Human Rights Watch
World Report 2013
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan hosted the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, casting an
international spotlight on the government’s deteriorating human rights
record. The atmosphere for political activists and independent and
pro-opposition journalists grew acutely hostile. Authorities used
imprisonment as a tool for political retribution and forcibly
dispersed a number of peaceful demonstrations, indiscriminately
arresting activists and passersby. Restrictions on freedom of religion
and the prosecution of unregistered religious groups continued. The
government intensified its urban renewal campaign in the capital Baku,
forcibly evicting thousands of families and illegally demolishing
homes.
Foreign actors failed to fully realize the potential of their
relationships with the government to press it to honor its human
rights obligations.
Freedom of Media
In June, the Supreme Court released Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, a social media
activist who had been serving a two-year prison sentence for allegedly
avoiding mandatory military service. But Azerbaijani journalists
continue to face prosecution on bogus charges, harassment,
intimidation, and physical attacks.Defamation remained criminalized.
In November 2011, a court sentenced Aydin Janiyev, a Khural newspaper
correspondent, to three years in prison on hooliganism charges,
apparently in retaliation for his articles criticizing the
authorities. Avaz Zeynalli, Khural’s editor, in custody since his
October 2011 arrest, was at this writing on trial on dubious extortion
charges brought by a member of parliament from the ruling
party. Khrural, which regularly published allegations of government
corruption,closed in October 2011, when a court ordered that bailiffs
seize its property to pay fines imposed in three defamation cases.
In March 2012, police arrested the executive director and
editor-in-chief of KhayalTV, a local station, who remained in custody
at this writing pending trial on charges of organizing social unrest
and abuse of authority. The charges are linked to a video posted on
YouTube showing the governor of the northern city of Guba insulting
local residents in a speech, which many believe was the catalyst for
the March 1 mass protests in the city.
In June, a court convicted Anar Bayramli, a journalist for the Iranian
satellite television station Sahar TV, on trumped-up charges of
illegal drug possession. In July, the Appeals Court halved his
two-year prison sentence.
Hilal Mammadov, the editor-in-chief of Tolishi Sado newspaper who was
arrested in June on bogus drug possession charges, remained in custody
pending trial. In June, police also detained Mehman Huseynov, a
blogger and photographer at the Institute for Reporters’ Freedoms and
Safety, a local media monitoring organization, and released him
pending investigation on trumped-up charges of hooliganism.
In August, a court sentenced Faramaz Novruzoglu, a freelance
journalist, to four-and-a-half years in jail on bogus charges of
illegal border crossing and inciting mass disorder, stemming from
spring 2011 Facebook postings, written using a pseudonym, calling for
riots. Novruzoglu has denied the allegations and claims they are
retribution for his investigations into business ties of high-level
officials.
In April, police and private security personnel beat unconscious Idrak
Abbasov, a journalist who was filming forced evictions and house
demolitions. A police investigation was pending at this writing.
In March, unknown persons attempted to blackmail Khadija Ismailova, a
Radio Liberty journalist, in retaliation for her investigation into
the business holdings of the president’s family and close associates.
In November 2011, Rafig Tagi, a journalist with Sanet weekly, was
stabbed on the street near his apartment, and died of the wounds. No
one had been charged for the attack at this writing.
In September 2012, the opposition daily Azadlig faced eviction threats
from its premises at the state publishing house for failing to pay its
outstanding debts, while at the same time a court fined the paper
3o,000 AZN (about US$40,000) in a defamation suit brought by the head
of Baku metro system.
Freedom of Assembly
The government limited freedom of assembly by breaking up peaceful
protests, in some cases violently, and arresting protesters. In March,
at the first sanctioned opposition protest since 2006, police detained
two popular musicians as they played at the peaceful gathering. Police
beat and denied them access to their lawyer. They were released after
five and ten days of detention.
In April, police detained 20 activists distributing flyers encouraging
people to attend an opposition rally. Courts sentenced 7 of the
activists to 10 to 15 days of detention, and fined or released others.
In the days before and during May’s Eurovision Song Contest, police
broke up several protests in Baku’s center. Police rounded up dozens
of peaceful demonstrators, forcing them onto buses, and beating some
as they did so. The demonstrators were released several hours later.
In October, police rounded up dozens of protesters in an unsanctioned
rally in central Baku, roughed them up and forced them into
buses. Courts imprisoned 13 on misdemeanor charges for up to 10 days,
and fined several others.
In November, the parliament increased sanctions for participating and
organizing unauthorized protests, establishing fines of up to 1,000
AZN ($ 1,274) for participation, and 3,000 ($ 3,822) for organization.
Political Prisoners
Imprisonment on politically motivated charges is a continuing
problem. A June 2012 report by a committee of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) described the cases of 89
political prisoners in Azerbaijan. Just before the report’s
publication, nine were released under a presidential pardon. The PACE
report documents the cases of journalists, human rights defenders, and
activists who remain in detention in Azerbaijan on a range of
trumped-up charges in retaliation for their work.
Ill-Treatment and Deaths in Custody
Torture and ill-treatment continue with impunity, and two men died in
police custody in 2012. In the first eight months of 2012, the
Azerbaijan Committee Against Torture, an independent prison monitoring
group, received 136 complaints alleging ill-treatment in custody.
Forced Evictions and Illegal Demolitions
Since 2008, the authorities in Azerbaijan have been implementing a
program of urban renewal in Baku, involving illegal expropriation of
hundreds of properties-primarily apartments and homes in middle class
neighborhoods-to make way for parks, roads, and luxury residential
buildings. Most evictees have not received fair compensation based on
market values of their properties. In 2012, hundreds of homeowners
were affected as the authorities accelerated construction for the
Eurovision Song Contest.
Freedom of Religion
The government continued to tighten restrictions on freedom of
religion. In December 2011, the president signed legislative
amendments criminalizing the illegal production, distribution, and
import of religious literature not approved by the state; they were
previously administrative offenses. A new criminal code article
punishes the creation of a group that undermines social order under
the guise of carrying out religious work.
According to Forum 18, an independent international religious freedom
monitoring group, police raided several private homes on
religion-related grounds.
Human Rights Defenders
Police arrested two human rights defenders associated with Kur Civil
Union in retaliation for protecting flood victims in southern
Azerbaijan. In April 2012, police arrested Ogtay Gulaliyev, the
organization’s coordinator, and charged him with hooliganism. In June,
police released him, pending investigation and arrested Ilham
Amiraslanov, another Kur activist. In September, a court sentenced
Amiraslanov to two years imprisonment on trumped-up weapons possession
charges. No investigation was made into Gulaliyev’s claim of
ill-treatment in custody, and after a preliminary inquiry the
prosecutor’s office refused to investigate an ill-treatment complaint
by Amiraslanov.
In April, a court sentenced Taleh Khasmammadov, a blogger and human
rights defender from Goychay, to a four-year prison term on charges of
hooliganism and physically assaulting a public official. Khasmammadov
investigated allegations of abuse and corruption by law enforcement
officials. Another human rights defender from Goychay region, Vidadi
Isganderov, remained in jail after being convicted in August 2011 on
false charges of interfering with parliamentary elections.
Azerbaijan Human Rights House, a member of the International Human
Rights House Network, remained closed following the Ministry of
Justice suspending its registration in March 2011.
Key International Actors
While expressing concern about Azerbaijan’s worsening human rights
record, the European Union, United States, and other international and
regional institutions did not impose policy consequences or make their
engagement with Azerbaijan conditional on concrete improvements.
A great number of foreign governments and international organizations
condemned President Ilham Aliyev’s decision to pardon Ramil Safarov, a
military officer, whom Hungary extradited to Azerbaijan so that he
could serve out his life imprisonment term there. In 2004, a Hungarian
court convicted Safarov for murdering an Armenian colleague at a
NATO-sponsored training in Budapest. Safarov confessed to the crime,
which he justified by citing his victim’s ethnicity.
The EU, Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE),
and the US Embassy in Baku all condemned the assault on journalist
Idrak Abbasov, and called on the government to launch a prompt and
thorough investigation, to no avail.
In its May European Neighborhood Policy progress report, the EU
highlighted Azerbaijan’s failure to meet its commitments regarding
electoral processes, human rights protections, and judicial
independence. It also, for the first time, addressed concrete
recommendations to the authorities.
The European Broadcasting Union, which oversaw the Eurovision Song
Contest, made a public commitment to promote freedom of expression in
Azerbaijan, but declined to take a strong public stand on the
Azerbaijani government’s record. It also refused to urge the
government to properly compensate homeowners whose apartments were
demolished in connection with the construction of Eurovision-related
infrastructure.
While in Baku in June, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with
Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, and urged the authorities to release others
imprisoned on politically motivated charges.
In a landmark vote on June 26, the Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Committee of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly adopted a
report on political prisoners in Azerbaijan. The government had
refused to cooperate with the committee’s rapporteur and denied him
access to Azerbaijan.
In its March 2012 concluding observations, the UN Committee on the
Rights of the Child (CRC) criticized Azerbaijan, for, inter alia,the
lack of improvement in the juvenile justice system, and the lack of
alternatives to institutionalization for children without families.