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Other Arrests, Beatings, Intimidation and Pressure to Stop Campaigning

Police and local authorities have used a range of other pressures, including beating, threats, and detentions, to dissuade opposition parties and independent candidates from active campaigning. Apart from the cases outlined below, Human Rights Watch documented and received information about other cases, but the victims of abuse were too frightened to give permission for their cases to be made public.⁷⁹

Yeni Fikir Cases

A government campaign against Yeni Fikir (New Thinking), a youth organization that is closely aligned to the Popular Front Party, began in August 2005, raises concerns. Although Human Rights Watch is not in a position to investigate the government’s allegations against Yeni Fikir, the context and timing of the campaign suggest that it may be politically motivated. Certainly, the government would like to discredit Yeni Fikir and the Popular Front Party in particular, and the opposition movement in general. Since the revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, where youth movements had the reputation of playing a key role in bringing change, in Azerbaijan the profile of opposition-oriented youth organizations rose signficantly.. The authorities' persecution of these groups has increased throughout 2005.⁸⁰ The effect of the government’s recent actions has been to signficantly hamper youth groups’ activism, forcing them to focus mainly on their own survival.

In early August, law enforcement officers in camouflage uniforms and black masks arrested Ruslan Bashirli, the head of Yeni Fikir. The next day the Prosecutor General’s Office made a statement that Bashirli was being charged with attempting to forcefully overthrow the government, accusing him of meeting with Armenian security service officers in Georgia on 28-29 July and accepting U.S.$2,000 from them.⁸¹ The statement said that one of the Armenian agents had suggested using live gunfire during an opposition rally in order to destabilize the country. The statement also accused  the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a U.S. nonprofit organization, closely aligned to the U.S. Democratic Party, that trains political parties and civil society groups, of giving instructions and money to Bashirli to support a revolution. NDI denied the charges. For days after Bashirili’s arrest, Azerbaijani television showed video footage of  Bashirli drinking at a table with the two alleged Armenian agents and another member of Yeni Fikir, Osman Alimuradov.⁸² The prosecuting authorities claimed that the alleged Armenian agents had filmed the meeting and then had given the video cassette to Alimuradov, threatening to use it against the Yeni Fikir members should they change their minds about cooperation. Back in Baku, Alimuradov allegedly began to feel uncomfortable about the meeting in Tbilisi, and decided to inform on Bashirli, handing the tape over to the Azerbaijani authorities.⁸³ It is not clear how the television stations received copies of the video tape.

Bashirli’s lawyer, Elchin Gambarov, told Human Rights Watch that he was denied access to his client for two days and that law enforcement authorities questioned Bashirli without him, in the presence of a state-appointed lawyer instead. Gambarov recounted that during this questioning, law enforcement officers put pressure on Bashirli to give evidence against Ali Keremli, offering that if he made a statement on television saying that he gave Keremli U.S.$1,000 of the money he received in Georgia, he would be released within twenty-four hours. Bashirli refused to make such a statement.⁸⁴ After charges were officially brought against him, he was remanded into custody for three months.

Ruslan Bashirli’s father, Jalil Bashirov, told Human Rights Watch that he and his family were attacked and harassed after his son’s arrest. He recounted: “On August 6... about 100 [unknown] people attacked our house. They threw eggs and stones on our house, after it was shown on television. [Ruslan’s] eighty-five-year-old grandmother, an invalid with only one leg, was in the courtyard. Two stones hit her... We live in a village and now noone dares to visit us. If someone just says hello to us, that person will immediately be called to the prosecutor’s office. I was the director of a school. The head of the department of education rang me and called me to his office and demanded that I resign. On August 26 I left the school.”⁸⁵

In what appeared to be a well-organized campaign, for days after Bashirli’s arrest pro-government demonstrators also carried out protests, and at times attacks, on offices of the Popular Front Party throughout the country.⁸⁶ For example, in Baku, the protesters threw eggs and tomatoes at the office.⁸⁷ On August 6, people attacked the Popular Front Party office in Nakhchivan, storming the office and attacking opposition supporters. They beat Mohammad Rzaev, a journalist for the opposition newspaper, Azadliq. He told Human Rights Watch: “They broke my nose. This was filmed on video and we told the prosecutor’s office, but they weren’t even interested... They refused to take this shirt [a shirt covered in blood that he had been wearing during the attack] and the video.”⁸⁸

According to Rzaev and other members of the Popular Front Party who were present during the attack, police stood outside in the street, but refused to intervene to stop the attack.⁸⁹

Similarly, in Lenkoran on August 10, people stormed the Popular Front Party office, insulting the occupants, throwing furniture and equipment to the floor, and throwing stones.⁹⁰

In most cases, police failed to take action to protect the Popular Front Party offices and members, and did not bring any prosecutions for the attacks. Although the demonstrations were unauthorized, in contrast to the unauthorized rallies of the opposition the police in most cases did not take action to disperse the crowds, and did not detain or bring charges against participants when there was evidence of criminal activities.

During the next few weeks after Bashirli’s arrest, prosecutors called in members of Yeni Fikir for questioning, demanding that they make statements against their organization and the Popular Front Party. One of the members was Sarvan Sarhanov, who told Human Rights Watch that three prosecutors questioned him at the Prosecutor General’s office. He said that they demanded that he appear on television and make a statement against Yeni Fikir, the Azadliq bloc, and the Popular Front Party. They threatened him with imprisonment, and brought in a pair of pliers that they threatened to apply to his fingers. After holding him for about six hours, they let him go.⁹¹

On September 12, police arrested Said Nuri, a deputy head of Yeni Fikir, and accused him also of attempting to violently overthrow the government. The authorities accused him of entering into criminal relations with Bashirli and continuing “his activities in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, from 30 July 2005 to 03 August 2005 as a preparation stage for the provision of weapons and equipment, material needs and other supports for seizing power [in Azerbaijan].”⁹² He had been in Poland during this period for a conference run by the European Institute for Democracy.⁹³ After spending a day in the police lock-up, his health deteriorated due to a pre-existing serious blood disorder, and he was hospitalized. According to his lawyer, Yaver Hussein, the conditions in the hospital were horrific. He told Human Rights Watch: “On the day they put him in the hospital ... the doctor refused to take the documents [outlining his health condition] or to talk to me. She was scared and under pressure. She was accompanied by the police ... He was put in a terrible place. The doctor said that there was no other place for him ... He was lying in a place where there was no electricity, not in a room, but a dirty place ... where they throw dirty things away. There was a terrible smell. They said there were rats in there ... I didn’t see. It was dark.”⁹⁴

After Hussein made complaints and found another hospital that agreed to take Nuri, the hospital relocated him to a ward.

Under Azerbaijani law, a detainee must be taken to court and charges officially brought within forty-eight hours of arrest. The authorities did not organize a court hearing for Nuri, yet he remained under police guard in the hospital. Police also controlled access to Nuri, allowing only his lawyer, mother and sister to see him. Almost three weeks after his arrest, he remained under guard in the hospital and police blocked access by his friends and colleagues, as well as by a diplomatic delegation.⁹⁵

On September 13, Ramin Tagiev, also a deputy head of Yeni Fikir, gave a press conference at which he said that people were following him and watching his house. He feared imminent arrest.⁹⁶ The next day police detained him.⁹⁷ They accused him also of attempting to violently overthrow the government while traveling around the country, and of “molding opinion about the falsity of elections among the population.”⁹⁸ On September 16, he was remanded into custody for three months.⁹⁹

Attacks

Apart from police violence against rally participants, there have been individual attacks against opposition and independent candidates and supporters. These attacks have uniformly gone unpunished.

In the lead up to the period for registration of election candidates, the Popular Front Party in the autonomous republic of Nakhchivan¹⁰⁰ held a rally, the first such to be authorized by the authorities in twelve years, and meetings with communities.¹⁰¹ On July 18, Sahib Husseinov, a party member from Nehram village, accompanied Asaf Guliev, the leader of the Nakhchivan branch of the Popular Front Party, to a meeting with community members in his village. According to Husseinov, law enforcement officers approached him during the meeting, and told him to leave and not to accompany Guliev. He refused and continued to accompany Guliev during and after the meeting. Husseinov told Human Rights Watch: “The next day, police forced me to go to the regional police station. They asked me if I have an international passport. They beat me and I lost consciousness. They went to my house and took my passport. After that, four people forced me into a police car ... They took me to the river [which borders Turkey]. They hit me there and forced me to go to the border with Turkey. [They threatened me], “if you don’t go across the border, we’ll kill your family and burn your house.”¹⁰²

They accompanied Husseinov to the border crossing, giving his passport to the Azerbaijani border officials to stamp. They paid for a Turkish visa stamp, and forced Husseinov to cross into Turkey. Once he was in Turkey, he rang home and told his father what had happened and then returned to the border. The Turkish border officials let him pass, but he told Human Rights Watch that the Azerbaijani officials refused to allow him back into Azerbaijan. He waited for about six hours, until midnight. Then the border officials let him through. He found out later that after he rang his father, people in his village had carried out a demonstration, blocking the main highway nearby, and demanding his return. He gave interviews to the media and made complaints to the Prosecutor General’s Office and other official government bodies. However, he was not aware of any action having been taken in relation to his complaints.¹⁰³

In a second attack, on September 27, after going to the local election commission to organize his registration as a candidate in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic parliamentary elections, two men beat Husseinov in Nehram village, leaving him with head injuries and two broken ribs.¹⁰⁴ He believed that the attack was politically motivated, and was carried out to dissuade him from putting up his candidacy in the elections.¹⁰⁵ He claimed that prior to the attack, law enforcement agents had been following him and one of the attackers had previously threatened him when he had attended an opposition meeting. Observers from the OSCE documented the case, and the authorities arrested the two attackers and charged them with the assault. The authorities claimed that the assault was a response to a personal conflict that had occured some months previously in Istanbul between Husseinov and the two men.¹⁰⁶ Husseinov refuted these claims, stating that he was not in Istanbul but in Azerbaijan at the time alleged.¹⁰⁷

On August 10, there was another attack in Nakhchivan on a Popular Front Party member, Abdul Abdulaev. He told Human Rights Watch that in the middle of the day two men forced him into a car and took him out of the city: “I came out of my apartment. Two men said that I should get into their car. [I refused.] Two police who I know from the criminal investigation department were watching and didn’t do anything as the men forced me into the car, which was without any license plate ... They took me out of the city and cut my hair with scissors, and painted me with the colors of the Azerbaijani flag.”¹⁰⁸

According to Abdulaev, they spray painted him from head to toe with blue, red, and green, telling him that “this will be a lesson to others not to carry the state flag at rallies.”¹⁰⁹ (He had carried the Azerbaijani flag during the July 26 opposition rally in Nakhchivan.) They brought him back to the city center and left him. Although Abdulaev made complaints to the prosecutor’s office and other official government bodies, no one has been prosecuted.¹¹⁰

On August 22, in an attack in Baku that appeared to be politically motivated, unknown men beat Yashar Jafarli, the head of an unregistered election bloc, Builders of Civil Society, and head of an NGO called the Union of Retired and Reserve Army Officers. Several men entered the election bloc office and beat Jafarli, leaving him unconscious, his face swollen and his body bruised all over.¹¹¹ They ransacked the office, leaving computers and other technical equipment overturned and on the floor. At the time of the attack, the bloc was preparing forty-two candidates for registration in the election, including several former army officers who were calling for reforms in the army. Some days prior to the attack, Jafarli gave a long newspaper interview in which he was very critical of the government, criticized the lack of human rights in the army, and stated his support for opposition parties. Jafarli told Human Rights Watch that prior to the attack, a local police officer had been to his office several times, warning him and his colleagues not to work with opposition parties and not to be involved in rallies. After international attention to the attack, prosecuting authorities opened a criminal case, but this has not resulted in any prosecutions.¹¹²

Detentions

Apart from detentions of opposition members and supporters attempting to attend unauthorized rallies, police have targetted candidates’ relatives and campaign workers, in an apparent effort to discourage candidates from campaigning. Others were detained while trying to put up campaign posters or handing out campaign leaflets, and sometimes were sentenced to several days in prison on public order offenses. The cases outlined below are only a sampling of the many such detentions documented by Human Rights Watch.

In late August, police detained a campaign worker for an independent candidate, Haji Ibrahim Nehremli, in the Babek region of Nakhchivan. Idiat Husseinli, the campaign worker, told Human Rights Watch that at about 9 p.m. approximately eight police officers circled the park where he was sitting, and told him to come with them to the police station. They took him to the Babek regional police station, where they “told me that since I used to be a YAP member, I shouldn’t help Haji Ibrahim.” Then the head of the police station warned Husseinli that if he continued to campaign for Nehremli, the police would take “appropriate measures.” After about an hour, they let Husseinli go.

On September 20 and 21, in Ganja, police detained and visited at home members of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party (ADP). In the early evening on September 20, about thirty police officers stood outside the ADP headquarters while the party held a members’ meeting to discuss the upcoming elections. When people left the meeting, police detained one member, Ilgar Halilov, charged him with a minor public order offense, and he was sentenced to three days in prison. That day, police also visited the home of deputy head of the Ganja branch of the ADP, Bakhtiar Yusupov. Yusupov was not at home, but police warned his family that he should stop going to political meetings and said  that he should come to the police station. The next day they visited again and repeated the request that he go to the police station. On September 21, police detained another party member, Garay Novruzov, while he was visiting his sister’s house, and similarly charged him with minor public order offenses, for which he was sentenced to eight days in prison.¹¹³ Yusupov told Human Rights Watch: “Now people don’t come to our office. They are scared to come.”¹¹⁴

On October 4, in the middle of the day, police detained Elnur Sadiqov, the son of Chengiz Sadiq, a candidate for the Ata bloc in constituency number 37 in the city of Ganja.¹¹⁵ Police from the Nizami regional police station in Ganja rang Sadiqov and asked him to go to the police station. When he got there, they took his mobile telephone. He told Human Rights Watch: “They told me to sign a statement that at 11 a.m., today I insulted some policemen. I said that it is absurd because I was at home at 11 a.m. Then they slapped me around to force me to sign it.”¹¹⁶

He refused to sign the statement. After threatening to bring charges against him, a high-level police officer warned him not to be involved in politics any more. They let him go after holding him for about five hours.¹¹⁷

In another case of pressure on family members of candidates, on October 7 police detained forty-eight-year-old Alem Mustafaev, brother of Nuradin Mustafaev, an independent candidate in constituency number 40 in Ganja. Alem Mustafaev's lawyer and brother claim that the arrest was politically motivated and aimed at pressuring Nuradin Mustafaev to withdraw his candidacy in the elections¹¹⁸. According to Alem Mustafaev's lawyer, at 1 p.m. police came to Alem Mustafaev’s house and asked him to come to the Kapaz regional police station. A senior police officer spoke to him and told him to tell his brother to withdraw his candidacy. Mustafaev replied that he would not do that, but that even if he did, his brother would not withdraw. Then police officers began to slap him around and insult him, his parents, and his family. They held him until the next day, when they said that they were bringing charges against him, accusing him of trying to attack two police officers in the police station the day before, and breaking a chair.¹¹⁹ Law enforcement officers questioned Mustafaev without a lawyer present. On October 10 his lawyer from Baku arrived and appeared for him in court. The judge refused bail, despite serious concerns for Mustafaev’s health, and remanded Mustafaev into custody for two months.¹²⁰

Detentions During the Attempted Return of Rasul Guliev

Early in the election campaign, leaders of the ADP announced that Rasul Guliev, the Chairman of the ADP and former parliamentary speaker, who had been in exile in the U.S. for nine years, would return to Azerbaijan before election day. Guliev had left Azerbaijan after a disagreement with President Heydar Aliev in 1996, and was later charged in absentia with embezzlement of state funds.¹²¹ During the registration period for the 2005 elections he was registered as a candidate, something the authorities had refused to do in the 2000 parliamentary and 2003 presidential elections.¹²² However, hours after his registration, the Procurator-General’s office announced that the immunity from prosecution that he acquired as a candidate had been withdrawn.¹²³ Lawyers acting for Guliev appealed against the decision, but were unsuccessful in reinstating his immunity.¹²⁴

The authorities made it clear, in repeated statements, that they would arrest Guliev if he tried to return to Azerbaijan.¹²⁵ On October 11, the ADP announced that Guliev would return to Azerbaijan on October 17.¹²⁶

The Azadliq bloc tried to use this planned return as an opportunity to rally their supporters and strengthen their election campaign. The authorities, who said that the call to supporters to meet Guliev upon his arrival was part of a plan to help Guliev avoid arrest,¹²⁷ reacted by making large numbers of arrests, and deploying military and police personnel throughout Baku.

Even before the announcement of Guliev’s return, the authorities increased pressure on ADP members. On October 7, Fahraddin Guliev, a distant relative of Rasul Guliev and the head of the ADP’s security service, spoke to Human Rights Watch and said that law enforcement officers were following him constantly and he was afraid of imminent arrest.¹²⁸ Later that day, police stopped Fahraddin Guliev in his car with two other party members whom he was taking home. He told Human Rights Watch: “Three black jeeps stopped in front of us with men in civilian clothes. They treated us as though we were gangsters. They didn’t show us any documents [to identify themselves as police officers].” The police took them to the Narimanov district police station in Baku and charged Fahraddin Guliev with failing to comply with police instructions. In court, he was not allowed a lawyer of his choice and was sentenced to ten days in prison.¹²⁹

Law enforcement authorities targetted other relatives of Guliev for arrest. According to press reports, the week before Guliev’s announced arrival, law enforcement officers began to openly follow Guliev’s brother, Telman Guliev, and keep other family members, and his house, under surveillance. Family members reportedly claimed that they were afraid to leave the house, in case of arrest or other harassment.¹³⁰ Human Rights Watch received information that on October 16, law enforcement authorities visited the house of Isha Jafarov, also a relative of Guliev’s. He was not at home, but the family believed that the officers wanted to arrest Jafarov.¹³¹

On October 16 and 17, the number of arrests increased. People were detained on the way to the airport, and from their homes. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, twenty-six people were arrested on October 16 and thirty-three on October 17,¹³² although other reports indicated much higher numbers of arrests.¹³³ On October 17, according to press reports, police arrested Etibar and Sabir Guliev, Rasul Guliev’s nephews, when they were in a car on the way to Baku airport.¹³⁴ Human Rights Watch received information that there were  hundreds of people detained in the Nizamin Main Police Station in Baku.¹³⁵ According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, three people were charged with criminal offenses of illegal possession of arms and violence towards the police, and the rest were charged with public order offenses.¹³⁶

On October 17, police blocked off the road to the airport, only allowing some cars through. There was a large police presence and a Human Rights Watch researcher saw armed people in what appeared to be army uniforms. Trucks of internal troops were stationed near Azadliq square in the city center and the parliament.¹³⁷ Troops were deployed at the airport, and, according to one eyewitness, snipers were stationed at points throughout the airport.¹³⁸ The Ministry of Internal Affairs claims that on the evening of October 16, police found several caches of arms several hundred meters from where police set up checkpoints.¹³⁹

Guliev left London on a chartered flight to Baku.According to the charter flight company, the airplane flew to Ukraine, en route to Baku, but could not continue because the Azerbaijani authorities refused to give it clearance to land in Baku.¹⁴⁰ (The Azerbaijani authorities denied this version of events, saying that they gave permission for the airplane to land.¹⁴¹) After landing in Ukraine, police arrested Guliev on an international warrant with a request for extradition to Azerbaijan,¹⁴² but on October 20 a court in Ukraine released Guliev and refused to extradite him to Azerbaijan.

Guliev’s attempted return was followed by dismissals and arrests of high-level government officials, including a government minister and his brother, who were accused of cooperating with Rasul Guliev in an attempted coup d’etat.¹⁴³