Yunus: Baku Mayoralty offers retroactively to sign sale contract on demolished NGO offices

Some of these days, two weeks after demolition on August 11 of the one-floor building, which housed offices of the Institute of Peace and Democracy (IPD) and two other NGOs, a letter arrived to the E-mail address of the owner of the building, human rights activist Leila Yunus, from the Baku Mayoralty with a proposal to sell the building.

The building in Baku at No. 38 (Apartments 1-2) in Shamsi Badalbeili, which had housed, apart from the IPD, the "Campaign to Ban Landmines" and the "Women's Crisis Centre", was demolished in the evening on August 11 without notifying its owner Ms Yunus, who was abroad on her business at that moment. Besides, the NGO staff was not allowed to take out their documents, equipment and other things – they were all destroyed.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Leila Yunus that the Mayoralty's letter No. Y-5/9 said that on the basis of the General Plan of Baku "works have been launched on landscaping the central city"; therefore, they offered to buy the apartments out.

"They ask us to provide them with all the necessary documents on both apartments, in order to sign a sale contract with them; after which we'd be able to receive the due compensation of 1500 manats (about 1850 US dollars) per square meter at the "Texnikabank". The letter was signed by Eldar Yunusov, Chairman of the Executive Power of Baku on Resettlement; his signature was certified by Rasim Guliev, an employee of the Mayoralty's Office," said Leila Yunus.

She believes that the letter is "the best proof of the fact that the house was demolished without a sale contract and contrary to the law and court ruling of May 24, 2011, demanding to suspend the demolition."

The supreme executive body of Baku refused to make any detailed comments but confirmed that they had indeed proposed the tenants, including Yunus, compensations for demolished apartments at a rate of 1500 manats per square meter. The Mayoralty believes that this tariff is "fair."