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Azerbaijan: Ramil Safarov and the Making of an Anti-Hero

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  • Azerbaijan: Ramil Safarov and the Making of an Anti-Hero

    EurasiaNet.org, NY
    Oct 5 2012

    Azerbaijan: Ramil Safarov and the Making of an Anti-Hero

    October 5, 2012 - 1:32pm, by Shahin Abbasov


    When Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev pardoned then-Lt. Ramil
    Safarov last summer for his 2004 slaying of an Armenian junior
    officer, Baku was initially defiant in the face of international
    criticism. But defiance has given way to reticence in recent weeks.

    Since Safarov's pardon, the debates within Azerbaijan about whether or
    not `we did everything correctly' have not died down. And Safarov,
    once the official toast of Azerbaijan, has turned into an anti-hero
    virtually overnight.

    Once fêted with flowers, given a promotion and a new Baku apartment,
    Safarov now seems like a wayward relative, tolerated for the sake of
    family honor, but no longer praised among friends and neighbors.
    Officials no longer tout his patriotism, and he has become a
    non-person in the eyes of pro-government media.

    Maj. Safarov himself does not grant interviews, or make public
    appearances. His expected job at a Ministry of Defense training center
    in Baku is not known to have begun; perhaps because of concerns about
    Armenian revenge attacks.

    The government has not commented on its sudden cold-shouldering of
    Safarov, but Baku-based political analyst Elhan Shahinoglu believes
    that international and domestic criticism of Azerbaijan's handling of
    the matter prompted the government to change course. `Of course,
    Safarov will not be returned to prison, or sent back to Hungary, but
    he will not be presented as a national hero anymore,' Shahinoglu said.

    That stance could be seen in the circumspect media coverage of the
    Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's October 5 session,
    an event at which Azerbaijan's pardon of Safarov came up for
    discussion.

    In the days after the pardon, Aliyev bristled at outside criticism.
    The Azerbaijani president took particular issue with criticism from
    the Council of Europe's Norwegian secretary general, Thorbjørn
    Jagland, asking if it was `admissible' for Norway to have sentenced
    Anders Behring Breivik to only 21 years in prison for the murder of 81
    people in 2011.

    Contrary to perceptions abroad, the government has faced ongoing
    domestic criticism for its `glorification' of Safarov. No opinion
    polls have been conducted on the topic, but one recent survey on the
    popular news site Contact.az showed that 52 percent of 584
    self-selected users condemned Safarov's release from prison.

    In a September 26 statement, the Public Council on Karabakh (PCK), a
    non-registered Baku-based group made up of about 30 prominent
    political analysts, human rights defenders and mostly pro-opposition
    politicians termed the government's handling of Safarov's case
    `inadmissible and wrong.'

    `It harms Azerbaijan's image,' the statement read. `It also seriously
    harms the legal and moral guidelines for the younger generation.'

    One of the most widely circulated criticisms of the government's
    policy was a September 6 opinion piece from the Kultura.az portal,
    written by Rahman Badalov, a Baku-based political analyst. The
    glorification of Safarov is `an insult to the memory of the real
    heroes who died in [the] Karabakh' conflict, Badalov wrote.

    Eldar Namazov -- a former presidential aide to the late president
    Heydar Aliyev, and currently a leader of the opposition group, For the
    Sake of Azerbaijan Public Forum - said a court should have handled the
    matter of a pardon for Safarov, not the president. `[T]he government,
    by its immediate pardon, took a clearly political decision, which was
    criticized internationally,' Namazov explained.

    Of late, international criticism has faded, in large part because of
    geopolitical factors. In particular, the United States and the
    European Union don't want to alienate Azerbaijan, given the ongoing
    crisis with Baku's southern neighbor, Iran, over Tehran's nuclear
    program.

    It's not surprising, then, that newly arrived US Ambassador Richard
    Morningstar did not touch on the Safarov matter during his first news
    conference on September 28, and, similarly, PACE, usually an outspoken
    critic of Azerbaijan, discussed Safarov on October 5 without offering
    official condemnation.

    For now, the conclusion appears unanimous: some things are better left unsaid.

    http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66015

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