Eurovision and human rights in Azerbaijan

This Saturday, Azerbaijan’s capital city, Baku, will host the Eurovision Song Contest. Few of the international contestants are probably aware of Azerbaijan’s appalling human rights record, particularly in regard to free expression.

President Ilham Aliyev succeeded his father, Heydar, a former Soviet Communist, in 2003 and has sustained his father’s hardline approach. There is growing alarm amongst human rights organisations at the prosecutions and violent harassment of members of the media in Azerbaijan, attacks on other dissenting voices and the authorities’ brutal response to peaceful protests. Although violations of freedom of expression are nothing new in the South Caucasus state, attacks and imprisonment of journalists, bloggers and human rights activists have risen sharply in the last two years. They face continuous harassment and interference from the authorities and many dissidents find themselves imprisoned or otherwise targeted for speaking out.

A coalition of lobby groups, coordinated by Article 19, has joined forces to campaign for free expression in Azerbaijan in the run up to Eurovision. Known as the International Partnership Group for Azerbaijan (IPGA), they have released a report, RUNNING SCARED Azerbaijan’s Silenced Voices and launched a petition addressed to the international contestants.  

According to IPGA, on 26 March 2011, Seymour Khaziyev, a journalist with the opposition newspaper Azadliq, was abducted by six masked men as he was returning to his home on the outskirts of Baku. Taken in a minibus to an unknown location with a sack over his head, he was then tortured for two hours. The two telephones he was carrying were confiscated and the contents of his laptop were examined. He was warned against writing articles critical of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. One of his attackers asked him to be as “intelligent and quiet as the others”. He was finally released, with his hands still tied, a few miles from where he was captured.

Musicians are also subject to attack. Human Rights Watch reported that on 17 March 2012, two young musicians were detained during a protest in Baku. Members of the popular band Bulistan, they were playing at a peaceful demonstration. Unidentified men attacked the performers causing a brawl. Uniformed police quickly detained the band’s lead singer Jamal Ali and bassist Natig Kamilov.

Ali and Kamilov allege that they were badly beaten by police during their detention. Bulistan is known for its political protest songs and had previously participated in opposition demonstrations. They were later sentenced in closed trials to administrative detention on charges of petty hooliganism.

More recently, on 18 April 2012, Idrak Abbasov, a reporter for newspaper Zerkalo and the Institute for Reporters Freedom and Safety (IRFS) was among several journalists attacked by security guards working for the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic in the Binagady district of Baku. They were reporting on and filming the demolition of houses by the company.  The guards seized Abbasov’s camera and repeatedly kicked him. The journalist was left with severe trauma to his right eye and concussion. He was unconscious for several hours after the incident and had to be hospitalised.

IPGA is calling on the organiser of the Eurovision Song Contest, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), to hold the authorities accountable for their actions. Its petition urges the singers attending the contest to show support for the protection of human rights and civil liberties in Azerbaijan. Index on Censorship has also launched an online petition urging President Aliyev to protect Azerbaijani citizens’ right to free speech.

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• Reiner Torheit

  Found your WMD in Iraq yet, Lucy?  No, didn’t think so.  How many civilians have you killed there so far?

  Shut your silly trap until you’re in a position to give moral lectures, stupid sow.

• RiskManager

  What a stupid and nasty comment.  What has Iraq got to do with these allegations?  Primitive stuff Reiner, yet I would not deny your right to say what you want to.  

  Maybe these allegations are not true, or maybe they are but you think you can justify these actions.  Nothing in your cretinous and offensive comment enlightens us on these questions.  Idiot.  I hope you reap what you sow, and expect you will.

• Rodandmooshka

  I first visited Azerbaijan in 1994- tanks in the streets, police beating my driver and trying to take my radio cassette. It was run by an ex KGB Communist. It basicaly still is. Son of Aliyev is not the power anymore- it is his wife and uncle- the speaker in parliament. I met my Azeri wife in Dubai in 2002 and we lived in Baku in 2004/5. Her family live in houses that we wouldn’t be allowed to keep chickens in. We were assaulted by the police demanding money more than once. The common theme through all the time I have known Azerbaijan is BP. BP and Aliyev!! Make of that what you will. I know where I stamd.
  My wife is now British and studying for a Nursing degree in Scotland— thank goodness!

• 55hajovi55

  Azerbaijan is dry aircraft carrier for American and Izrael air force. Azerbs ar ~our bad guys~. A post mortem song for Downtown Teheran is yet not in the contest line. See the Fox News.
  Jovibovi

• Richard Carter

  Well said, Riskmanager, Tofheit’s spewings are the kind of thing that bring discredit on the internet: crude, ignorant and irrelevant comments that tell us all we need to know about the likes of Reiner Torheit.

  Azerbaijan’s regime is a thoroughly nasty, corrupt and repressive disgrace, and good on Lucy Popescu for pointing this out.