| Paris,
October 28 2003
The International Federation for Human Rights
(FIDH) remains extremely preoccupied by the violent and repressive
post-electoral situation in Azerbaijan.
The FIDH has already denounced the numerous
irregularities which marred the presidential election, as well
as the use of excessive violence against opposition demonstrators
by security forces, on October 15 and 16. The OSCE and the Council
of Europe immediately condemned the violations of these basic
political and civil rights.
The FIDH has observed a serious degradation
of the local situation since then. A large number of opposition
party leaders and activists, as well as those election officials,
who refused to sign the results in their polling stations or
districts, were detained throughout the country. In a list distributed
on October 25, the Federation of Human Rights Organisations
of Azerbaijan (FHROA) names 338 arrested and 13 missing persons.
The information on arrested, disappeared and severely beaten
people continues to grow. According to FHROA information, most
persons are arrested by administrative order and jailed up to
15 days but some of them were informed that that they will face
a criminal accusation.
According to local legislation, all the protocols
of polling stations should be presented to the Central election
committee within two weeks, from where they are directed to
the Constitutional Court. In order to get these protocols collected
by any means, police started to arrest the election officials
and force them to sign the papers. Some parties even denounced
through the news agency «Turan» the falsifications
of the signatures. Some prominent members of opposition parties
were arrested, such as the Vice-President of the main opposition
party «Musavat» and the chief of the Musavat's electoral
headquarters Mr. Arif Gadzhily, the leader of Umid Party, Mr.
Igbal Agazade, and others. The Police also tried to arrest in
his flat Mr. Ajdyn Aliev, a member of the National Front of
Azerbaijan, but he refused to open the door and threatened the
police to jump out of the window in case they broke in. The
incident ended only after the intervention of the representatives
of the OSCE and US Embassy.
The ad hoc Crisis Centre established by FHROA
has received a lot of information about numerous instances of
tortures and ill-treatment. The arrested people are kept in
detention in the organised crime department in the Ministry
of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan. It is also worth mentioning
that lawyers are not allowed in the premises.
On 20 October, several TV channels broadcasted
the message of Mr. Igbal Agazade, the arrested leader of the
Umid party, who accused the leader of Musavat party of having
organised and directed «the dramatic events of 15-16 October»
after the presidential election. It was quite obvious that Mr.
Agazade had suffered physical ill-treatment and pressure before
making his declaration.
The pro-governmental TV channels also broadcasted
hate speeches against the opposition, appealing for the closure
down of opposition media and political parties, arrests and
various punishments of their activists, as well as sanctions
against human rights defenders (See Urgent Appeal AZ 001/1003/OBS
058 of the Observatory for the protection of Human Rights Defenders
– a joint programme of the FIDH and the OMCT).
Moreover, according to the Azerbaijan Journalists
Confederation (AJK) and the Azerbaijan Committee to protect
Journalists (RUH), on 15 and 16 October, 50 journalists were
beaten up – sometimes very seriously – 10 were detained
or arrested, six were prevented from gathering information and
the cameras of six others were broken – as of 23 October,
one was also missing. The journalists were attacked or arrested
when present at polling stations or when covering opposition
demonstrations.
As early as October 16 the offices of the opposition
daily Yeni Musavat were taken over by special forces and staff
members were forced to leave the buildings. On 27 October, the
Nasimi district court of Baku issued an order of arrest against
Rauf Arifoglu, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, who is
accused of “resisting police”, “inciting public
disorder” and “taking part in disordered activities”.
Moreover, groups of unidentified men in civilian clothes confiscated
more than 20 000 copies of opposition newspapers.
The FIDH recalls that one of the conditions
for Azerbaijan to get the status of member of Council of Europe
- as adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe
on 28 June 2000 - was “to revise legislation on elections
[...] so that their results can be accepted by the majority
of the political parties that will participate in the elections,
and can be considered as free and fair by international observers».
Besides, Azerbaijan had to «guarantee freedom of expression
and the independence of the media and journalists, and particularly
to exclude the use of administrative measures to restrict the
freedom of the media».
The FIDH deeply regrets that Azerbaijan, who
became a member of Council of Europe on25 January 2001, did
not meet any of these obligations. Far from establishing democracy
and the Rule of law, Azerbaijan continues to crackdown the opposition
and to destroy the previous democratic achievements with a rare
violence. Therefore, the FIDH urges once again the international
community, in particular the European Union, the Council of
Europe and the OSCE, to use political and diplomatic pressure
on the authorities, so that they conform with international
and regional human rights standards.
The FIDH calls the Parliamentary Assembly and
the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to organise
and to send an urgent investigative mission to Azerbaijan. That
envoy would collect and study all violations of political and
civil rights that occurred during the presidential election.
It should also meet with the highest authorities of Azerbaijan.
The FIDH urges the new President of Azerbaijan
to immediately stop any kind of repression and violence against
opposition activists, journalists and human rights defenders
and to conform with human rights standards Azerbaijan accepted
to respect when notably joining the Council of Europe. The new
authorities will indeed be judged in view of their capacity
to put a pacific end to the current crisis and to establish
democratic practices and the Rule of law in the country. |
