GREETINGS FROM AZERBAIJAN: THE VOICES OF PROTEST YOU WON’T HEAR AT THIS MONTH’S EUROVISION SONG CONTEST
By Charlotte Eagar
PUBLISHED: 22:00, 12 May 2012 | UPDATED: 22:00, 12 May 2012
125 MILLION PEOPLE WILL WATCH ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK AT THIS MONTH’S
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST. BUT WILL ANY OF THEM BE ROOTING FOR THE HOST
NATION, WHICH TORTURES ITS OWN PEOPLE AND HAS ONE OF THE WORST HUMAN
RIGHTS RECORDS IN EUROPE?
Clockwise from top left: Azerbaijan Eurovision entrant Sabina Babayeva;
Baku skyline; journalist Idrak Abbasov in hospital
Clockwise from top left: Azerbaijan Eurovision entrant Sabina Babayeva;
Baku skyline; journalist Idrak Abbasov in hospital; police detain
an opposition activist at a demonstration; Abbasov on the ground
shortly after being assaulted; military parade in Baku last year; a
park in central Baku; Engelbert Humperdinck; Ell and Nikki (centre),
Azerbaijan’s Eurovision winning entry from last year
Jamal Ali is a good-looking 24-year-old, with high cheekbones, olive
skin and dark curly hair.
He’s a rap artist whose lyrics are often critical of his government.
But Ali is lucky to be around to talk to me.
On March 17, while playing at an opposition demonstration in his
home country of Azerbaijan, he was arrested with his bass guitarist,
Natiq Kamilov, 24; they were badly beaten by the police, sentenced
to ten days in jail and tortured.
‘They tortured me twice,’ Ali says.
‘In the court and police station they just hit me. The proper beating
was in jail. They called it lessons.
‘I had two courses. I remember the first one I watched the clock on
the wall; it was two when I went in and when I got out it was five.
Almost three hours. The second was about two hours.’
Ali says he was handcuffed, with his hands behind him, and placed on
a chair.
‘They put another chair in front of me and put my feet on it. A huge
policeman sat on my knees so I couldn’t move. Another beat my feet.
Another asked, “Why don’t you like this? Do you still think you
don’t like the President?” If you say yes, they beat you more. I
said, “I’m just a musician, let me out. I’ve nothing to do with the
opposition.” They beat me on my heels so I couldn’t walk to another
protest.’
This is a far cry from the sequins and dry ice of the Eurovision Song
Contest. Yet Azerbaijan is hosting this year’s show.
On May 26, an estimated 125 million viewers across Europe will tune
in to see entries that include our own Engelbert Humperdinck. The
BBC coverage is being presented by Graham Norton.
Police arrest protestors at an opposition demonstration last year
Police arrest protestors at an opposition demonstration last year
It’s claimed that the Azerbaijan government has spent over $1 billion
preparing for Eurovision, which it wants to be a showcase for the
nation.
They’ve certainly got the money: Azerbaijan’s oil wells spurt out
over one million barrels a day.
Mainly through BP, the UK has invested £20 billion in the country
since it gained independence in 1991.
A vast glass palace, the Baku Crystal Hall, has been built to stage
the event. Seating 23,000, and perching on the shores of the Caspian
Sea, it was finished last month.
Around the neighbouring National Flag Square in the capital Baku,
there’s a frenzy of construction.
Despite being a Muslim country that neighbours Iran, Azerbaijan prides
itself not only on its secularism but also its European-ness.
‘We are part of Europe – we just have a different religion,’ says
Sabina Babayeva, Azerbaijan’s 2012 Eurovision entry, while in London
to promote her song, When the Music Dies.
She is the daughter of a high-ranking Azerbaijani army officer and has
little truck with the idea that musicians might suffer in her homeland.
‘It’s a very good place for musicians. We are strongly against human
rights violations.’
In fact, Azerbaijan has one of the worst human rights record of any
country in the Council of Europe.
Musicians, journalists, and the gay community – ironically, bearing
in mind Eurovision’s gay following – have all borne the brunt of
the repression
‘The freedoms of assembly, association and expression are massively
clamped down on in Azerbaijan,’ says a spokesman for Amnesty
International.
‘It’s ironic that Engelbert Humperdink’s Eurovision song is called
Love Will Set You Free. Well it won’t in Azerbaijan.’
Baku has changed vastly from the dusty Soviet port I visited 20 years
ago, as Azerbaijan first crawled its way out of communism. The city is
now an extraordinary mix of gleaming glass-and-steel towers, Soviet-era
buildings and the minarets and cobbles of an old Turkic town.
Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade, who were sentenced to two years in
jail for mocking the government online
Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade, who were sentenced to two years in
jail for mocking the government online
Visitors arrive at Heydar Aliyev International Airport, just one of
dozens of public buildings named after the former president, who was
once the head of Azerbaijan’s KGB.
His son Ilham Aliyev took over on his death in 2003. In the most recent
parliamentary elections, in 2010, not a single MP from either the two
opposition parties, Azerbaijan Popular Front or Musavat, won a seat.
The Aliyevs like to demonstrate their power, and armed police are
a constant presence on the streets. For the average Azerbaijani,
life isn’t too bad: there are jobs and money in this oil-rich state.
The problems come if you disagree.
The most active dissidents are intimidated with threats of prison and
torture, and family members can be fired from their jobs if they are
in government positions (and the government can lean on private firms).
For the past seven years, the government has banned any opposition
rallies. However, in the run up to Eurovision, two official
demonstrations were allowed on the outskirts of Baku. Most Azerbaijanis
assume that after the contest rallies will be banned again.
The only spontaneous demonstration to be allowed was last May,
when thousands of people took to the streets, singing and chanting
all night – but that’s because they were celebrating Azerbaijan’s
surprise win in the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest.
Sabina Babayeva is Azerbaijan’s 2012 Eurovision entry
Sabina Babayeva is Azerbaijan’s 2012 Eurovision entry
Jamal Ali is not the only one to suffer. After being released from
prison, his bass guitarist, Natiq Kamilov, has been press-ganged into
the army.
‘It’s completely illegal. He’s a student. He’s exempt from military
service,’ says Ali.
‘But he was called down to the army office and taken away.’
He is afraid for Kamilov’s life.
‘We have a lot of unexplained casualties in our army every year.’
Ali thinks Eurovision is the only reason he’s still free.
‘In prison they told me my case is not closed and I believe after
Eurovision they will try to take good care of me and not only me.
‘I think I am probably going to leave the country. I don’t want to
die at 24.’
Azer Mammadov, another singer, fled to Holland with his wife and baby
daughter last year because of government harassment.
His songs, such as Mr Necessary, criticise the regime. His problems
came to a head when the government cancelled his concert in March
last year.
‘Someone from the presidential administration rang the venue two
hours before the concert and told the owner he couldn’t hold it. He
was very frightened.
‘After that I couldn’t find any place to perform and I couldn’t find
any musicians to play with me.’
Mammadov’s wife, Vafa, was an activist too.
‘My songs started being sung at opposition meetings. We knew we were
being watched. Then after our baby was born last year, we became
afraid. We decided to leave.’
The couple and one-month-old Eva were smuggled out of Azerbaijan in
October and claimed political asylum in the Netherlands.
Azerbaijan’s presidential dynasty has a stranglehold on power. In
1994, Ilham Aliyev was made vice-president of the State Oil Company
of Azerbaijan (SOCAR).
His 12-year-old son was recently reported as having bought $30 million
of property in Dubai. And anybody who tries to derail this lucrative
gravy train gets squashed.
Emin Milli, who now studies in London, is one of Azerbaijan’s
best-known bloggers. He and his colleague Adnan Hajizade became
notorious as the ‘donkey bloggers’.
A crowd of around 1,000 use the Eurovision Song Contest to speak out
about human rights abuses in Azerbaijan
A crowd of around 1,000 use the Eurovision Song Contest to speak out
about human rights abuses in Azerbaijan
They were sentenced to two years in jail for posting a video on the
internet mocking the government for allegedly buying two donkeys from
Germany for ~@42,000.
‘It was just another example of government corruption,’ he says.
‘You can buy donkeys in Azerbaijan for $5.’
After his arrest, Milli’s father-in-law was fired from his job and
Milli’s own marriage collapsed.
‘My first wife was furious with me about my work,’ he says. ‘But
that’s what they do. They attack your family.’
Milli has since met and married one of Azerbaijan’s top dissident
artists, known as Tora.
‘I’m very worried. So far nothing has happened to her family, but
these people keep you in uncertainty. They punish one activist but
not another. It’s to scare the middle class of a whole generation.’
Milli is not being melodramatic. Elmar Huseynov, a magazine editor,
was shot outside his apartment in 2005 after he was critical of
the government.
His killers have still not been found. Last November another prominent
journalist, Rafic Tagi, was stabbed to death in the streets of Baku. No
one has been arrested for that crime either.
Amnesty International has highlighted 17 cases of people imprisoned
recently for disagreeing with the regime. They’ve either written
about it or blogged. Two have since been freed. Milli is one of those.
The building boom in Baku, spurred on by winning the chance to host
Eurovision, has brought its own trouble.
On April 18, prominent Azerbaijani journalist Idrak Abbasov was
brutally beaten up by 20 SOCAR security guards because he was filming
people being forcibly evicted from their homes on the outskirts of
Baku, according to Human Rights Watch.
Abbasov, who only in March had won the Index on Censorship Freedom
of Expression award for journalism, had to be taken to Baku hospital
with bruising and blood all over his face.
Despite being a Muslim country that neighbours Iran, Azerbaijan prides
itself not only on its secularism but also its European-ness
Despite being a Muslim country that neighbours Iran, Azerbaijan prides
itself not only on its secularism but also its European-ness
Khadija Ismailova, Azerbaijan’s most distinguished investigative
journalist, has been looking into links between the Eurovision
construction boom and the Aliyevs.
A few weeks ago, she made it known that she thought she’d found proof.
Retaliation was swift. Someone – she assumes from the security services
or with government sanction – tried to blackmail her.
‘On March 7, I was sent photographs in an envelope with a note,’
she says.
‘The pictures showed me engaged in sexual relations and the note said:
“Behave or you will be defamed.” I went public with that threat. I
said I was not going to stop my investigations. I put the threat up
on my Facebook page. I didn’t put the photographs online, obviously,
as disseminating pornography is a crime and my private life is
nobody’s business.’
A week later, a video appeared on a website that showed Ismailova
making love with a boyfriend; the website had been created as a mirror
image of the opposition party’s website, to make it seem as though
they were defaming Ismailova.
But the blackmailers had underestimated their target.
‘It backfired,’ says Ismailova with satisfaction.
‘They had to back down. I received messages of support even before
the video was out, from liberals and conservatives. Even the Islamic
party.’
Ismailova complained to the police, but the prosecutor refused to
take her statement. Instead, she conducted her own investigation.
‘I knew the film had been taken the previous summer and knew what
angle it had been taken from, so we took the ceiling apart and found
the wires in the ceiling – the bedroom, the bathroom, the living room.’
She then managed to track down the telecommunications company employee
who had installed the cameras. He could even remember the day in July
2011 that he had done the job.
‘The government are the only people who have the power to force the
telecommunication company to bug apartments,’ she says.
‘I’d just published a piece about links between the presidential
family and companies in Panama on June 27.
‘A lot of our activity in Azerbaijan happens online,’ she adds.
‘Much more than in reality. Our government can control reality very
well so we have all escaped to the virtual world.’
Jamal Ali says, ‘It’s the only place we can be free. But if things
get more serious the government will probably ban the internet too.
‘They want to be kings and queens and we are slaves. That’s why they
get surprised when a slave sings a song.’
Read
more:
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2141940/Eurovision-Song-Cont
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2141940/Eurovision-Song-Cont