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International Relations & Security Network, Zurich
Dec 28 2011
Azerbaijan: The Government Campaign Against Dissent
While 2011 saw activists and the opposition challenging the government
in Azerbaijan, public response was muted and unrest kept in check. The
number of political prisoners increased, and looks set to rise into
2012.
By Karl Rahder for ISN Insights
Azerbaijan's Arab Spring Moment
It was the Arab Spring that never happened: A series of demonstrations
early this year in Azerbaijan that were meant to trigger new elections
and the resignation of President Ilham Aliyev, son and successor to
former President Heydar Aliyev. As the movement gained a small measure
of momentum, one opposition leader warned in January that if the
Azerbaijani government did not agree to new, democratic elections,
`the people will rise up.'
`By then,' he said, `it will be too late for the authorities, and
events will develop in accordance with the Tunisian and Egyptian
scenarios.'
Rise up they did not. After a series of demonstrations that lasted
into June -some hastily organized by opposition parties and others
arranged via Facebook - political life in Azerbaijan was much as it
had been prior to 2011's revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere
in the Muslim world.
The authorities' response to the unrest, revealed much about the
government's fears and its strategy. As in neighboring Armenia,
opponents of the ruling elite sought to ignite widespread protest,
modeling themselves after the Arab Spring. But unlike the
demonstrations in Armenia (where something approximating democratic
pluralism is much more in evidence than in Azerbaijan), the rallies
were relatively small and the government response was swift and harsh.
The `Great People's Day' of 11 March - organized on Facebook by a
small group of Azeri activists - saw a meager turnout, a quick roundup
of protesters by police and a number of arrests. More rallies followed
in March and April, with hundreds of arrests and in some cases,
criminal prosecution.
Despite claims by one respected analyst that there are `no credible
reports or video material that would document excessive force being
used by police,' widely available video shows police roughing up
demonstrators and in one instance even shattering a bus window with a
baton in order to douse protesters (who had been herded into the bus
by police) with pepper spray.
Those charged and convicted with `creating public disorder' and
similar criminal offenses connected to protests in April include
prominent Musavat Party figure Arif Hajili and nine others, all of
whom are now serving time in prison. In May, Harvard alumnus and
Facebook activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev was sentenced to two years for
evading military service, a charge that he and many human rights
organizations labeled as politically motivated. Also convicted - on
drug possession charges - was Facebook activist Jabbar Savalan; he is
now serving a prison sentence of two years and six months.
The response from the international community has been that of
indignation, with the EU expressing concern over the convictions of
Savalan and Hajiyev as well as the bulldozing of the Institute for
Peace and Democracy in August. Amnesty International issued a
statement calling the charges against Savalan `trumped up .'
A Two-tier Strategy
The authorities' response implies a carefully constructed program of
`general harassment and targeted prosecution' in which opposition
parties and their leaders are undermined and marginalized through use
of the legal system, occasional police violence, and `black
propaganda' campaigns.
Harassment of political opponents
The `harassment' component is designed in part to demoralize the two
major opposition parties - continuing a long-term project that has
intensified since the death of Heydar Aliyev in late 2003 - and to
undercut any latent public support that might emerge for a revitalized
opposition.
Arastun Orujlu, chairman of the Baku-based East-West Center, told ISN
earlier this year that the government had begun a shift from
informally dismantling the opposition to something more concrete.
`Now their goal is to destroy the opposition formally,' he said.
In this, they have all but succeeded. Efforts in the past year or two
have included branding the Musavat Party `Armenian collaborators' (a
theme during last year's parliamentary elections) and adding
`jihadist' to the list of other sins that Popular Front Party chairman
Ali Kerimli is routinely charged with.
In late March, for instance, young demonstrators at a rally sanctioned
by the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP) gleefully displayed
photo-shopped posters of Kerimli wearing a keffiyeh and clutching an
AK-47. This was a new and typically crude tactic, complementing two
other favorite accusations that have been hurled like a cudgel at
Kerimli over the years: He colludes with Armenia and he is gay - a
deliberately explosive charge designed to alienate more conservative
elements of Azerbaijani society.
Increasingly, these campaigns utilize the Internet, and sometimes take
place via the same social media channels that were used to organize
the anti-government protests earlier this year.
In early March as the protests threatened to mushroom in Baku, the
website, qaynar.info, perceived by many to be run by pro-government
youth, posted a page identifying prominent Azeris who had Armenian
Facebook friends. Anti-Armenian feelings still run deep in Azerbaijan
since Armenia gained control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region after a
bitter war in 1994. The page is still active as of mid-December 2011.
Some of the comments on the page were particularly vindictive, such as
those of one reader who ranted that the Azeris who were singled out
`should be killed, they should be hanged in the center of the city.'
Thankfully, these comments were somewhat balanced by readers who said
things like, `may god protect us from `patriots' like you. [J]ust try
to do what Adnan Hajizada has done for this country, then maybe you
can discuss the [A]rmenians on his friends list. [Y]ou are not doing
anything for your country with this `patriotism."
The Armenian theme was also served up by Baku State University rector
Abel Maherremov, who claimed on ANS TV (formerly the only bastion of
editorial independence on Azerbaijani television) that `Armenians'
were behind the March 11th protests.
In a similar vein, pro-government blogger Rauf Mardiyev was
appropriately shocked after his discovery that six Armenians were
listed as early supporters of the Great People's Day on Facebook,
tainting the event beyond redemption.
This 'Armenian connection' was apparently an agreed-upon talking
point: YAP Deputy Executive Secretary Mubariz Gurbanli was
subsequently quoted in a piece alleging that many Armenians had joined
the 11 March Facebook page, some posing as Azeris.
Hedging their bets in case the `anything on social media that we
disagree with is tainted' message wasn't quite clear enough,
pro-government television stations in Azerbaijan ran a series of
programs during the spring on the alleged causal link between the use
of Facebook and mental illness.
Targeted prosecutions: Setting an example
`Targeted prosecutions' consist of the prosecutor's office bringing
charges against a small number of significant figures - opposition
political figure X, independent journalist Y or activist Z - who have
taken very public stands against the government or written about
corruption or other controversial topics. The charges and convictions
of the few serve as a cautionary example for others who may then think
twice before challenging the legitimacy of the government.
Favorite criminal charges include drug possession, hooliganism or, in
one ironic case a parliamentary candidate accused of 'interfering with
election officials'. Suspects are then detained prior to trial while
an `investigation' takes place. Family members find that they are
suddenly fired from their jobs: Facebook activist Elnum Majidli,
currently residing in France, informed ISN Insights that his father
was fired, and according to an article from the Index on Censorship
his mother has been told by her supervisors at work that they are
under pressure to fire her. The authorities, he told ISN, are
`listening to our telephone conversations and watching our home in
Baku.'
The next step is to disbar defense counsel - thus sabotaging the
defendants' cases. Among those disbarred this year while involved in
politically sensitive cases were Osman Kazimov, Khalid Bagirov, and
Elchin Namazov. Finally, the defendants are convicted, an outcry from
the international community ensues, and eventually the cases reach the
Azerbaijani Supreme Court, which invariably rules in favor of the
prosecution.
On November 29th of this year, the Azerbaijani Supreme Court upheld a
lower court's conviction of Savalan; on December 6th, it upheld the
conviction of Bakhtiyar Hajiyev.
Most of those convicted can look forward to serving a substantial
portion of their sentences, though the president has a habit of
commuting the sentences of political prisoners, as happened when Adnan
Hajizade and Emin Milli - the `donkey bloggers ' - were released
earlier this year.
It's possible - even likely - that President Aliyev may grant similar
commutations prior to the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in
Baku in late May. Azerbaijan's 2011 Eurovision victory may well be a
blessing for Azerbaijan's political prisoners, as the government may
find it embarrassing to have to explain its penchant for locking up
Facebook activists.
Implied Fear
The desired outcome behind the government's strategy is the stamping
out of any emerging opposition movement that could garner public
support and lead to the sort of instability that brought an end to the
rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, unlikely as that may be: A
2010 opinion poll administered by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and
another commissioned by the Caspian Information Centre in 2011
indicated strong support for the president, although opponents of the
Aliyev government claim that the methodology of the polling was
invalid.
The fear implied by the government's actions is curious, since violent
police tactics at demonstrations, a shrill propaganda campaign against
the formal opposition as well as Facebookers, and convictions in court
on phony charges suggest that the government actually agrees with the
major charge leveled against it by the Musavat and Popular Front
parties: Azerbaijan is an authoritarian state where divergent
political voices are not tolerated. As Musavat Party chairman Isa
Gambar told a US embassy official in 2007, "If the opposition is so
genuinely weak, what is the government afraid of? Why can't we be
shown on TV? Why can't we meet? Why are they arresting journalists?"
More trials and convictions are in the offing: Journalist Avaz
Zeynalli is still being held prior to trial while police investigate
allegations of extortion brought against him by a pro-government
member of parliament. (Her chief advisor has ignored repeated requests
for comment from ISN.) If the pattern holds, his attorney will soon be
disbarred, Zeynalli will be found guilty and given a stiff sentence:
Sentencing guidelines for extortion range from seven to ten years.
An essentially sultanistic petro-state, Azerbaijan sees little
incentive to introduce meaningful democratic reforms. The country's
rulers, presiding over government-approved `opposition' parties in
parliament and an authentic opposition that has now been virtually
eliminated, will continue the pattern of harassment and targeted
prosecution simply because it works. Social media tools such as
Facebook and Youtube may be marshaled against the government by
liberal activists, but the authorities and their allies have shown
they can use these very tools, albeit in a somewhat clumsy fashion, to
wage their own war against the opposition.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Rahder was the South Caucasus correspondent for ISN Security
Watch and currently writes the Caucasus Blog for the Foreign Policy
Association. Aside from his work as a journalist, he also teaches
International Relations at universities in the US and the former
Soviet Union.
Editor's note:
Just before publication, ISN learned that Jabbar Savalan, mentioned in
this article, was released from prison in a general amnesty. He was
the only political prisoner among the 92 convicts to be granted
clemency.
Publisher
International Relations and Security Network (ISN)
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/ISN-Insights/Detail?lng=en&id=135451&contextid734=135451&contex tid735=135437&tabid=135437&dynrel=4888caa0-b3db-1461-98b9-e20e7b9c13d4,0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233
Dec 28 2011
Azerbaijan: The Government Campaign Against Dissent
While 2011 saw activists and the opposition challenging the government
in Azerbaijan, public response was muted and unrest kept in check. The
number of political prisoners increased, and looks set to rise into
2012.
By Karl Rahder for ISN Insights
Azerbaijan's Arab Spring Moment
It was the Arab Spring that never happened: A series of demonstrations
early this year in Azerbaijan that were meant to trigger new elections
and the resignation of President Ilham Aliyev, son and successor to
former President Heydar Aliyev. As the movement gained a small measure
of momentum, one opposition leader warned in January that if the
Azerbaijani government did not agree to new, democratic elections,
`the people will rise up.'
`By then,' he said, `it will be too late for the authorities, and
events will develop in accordance with the Tunisian and Egyptian
scenarios.'
Rise up they did not. After a series of demonstrations that lasted
into June -some hastily organized by opposition parties and others
arranged via Facebook - political life in Azerbaijan was much as it
had been prior to 2011's revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere
in the Muslim world.
The authorities' response to the unrest, revealed much about the
government's fears and its strategy. As in neighboring Armenia,
opponents of the ruling elite sought to ignite widespread protest,
modeling themselves after the Arab Spring. But unlike the
demonstrations in Armenia (where something approximating democratic
pluralism is much more in evidence than in Azerbaijan), the rallies
were relatively small and the government response was swift and harsh.
The `Great People's Day' of 11 March - organized on Facebook by a
small group of Azeri activists - saw a meager turnout, a quick roundup
of protesters by police and a number of arrests. More rallies followed
in March and April, with hundreds of arrests and in some cases,
criminal prosecution.
Despite claims by one respected analyst that there are `no credible
reports or video material that would document excessive force being
used by police,' widely available video shows police roughing up
demonstrators and in one instance even shattering a bus window with a
baton in order to douse protesters (who had been herded into the bus
by police) with pepper spray.
Those charged and convicted with `creating public disorder' and
similar criminal offenses connected to protests in April include
prominent Musavat Party figure Arif Hajili and nine others, all of
whom are now serving time in prison. In May, Harvard alumnus and
Facebook activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev was sentenced to two years for
evading military service, a charge that he and many human rights
organizations labeled as politically motivated. Also convicted - on
drug possession charges - was Facebook activist Jabbar Savalan; he is
now serving a prison sentence of two years and six months.
The response from the international community has been that of
indignation, with the EU expressing concern over the convictions of
Savalan and Hajiyev as well as the bulldozing of the Institute for
Peace and Democracy in August. Amnesty International issued a
statement calling the charges against Savalan `trumped up .'
A Two-tier Strategy
The authorities' response implies a carefully constructed program of
`general harassment and targeted prosecution' in which opposition
parties and their leaders are undermined and marginalized through use
of the legal system, occasional police violence, and `black
propaganda' campaigns.
Harassment of political opponents
The `harassment' component is designed in part to demoralize the two
major opposition parties - continuing a long-term project that has
intensified since the death of Heydar Aliyev in late 2003 - and to
undercut any latent public support that might emerge for a revitalized
opposition.
Arastun Orujlu, chairman of the Baku-based East-West Center, told ISN
earlier this year that the government had begun a shift from
informally dismantling the opposition to something more concrete.
`Now their goal is to destroy the opposition formally,' he said.
In this, they have all but succeeded. Efforts in the past year or two
have included branding the Musavat Party `Armenian collaborators' (a
theme during last year's parliamentary elections) and adding
`jihadist' to the list of other sins that Popular Front Party chairman
Ali Kerimli is routinely charged with.
In late March, for instance, young demonstrators at a rally sanctioned
by the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP) gleefully displayed
photo-shopped posters of Kerimli wearing a keffiyeh and clutching an
AK-47. This was a new and typically crude tactic, complementing two
other favorite accusations that have been hurled like a cudgel at
Kerimli over the years: He colludes with Armenia and he is gay - a
deliberately explosive charge designed to alienate more conservative
elements of Azerbaijani society.
Increasingly, these campaigns utilize the Internet, and sometimes take
place via the same social media channels that were used to organize
the anti-government protests earlier this year.
In early March as the protests threatened to mushroom in Baku, the
website, qaynar.info, perceived by many to be run by pro-government
youth, posted a page identifying prominent Azeris who had Armenian
Facebook friends. Anti-Armenian feelings still run deep in Azerbaijan
since Armenia gained control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region after a
bitter war in 1994. The page is still active as of mid-December 2011.
Some of the comments on the page were particularly vindictive, such as
those of one reader who ranted that the Azeris who were singled out
`should be killed, they should be hanged in the center of the city.'
Thankfully, these comments were somewhat balanced by readers who said
things like, `may god protect us from `patriots' like you. [J]ust try
to do what Adnan Hajizada has done for this country, then maybe you
can discuss the [A]rmenians on his friends list. [Y]ou are not doing
anything for your country with this `patriotism."
The Armenian theme was also served up by Baku State University rector
Abel Maherremov, who claimed on ANS TV (formerly the only bastion of
editorial independence on Azerbaijani television) that `Armenians'
were behind the March 11th protests.
In a similar vein, pro-government blogger Rauf Mardiyev was
appropriately shocked after his discovery that six Armenians were
listed as early supporters of the Great People's Day on Facebook,
tainting the event beyond redemption.
This 'Armenian connection' was apparently an agreed-upon talking
point: YAP Deputy Executive Secretary Mubariz Gurbanli was
subsequently quoted in a piece alleging that many Armenians had joined
the 11 March Facebook page, some posing as Azeris.
Hedging their bets in case the `anything on social media that we
disagree with is tainted' message wasn't quite clear enough,
pro-government television stations in Azerbaijan ran a series of
programs during the spring on the alleged causal link between the use
of Facebook and mental illness.
Targeted prosecutions: Setting an example
`Targeted prosecutions' consist of the prosecutor's office bringing
charges against a small number of significant figures - opposition
political figure X, independent journalist Y or activist Z - who have
taken very public stands against the government or written about
corruption or other controversial topics. The charges and convictions
of the few serve as a cautionary example for others who may then think
twice before challenging the legitimacy of the government.
Favorite criminal charges include drug possession, hooliganism or, in
one ironic case a parliamentary candidate accused of 'interfering with
election officials'. Suspects are then detained prior to trial while
an `investigation' takes place. Family members find that they are
suddenly fired from their jobs: Facebook activist Elnum Majidli,
currently residing in France, informed ISN Insights that his father
was fired, and according to an article from the Index on Censorship
his mother has been told by her supervisors at work that they are
under pressure to fire her. The authorities, he told ISN, are
`listening to our telephone conversations and watching our home in
Baku.'
The next step is to disbar defense counsel - thus sabotaging the
defendants' cases. Among those disbarred this year while involved in
politically sensitive cases were Osman Kazimov, Khalid Bagirov, and
Elchin Namazov. Finally, the defendants are convicted, an outcry from
the international community ensues, and eventually the cases reach the
Azerbaijani Supreme Court, which invariably rules in favor of the
prosecution.
On November 29th of this year, the Azerbaijani Supreme Court upheld a
lower court's conviction of Savalan; on December 6th, it upheld the
conviction of Bakhtiyar Hajiyev.
Most of those convicted can look forward to serving a substantial
portion of their sentences, though the president has a habit of
commuting the sentences of political prisoners, as happened when Adnan
Hajizade and Emin Milli - the `donkey bloggers ' - were released
earlier this year.
It's possible - even likely - that President Aliyev may grant similar
commutations prior to the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in
Baku in late May. Azerbaijan's 2011 Eurovision victory may well be a
blessing for Azerbaijan's political prisoners, as the government may
find it embarrassing to have to explain its penchant for locking up
Facebook activists.
Implied Fear
The desired outcome behind the government's strategy is the stamping
out of any emerging opposition movement that could garner public
support and lead to the sort of instability that brought an end to the
rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, unlikely as that may be: A
2010 opinion poll administered by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and
another commissioned by the Caspian Information Centre in 2011
indicated strong support for the president, although opponents of the
Aliyev government claim that the methodology of the polling was
invalid.
The fear implied by the government's actions is curious, since violent
police tactics at demonstrations, a shrill propaganda campaign against
the formal opposition as well as Facebookers, and convictions in court
on phony charges suggest that the government actually agrees with the
major charge leveled against it by the Musavat and Popular Front
parties: Azerbaijan is an authoritarian state where divergent
political voices are not tolerated. As Musavat Party chairman Isa
Gambar told a US embassy official in 2007, "If the opposition is so
genuinely weak, what is the government afraid of? Why can't we be
shown on TV? Why can't we meet? Why are they arresting journalists?"
More trials and convictions are in the offing: Journalist Avaz
Zeynalli is still being held prior to trial while police investigate
allegations of extortion brought against him by a pro-government
member of parliament. (Her chief advisor has ignored repeated requests
for comment from ISN.) If the pattern holds, his attorney will soon be
disbarred, Zeynalli will be found guilty and given a stiff sentence:
Sentencing guidelines for extortion range from seven to ten years.
An essentially sultanistic petro-state, Azerbaijan sees little
incentive to introduce meaningful democratic reforms. The country's
rulers, presiding over government-approved `opposition' parties in
parliament and an authentic opposition that has now been virtually
eliminated, will continue the pattern of harassment and targeted
prosecution simply because it works. Social media tools such as
Facebook and Youtube may be marshaled against the government by
liberal activists, but the authorities and their allies have shown
they can use these very tools, albeit in a somewhat clumsy fashion, to
wage their own war against the opposition.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Rahder was the South Caucasus correspondent for ISN Security
Watch and currently writes the Caucasus Blog for the Foreign Policy
Association. Aside from his work as a journalist, he also teaches
International Relations at universities in the US and the former
Soviet Union.
Editor's note:
Just before publication, ISN learned that Jabbar Savalan, mentioned in
this article, was released from prison in a general amnesty. He was
the only political prisoner among the 92 convicts to be granted
clemency.
Publisher
International Relations and Security Network (ISN)
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/ISN-Insights/Detail?lng=en&id=135451&contextid734=135451&contex tid735=135437&tabid=135437&dynrel=4888caa0-b3db-1461-98b9-e20e7b9c13d4,0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233