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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL SLAMS AZERBAIJAN AHEAD OF EUROVISION
Tert.am
21.02.12
Amnesty International has published a report on Azerbaijan, slamming
the country for its poor human rights record ahead of the Eurovision
2012 song contest.
"Last May, Azerbaijan secured the right to host this year's Eurovision
song contest thanks to its winning entry "Running Scared". Only a few
months earlier, this is, quite literally, what hundreds of peaceful
protesters were doing in downtown Baku, as police violently sought
to silence them.
This May Azerbaijan will don its Sunday best as it welcomes thousands
of Eurovision visitors and basks in the international attention it
will bring. A multi-million dollar PR campaign is seeking to portray
the country as modern and progressive. Indeed there are achievements;
the country of over 9 million people has adult literacy rates of close
to 100 percent and its oil wealth is fuelling an economic boom that
is transforming Baku's skyline," reads the report.
The authors note that criticism of President Ilhjam Aliyev and leading
government figures is frequently punished, with the international
community seeming to have turned a deaf ear to the authoritarian rule.
"This crackdown on dissenting opinion is being facilitated by a muted
response from members of the international community, whose eyes would
appear to be more firmly fixed on petro-dollars and energy security
than the rights of ordinary Azeris," they say.
The Amnesty International experts further slam the Azerbaijani
authorities for suppressing anti-government protests and imposing
threats and intimidation on civil society groups working on human
rights.
"Peaceful anti-government protest has effectively been criminalized
by banning demonstrations and imprisoning those who organize and
take part in them. Police use excessive force to break up peaceful,
but officially unsanctioned demonstrations. Threats and intimidation
against human rights defenders have been used together with legislative
and administrative means to shut down and deny registration to civil
society groups working on democracy and human rights," they note.
The authors further voice concerns over the deplorable situation of
human rights NGOs which often face pressure and harassment and denied
registration or closed on arbitrary grounds.
*On 4 March 2011, three local NGOs located in Ganja, the Election
Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, Demos Public Association
and the Ganja Regional Information Centre, were evicted from their
premises by the authorities without any formal explanation or apparent
legal grounds.
*The branches of two international organizations, the National
Democratic Institute and the Human Rights House in Baku were shut
down on 7 March and 10 March respectively on the grounds that they
had failed to comply with registration requirements.
*On 11 August the office of Leyla Yunus, director of the Institute
for Peace and Democracy was destroyed, days after she had spoken
against the government-endorsed forced evictions and the demolition
of buildings in central Baku as part of a reconstruction project. The
demolition began without any prior notice and despite a court order
banning any demolition attempts on the property before 13 September
2011," the experts note.
Tert.am
21.02.12
Amnesty International has published a report on Azerbaijan, slamming
the country for its poor human rights record ahead of the Eurovision
2012 song contest.
"Last May, Azerbaijan secured the right to host this year's Eurovision
song contest thanks to its winning entry "Running Scared". Only a few
months earlier, this is, quite literally, what hundreds of peaceful
protesters were doing in downtown Baku, as police violently sought
to silence them.
This May Azerbaijan will don its Sunday best as it welcomes thousands
of Eurovision visitors and basks in the international attention it
will bring. A multi-million dollar PR campaign is seeking to portray
the country as modern and progressive. Indeed there are achievements;
the country of over 9 million people has adult literacy rates of close
to 100 percent and its oil wealth is fuelling an economic boom that
is transforming Baku's skyline," reads the report.
The authors note that criticism of President Ilhjam Aliyev and leading
government figures is frequently punished, with the international
community seeming to have turned a deaf ear to the authoritarian rule.
"This crackdown on dissenting opinion is being facilitated by a muted
response from members of the international community, whose eyes would
appear to be more firmly fixed on petro-dollars and energy security
than the rights of ordinary Azeris," they say.
The Amnesty International experts further slam the Azerbaijani
authorities for suppressing anti-government protests and imposing
threats and intimidation on civil society groups working on human
rights.
"Peaceful anti-government protest has effectively been criminalized
by banning demonstrations and imprisoning those who organize and
take part in them. Police use excessive force to break up peaceful,
but officially unsanctioned demonstrations. Threats and intimidation
against human rights defenders have been used together with legislative
and administrative means to shut down and deny registration to civil
society groups working on democracy and human rights," they note.
The authors further voice concerns over the deplorable situation of
human rights NGOs which often face pressure and harassment and denied
registration or closed on arbitrary grounds.
*On 4 March 2011, three local NGOs located in Ganja, the Election
Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, Demos Public Association
and the Ganja Regional Information Centre, were evicted from their
premises by the authorities without any formal explanation or apparent
legal grounds.
*The branches of two international organizations, the National
Democratic Institute and the Human Rights House in Baku were shut
down on 7 March and 10 March respectively on the grounds that they
had failed to comply with registration requirements.
*On 11 August the office of Leyla Yunus, director of the Institute
for Peace and Democracy was destroyed, days after she had spoken
against the government-endorsed forced evictions and the demolition
of buildings in central Baku as part of a reconstruction project. The
demolition began without any prior notice and despite a court order
banning any demolition attempts on the property before 13 September
2011," the experts note.