Mamedli: Situation with human rights in Azerbaijan on the eve of "Eurovision 2012" becomes worse

In Azerbaijan, in the near future, the initiators of the public campaign "Eurovision 2012: Sing for Democracy" plan to start protest actions, should the authorities fail to take effective measures to address human rights problems.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on October 21, 2011, Azerbaijani rights defenders organized - within the campaign "Songs of freedom in a non-free country" - debates in the Baku Media Centre, where they expressed their concern about the situation with human rights in the country. The campaign aims to draw international attention to issues of human rights in Azerbaijan on the eve of the song contest "Eurovision-2012" with the aim to contribute to solution of the problems. In total, today 22 NGOs take part in the campaign.

"Unfortunately, the situation in Azerbaijan with human rights on the eve of the international song contest 'Eurovision-2012' is not improving, but rather becomes worse," said Anar Mamedli, the coordinator of the "Alliance in Defence of Political Freedoms" (ADPF).

According to his story, "the last month has seen still more violations of property rights; a campaign was deployed against taxi drivers; an activist Bakhtiyar Mamedov, who defended the property rights of servicemen was arrested; torture is still applied in jails."

However, he called the existence of political prisoners in the country to be the main problem.

"The authorities are trying to present critics of human rights violations as 'non-patriots'. However, we are not against the 'Eurovision' contest in Azerbaijan. We just want that all the political prisoners are released before the contest. They are also citizens of Azerbaijan and have the right to watch the contest when at large," Anar Mamedli has emphasized.

Leila Yunus, Director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD) and another activist of the campaign, also called the civil society to collect signatures under the petition demanding to release political prisoners.

She also noted that at present the fate of political prisoners in Azerbaijan causes more concern of international organizations than of the domestic institutions of civil society. In particular, Mr Yunus mentioned the appeal of Markus Lening, the Ombudsman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany, to release all political prisoners; the appeal of graduates of the Harvard University to stop the criminal prosecution of their classmate Bakhtiyar Gadjiev; and the demand of Iranian students to release the convicted activists of the Islamic Party.

Leila Yunus also plans to send materials to world media and international organizations outlining human rights violations in Azerbaijan and trying to urge the world community to exert pressure on the country's authorities.

Emin Guseinov, Director of the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), said about the upcoming arrival in Baku of a large group of foreign journalists and urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to issue visas to them.

He also expressed his regret that a filming team from a Scandinavian country had been rejected visas. In his view, preventing foreign journalists from entering the country is an absurdity, because the today's multimedia technologies make it impossible to hide any domestic problems with human rights from the world community.

According to the human rights defender, the campaign "Sing for Democracy" works towards solving problems in six areas: release of political prisoners; protection of property rights; ensuring the freedoms of self-expression and assemblies; ensuring the independence of the judiciary; and simplification of visa issuance.

However, as Mr Mamedli has stated, no progress is observed in any of the above areas.

"I don't speak about other issues, but on the arrest of the editor-in-chief of the 'Khural' newspaper the European Broadcasting Union must speak out, since the point is about violations of the freedoms of speech, press and self-expression," Mr Mamedli has concluded.