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  • An Alarming Situation in Azerbaijan

    An Alarming Situation in Azerbaijan

    Published on Thursday, 07 August 2014 08:35Category: Articles and
    CommentaryWritten by Dominika Bychawska-Siniarska

    The situation of human rights defenders in Azerbaijan is increasingly
    alarming. Not only unfavourable amendments have been introduced to
    Azerbaijani law, but the authorities have also frozen bank accounts of
    a number of opposition activists. Some of them have been recently
    arrested under bogus charges.

    At the end of May 2014, the Parliament of Azerbaijan, Milli Majlis,
    introduced amendments to the law on citizenship. New reasons for
    forfeiting the citizenship of the Republic of Azerbaijan have been
    incorporated in the law. The deprivation of citizenship may occur if:
    "a citizen of the Azerbaijan Republic voluntarily obtains citizenship
    of another country; a citizen of the Azerbaijan Republic voluntarily
    serves in state bodies and municipalities, or armed forces and/or
    another armed units of a foreign country; a citizen of the Azerbaijan
    Republic behaves damaging to state security; while acquiring the
    citizenship of the Azerbaijan Republic, a person has deliberately
    falsified the data necessary to acquire citizenship, or submitted a
    falsified document". The possibility of withdrawing Azerbaijani
    citizenship in case of behaviour damaging the state security is
    particularly worrying, as the notion of "state security" is very broad
    and can easily imply the authorities' arbitrariness. The consequences
    of stripping citizenship are severe; such person is left without
    documents, social security, housing and the ability to work in the
    country.

    For many years Azerbaijani authorities have been denying registration
    of non-governmental organisations. Most of them operate on an informal
    basis. It is worth to note that the refusal to register NGOs leaves
    their leaders with no choice but to operate outside the strict legal
    framework, which is later used by the authorities as a pretext for
    their criminal prosecution.

    A new practice targeting NGOs was introduced in April 2014. The
    Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for foreign grant
    registration, began denying the registration of grants. Without a
    document of grant registration, organisation representatives are not
    allowed to withdraw money from banks in order to finance their
    activity. In the last couple of weeks, private bank accounts of
    several human rights activists have been frozen including Mirvari
    Gahramanli, Rasula Jafarova, Zohraba Ismayil and Elchin Abdullayev.
    Officially, the freezing of funds is an element of the governmental
    fight against money laundering.

    Last week the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, annulled the
    Ministry of Justice regulations which enabled the denial of grant
    registration. Until November 1st 2014, the Ministry of Justice of
    Azerbaijan will need to establish new rules of grant registrations. In
    the last couple of months several activists and journalists were
    arrested and some already handed heavy punishments, including a prison
    sentence. On March 31st 2014, Hasan Huseynli, the President of the
    "Intelligent Citizen" Enlightenment Center Public Union located in
    Ganja was arrested under fabricated charges of hooliganism.

    On April 28th 2014, Leyla Yunus (head of the Institute for Peace and
    Democracy) and her husband, a well-known historian, Arif Yunus, were
    prevented from leaving the country. Leyla Yunus is one of the most
    well-recognised Azerbaijani human rights defenders. She devotes her
    work to the peace building process between Armenia and Azerbaijan. On
    July 30th 2014, Leyla Yunus was arrested. She now faces charges of
    treason, fraud, tax evasion and illegal business activities. Her
    husband was detained on August 5th, facing similar charges.

    On July 30th 2014, Rasul Jafarov was banned from leaving the country.
    He is a leader of the Legal Protection and Awareness Society, a
    partner organization of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and
    the initiator of the 2012 Eurovision song contest campaign "Sing for
    Democracy". Two days later he was arrested on charges of abuse of
    power, tax evasion and illegal business activities.

    It is vital to point out that other human rights defenders have been
    sentenced recently to heavy penalties due to their non-registered
    activities. On May 26th 2014, the Baku Court of Grave Crimes sentenced
    Anar Mammadli, chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy
    Studies Centre to 5.5 years in prison. Bashir Suleymanli who is a
    deputy-chairman of the organisation was in the courtroom and sentenced
    to 3.5 years. The head of the Public Association for International
    Cooperation of Volunteers Elnur Mammadov was given the same term with
    two years on probation. They were found guilty for appropriation,
    illegal entrepreneurship by an organised group, tax evasion, abuse of
    official authority with grave consequences and service forgery.

    With his latest repressions, Aliyev took advantage of the fact that
    the world's eyes are focused on Ukraine, Russia and Vladimir Putin, as
    well as the situation in Gaza. By arresting activists and forbidding
    them to leave the country, he is trying to silence people who were
    informing the European public opinion about political prisoners, human
    rights violations, massive corruption and other hidden agendas of the
    presidential family. The insolence and impunity of Azerbaijani
    authorities is even greater, taking into account that the country is
    now holding the presidency of the Council of Europe, an organisation
    referring to democratic values, human rights and the rule of law.

    Aliyev's regime is investing unlimited oil and gas money in order to
    promote the country and build a positive international image.
    Repressions towards activists are an element of this strategy. They
    will not be able to disturb parliamentary elections scheduled for next
    year, as well as a big presidential show-off, the first European
    Olympics which are going to be organised in Baku in 2015.

    Unfortunately, almost a week after the arrest of Leyla Yunus, we do
    not hear strong voices of concerns from international organisations
    and western countries. Will the economic interests, one more time,
    prevail over ideas of freedom, pluralism, tolerance, rule of law and
    human rights? Time will tell. This time, however, the consequences may
    be irreversible, as there are less and less courageous people in
    Azerbaijan willing to fight for western values.

    Dominika Bychawska-Siniarska is a lawyer at the Helsinki Foundation
    for Human Rights. She coordinates several projects devoted to Eastern
    Partnership countries with a particular focus on Azerbaijan.


    http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/articles-and-commentary/1288-an-alarming-situation-in-azerbaijan



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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