Amnesty International slams human rights protection in Azerbaijan

PanARMENIAN.Net - Amnesty International released a report on situation in Azerbaijan in the light of upcoming 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, slamming violation of civil rights in that context.

“Last May, Azerbaijan secured the right to host this year’s Eurovision song contest thanks to its winning entry “Running Scared”. Only a few months earlier, this is, quite literally, what hundreds of peaceful protesters were doing in downtown Baku, as police violently sought to silence them.

A multi-million dollar PR campaign is seeking to portray the country as modern and progressive. Indeed there are achievements; the country of over 9 million people has adult literacy rates of close to 100 percent and its oil wealth is fuelling an economic boom that is transforming Baku’s skyline,” the report reads.

“Peaceful anti-government protest has effectively been criminalized by banning demonstrations and imprisoning those who organize and take part in them. Police use excessive force to break up peaceful, but officially unsanctioned demonstrations.

Journalists have been beaten, ill-treated and abducted, while the range of independent media outlets has been curbed through laws banning foreign broadcasters from national airwaves.

New methods of exercising the right to freedom of expression, such as the internet and social media, are also under siege. Bloggers and youth activists have been harassed and imprisoned on trumped-up charges. The government is currently considering ways to control and monitor internet use.

As frustration with these increasingly tight controls grew, hundreds of people gathered in the streets in March and April 2011 demanding democratic reform and greater respect for human rights,” the report further says.

According to Amnesty International, NGOs working on democratic reform and human rights issues face pressure and harassment and are often denied registration or closed on arbitrary grounds.

On August 11, for instance the office of Leyla Yunus, director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy was destroyed, days after she had spoken against the government-endorsed forced evictions and the demolition of buildings in central Baku as part of a reconstruction project. The demolition began without any prior notice and despite a court order banning any demolition attempts on the property before September 13, 2011.