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Rallies

The Azerbaijan authorities have restricted freedom of assembly, refusing to allow the opposition Azadliq bloc to hold rallies in the center of Baku, the country’s capital, or in certain of Azerbaijan’s regions. Under human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, permissible restrictions on freedom of assembly must be no more than are “necessary in a democratic society.” While on occasion there may be legitimate grounds of public order or security to justify denying permission for a demonstration in a specific location or on a specific date, the restrictions imposed on opposition rallies in Azerbaijan clearly go beyond this justification.

In the Capital, Baku

Since the October 2003 presidential election, the government imposed a de facto ban on public gatherings by opposition party members or those affiliated with opposition parties. On the few occasions when opposition members decided to go ahead with unauthorized public gatherings, the police broke up the demonstrations, sometimes detaining participants and using violence. With mounting international pressure on the government to allow freedom of assembly in the run up to the elections, a coalition of opposition parties (later to become the Azadliq bloc) decided to hold a rally on May 21, 2005. The authorities refused permission for the rally on the grounds that it would  be held too close to the May 25 official opening ceremony for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline. When opposition members attempted to go ahead with the peaceful rally, police brutally beat and detained dozens of participants.⁴⁶ After this, the opposition parties again requested permission to hold a rally on June 4, and the authorities finally granted permission for a rally to be held near the January 20 metro station, in the suburbs of Baku. From June until September, opposition groups held several rallies in this location.

The lifting of the de facto ban on public gatherings was not without continuing restrictions, however. In Baku, local authorities granted permission for rallies only in the suburbs or outlying areas.⁴⁷ In other towns and cities throughout the country, local authorities similarly refused to allow rallies in the centers.⁴⁸

After the government rejected several requests from the opposition to hold rallies in the center of Baku, the Azadliq bloc announced that it would go ahead with an unauthorized rally on September 25 near the square at the May 28 metro station, in the city center. Prior to the announced rally, police blocked access to the square, putting up road blocks and stationing police officers who denied pedestrians access to areas close to the square. Large numbers of riot police gathered in groups around the city, as well as other police, both in uniform and civilian clothes. In various parts of the city, when opposition members tried to gather together, police dispersed them, sometimes beating them with their batons. Dozens of people were detained.⁴⁹ In one incident, police attacked the car in which Isa Gambar, the leader of Musavat, was a passenger. They smashed several windows before the car drove away.⁵⁰ One international observer told Human Rights Watch that police chased him down the street for several blocks trying to take his camera from him, after they saw him photographing the events.⁵¹

Just prior to the announced 4 p.m. rally, government officials reportedly approached the Azadliq bloc to negotiate over the holding of the rally. At about 5 p.m., government representatives, as well as a YAP representative, met with representatives from Azadliq. Although there was no result from the negotiations, they agreed to meet again.⁵² Further meetings took place to negotiate the location for rallies. However, each side maintained its position, the government offering several locations outside the city center, and the opposition pursuing its right to hold a rally in the city center.⁵³

On October 1 and 9, the Azadliq bloc again attempted to hold unauthorized rallies. On both occasions large numbers of police closed off the streets, and beat and detained opposition supporters and candidates attempting to participate in the rallies.

At the attempted rally on October 1, opposition members tried to gather in various parts of the city center. Police dispersed any opposition members who gathered, using force and intimidation. A Human Rights Watch researcher saw police use batons to beat a group of opposition members as they walked along the street, and saw others with head injuries—including one with an open bloody wound to the head—that the injured said had been caused by police beating. Human Rights Watch spoke to several international observers who saw the police filling buses with people they had detained from among the crowds in the city center that afternoon. The detainees included at least four opposition candidates for the election.⁵⁴

At a press conference that afternoon, the deputy chief of the Baku city police stated that at the attempted rally several protesters, led by Rauf Arifoglu, a deputy leader of Musavat and editor-in-chief of the opposition daily newspaper, Yeni Musavat, carried iron bars wrapped in newspapers, which they used to hit police.⁵⁵ Police said that nine policemen were injured. Opposition leaders, including Rauf Arifoglu, denied the allegations, stating that they had used only peaceful means of protest.⁵⁶ A Human Rights Watch representative had observed Rauf Arifoglu with a group of protesters at the attempted rally, and noted that they were peaceful in their protest and that police hit the protesters with batons to disperse them. Other international observers reported to Human Rights Watch that they had not seen any violence from the side of the protesters.⁵⁷

The police response to the attempted rally on October 9 was reportedly even more aggressive, with police beating people indiscriminately.⁵⁸ International observers saw many injured protesters, some unable to stand. One foreign journalist for an international news agency told Human Rights Watch that he saw four police officers beating a man who was lying on the ground.⁵⁹ According to press and other reports, police beat several journalists, including a journalist for the independent Zerkalo newspaper, Idrak Abbasov, who was seriously injured. He reportedly lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital, where police reportedly put him under guard and refused to allow journalists access to him.⁶⁰ International observers reported to Human Rights Watch that they had not seen any violence from the side of the protesters.⁶¹ The authorities said that eleven policemen were injured during the demonstration.⁶²

Human Rights Watch spoke to two members of the Popular Front Party whom police detained in local police station number 22 in Baku. One of them, an old man who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution against his relatives, told Human Rights Watch: “I was with a group of people. The police began to beat me on the legs and then my head and back with a baton. They swore at us, at our party, and our mothers ... They detained me until 9 o’clock, for five hours ... I head shouts [in the police station] and screams of people being beaten. I said ‘why are you doing that?’ A policeman hit me in the stomach with a baton and said ‘be quiet!’ They threatened to break my legs, if they see me again. I am old, so I waited in the corridor while they beat the young ones in the room.”⁶³

A demonstrator, Mustafa M. (not his real name), who was also detained at police station number 22, told Human Rights Watch that he was one of three people taken into a dark room and beaten. He said that a police commander tried to force them to swear at their party leaders, as well as at George Bush and other U.S. officials, and that several police beat them with batons on the head and body for about two hours. One of the other men lost consciousness. Mustafa M. recalled: “It was as though they were drunk or under the influence of drugs. Their eyes were so frightening. We asked, ‘why are you beating us?’ They said because you shouted ‘Azadliq’ (freedom). They said, ‘if we see you again, we’ll kill you and bury you in the forest.’”

Mustafa M. was taken to the Nasimin regional court and fined for not following police instructions. He told Human Rights Watch that the two other men were each sentenced to thirteen days in prison.

In response to allegations of police brutality towards opposition protesters, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Oruj Zalov, told Human Rights Watch that the ministry trains the police to show maximum restraint and tolerance. He admitted that sometimes emotions run high and police officers could react to stressful situations in a less than perfect manner. He also said that if an individual police officer abuses his position, the ministry takes action against that officer. He did not have specific information about punishment of police officers for abusive behavior at opposition rallies or other election-related events.⁶⁴

In the Regions

In July, the opposition tried to hold rallies in the regions of Azerbaijan. Many rallies were authorized by local authorities and were held successfully. However, in some regions local authorities refused to authorize rallies, and police harassed and detained those who tried to participate.⁶⁵

In October, two leaders of Azadliq bloc parties, Isa Gambar and Ali Keremli, traveled to the north-western regions of Azerbaijan to participate in rallies. On October 5, they participated in rallies in Gazakh, Akstafa, and Tovuz. All three rallies were authorized and held in places designated by the local authorities. Although the rallies were able to go ahead, a sense of intimidation was created by the large police presence and controlling tactics of the police and local authorities. According to representatives of the Western Resource Center, a local NGO, the rally in Gazakh was held in a small square with an entrance that the participants had to pass through. High-ranking police officials stood near the entrance and observed who attended the rally.⁶⁶ Road police accompanied Gambar and Keremli and told those accompanying them that they all must travel behind the police. In Akstafa, the two leaders wanted to visit the election headquarters of Sabir Azeri, an Azadliq candidate, but police stopped them, stating that it was not on their schedule.⁶⁷ The roads around the place designated for the rally were blocked by trucks and cars, and the Azadliq bloc leaders had to go on back roads to get into Akstafa.⁶⁸ After the rally, the leaders wanted to go and place flowers on a memorial for the war dead, but again police stopped them.⁶⁹ In Tovuz, many shops were closed, and roads leading from the place designated for the rally to the center of the town were blocked.⁷⁰ Trucks poured water down an underpass that led to the city center, effectively blocking the main road.⁷¹

On October 6, the Azadliq bloc leaders cancelled a planned rally in Ganja, since the place designated by the local authorities was in a sports stadium, not in the city center, and they believed that the police presence at the entrance to the stadium would be intimidating for rally participants.⁷²

Pre-emptive Detentions Associated With the October 1 Baku Rally

Azer Babaev, a bodyguard of Isa Gambar, was detained during the night of September 30-October 1, and the next day was sentenced to twelve days in prison on public order charges. By the time his lawyer arrived at court, the judge had already issued the ruling.⁷³ 

Vali Guliev, a bodyguard for Ali Keremli, recounted to Human Rights Watch how the police surrounded his apartment block at about midnight on October 1: “They knocked on the door. I saw through the peephole that it was the police. I saw that they were in the courtyard as well. My wife asked them through the door what it was about. They said ‘about the elections.’” Guliev refused to come out and they began kicking the door and shaking the bars on the windows of the ground floor apartment. They continued to knock at the door until about 3 a.m. They remained outside the building all night and much of the next day, only leaving at about 6.30 p.m. on October 1, after the scheduled 4 p.m. attempted rally had taken place. Guliev told Human Rights Watch that the same night, police similarly surrounded the building in which another of Ali Keremli’s bodyguards was located, effectively holding him under house arrest until the early evening of October 1.⁷⁴

At about 3 p.m. on October 1, prior to the announced rally, police surrounded the home of Ali Keremli himself. When Keremli’s four bodyguards arrived to escort him to his headquarters, police arrested them. Keremli then rang journalists from opposition and independent media, and only left his home once they had arrived and were recording events. He was able to go to his headquarters.⁷⁵ A judge in the Nasimin regional court in Baku sentenced three of his bodyguards to between eight and ten days in prison for failing to follow police instructions. Lawyers who wanted to appear for the defendants were not allowed into court.⁷⁶ Keremli also claimed that his fourth bodyguard was remanded into custody on unknown criminal charges and that after detention he was not allowed access to a lawyer of his choice.⁷⁷

There were media reports that police also surrounded the headquarters of Musavat prior to the announced rally.⁷⁸