 2020

Armenia still has enough hospital beds to treat increased numbers of coronavirus 
patients, the Ministry of Health insisted on Wednesday.

“We have no problems with regard to hospitalization at the moment,” the ministry 
spokeswoman, Alina Nikoghosian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “The available 
hospital beds are still sufficient.”

Nikoghosian said at the same time that 176 infected people in need of urgent 
treatment waited to be hospitalized as of Wednesday morning. But she stressed 
that 140 of them were in kept in medical “triage centers” in preparation for 
their hospitalization.

“So the [hospitalization] process is going on and perhaps most of them have 
already been hospitalized,” added the official.

The coronavirus crisis is putting a growing strain on Armenia’s underfunded 
healthcare system, forcing the health authorities to ramp up capacity. The 
authorities pledged last week to make 350 new hospital beds available for 
COVID-19 patients. Armenian hospitals fighting the epidemic had a total of over 
2,000 beds at that point.

Just over 18,000 coronavirus cases and at least 302 deaths have been recorded in 
the country of about 3 million to date. According to the Ministry of Health, 544 
people tested positive for the virus on Tuesday.

Nikoghosian put the current number of active cases at 10,818. The vast majority 
of these infected people are confined at home and monitored by primary 
healthcare workers.

Health Minister Arsen Torosian said, meanwhile, that despite the increased daily 
numbers of new infections the disease has spread in the last 10 days more slowly 
than was expected by the health authorities. In a Facebook post, he said this is 
the result of more Armenians practicing social distancing, wearing face masks 
and taking other precautions recommended by the authorities.

Torosian also cautioned: “The situation remains very tense and we all need to 
make additional and prolonged efforts to improve it.”




Armenian Opposition Wants Parliament Probe Into COVID-19

        • Tatevik Lazarian

Armenia -- Deputies from the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party attend a 
parliament session in Yerevan, June 19, 2019.

The opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) called on Wednesday for a 
parliamentary inquiry into the authorities’ response to the continuing 
coronavirus epidemic in the country.

Senior BHK lawmakers announced the initiative as they boycotted a session of the 
Armenian parliament in protest against its decision on Tuesday to allow the 
arrest and prosecution of the party’s leader, Gagik Tsarukian. He is facing 
accusations of vote buying rejected by him as politically motivated.

The BHK, which holds 26 seats in the 132-member National Assembly, needs the 
backing of another parliamentary opposition party, Bright Armenia (LHK), in 
order to be able to force the creation of an ad hoc parliamentary commission on 
the coronavirus crisis.

LHK leader Edmon Marukian said his party is ready to join the BHK initiative. 
“We will back the idea of an investigating commission on the condition that the 
commission is headed by a representative of the LHK,” said Marukian. He argued 
that his party was the first to float the idea.

Tsarukian’s party also urged the LHK to join it in asking the Constitutional 
Court to rule whether a government ban on rallies is legal. The ban stems from a 
coronavirus-related state of emergency in Armenia.

Marukian also questioned the ban, saying that Armenians can safely hold street 
gatherings if they wear face masks and observe physical distancing. Still, he 
said opposition lawmakers should have the issue discussed in the parliament 
before appealing to the Constitutional Court.

Meanwhile, one of the leaders of the parliament’s pro-government majority, Alen 
Simonian, said he has no problem with the BHK initiatives.

“I personally find these two initiatives excellent,” said Simonian. “If that 
commission is formed we will also be able to investigate rumors spread by groups 
close the party mentioned by you (BHK), rumors that the coronavirus does not 
exist.”

The BHK, the LHK and other opposition forces have been very critical of the 
authorities’ handling of the coronavirus crisis, holding them responsible for 
the large number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the country. Prime Minister 
Nikol Pashinian and his allies reject the criticism.

The Armenian Ministry of Health said on Wednesday morning that 544 people tested 
positive for the virus in the past 24 hours, bringing to 18,033 the total number 
of confirmed cases in the country of about 3 million.

The ministry also reported 9 more deaths primarily caused by COVID-19. The 
official death toll thus reached 302.

The figure does not include the deaths of 99 other people infected with the 
disease. The health authorities say other, pre-existing conditions were the main 
causes of these fatalities.



Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

 

Houston Chronicle




ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey on Friday accused the United States of
becoming a “safe harbor” for members of a network that it blames for a
coup attempt in 2016, after Washington criticized the conviction of a
U.S. Consulate employee on terror charges.

Metin Topuz, a translator and assistant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency in Istanbul, was sentenced to eight years and nine months in
prison on Thursday, convicted of aiding the network led by U.S.-based
Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. The Turkish government blames Gulen
for the 2016 coup attempt and considers his network to be a terrorist
organization.

Topuz’s arrest in 2017 and subsequent prosecution caused tensions
between NATO allies Ankara and Washington. U.S. Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo issued a statement Thursday criticizing the conviction.

Pompeo said: “U.S. officials observed every hearing in the trial of
Mr. Topuz in Istanbul, and we have seen no credible evidence to
support this decision. As a result, this conviction undermines
confidence in Turkey’s institutions and the critical trust at the
foundation of Turkish-American relations.”

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy hit back, claiming that
other people with links to Gulen had “infiltrated” U.S. missions in
Turkey and accusing U.S. authorities of ignoring requests for the
extradition of Gulen-affiliated individuals.

“We are concerned that the United States has become a safe harbor for
members of (Gulen’s) terrorist organization,” Aksoy said in a written
statement.

Aksoy also called on the United States to respect the “judicial
independence” of Turkey's courts and to refrain from attempts “to
influence the judiciary.”

Topuz has maintained his innocence throughout his trial and is
expected to appeal the verdict.

Gulen, who has been in self-imposed exile in the U.S. since 1999,
denies involvement in the coup attempt.