Campaign "Sing for Democracy" is over in Azerbaijan

Today, initiators of the ended campaign "Sing for Democracy" summed up of their activities of several months and noted serious problems with the situation of human rights in Azerbaijan.

In August 2011, a coalition of the Azerbaijani human rights organizations decided to launch a campaign to attract attention to the problems with the situation of human rights in the country on the eve of the song contest "Eurovision-2012", which would be held in Baku. On January 23, the initiators of the campaign "Sing for Democracy" declared their intention to go to protest actions in case if the authorities failed to take effective measures to solve problems with human rights.

"Within the campaign, we have conducted many events: 'round tables', press conferences, flash mobs, and meetings with representatives of international organizations and foreign media; we disseminated video records in social networks. We believe that to some extent we managed to achieve our goals, and the problems with democracy and human rights have attracted attention of world media," said Rasul Djafarov, the coordinator of the campaign "Sing for Democracy", the leader of the Club for Human Rights.

However, he stated that the campaign had not received support from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), conducting the song contest "Eurovision". "Freedom of expression is a fundamental principle of the EBU. However, the organization appeared to be completely indifferent to violations of freedom of expression, speech, media, and assembly in the country, hosting the song contest 'Eurovision'," said Rasul Djafarov.

Leila Yunus, another member of the campaign, Director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD), called the situation with human rights in Azerbaijan "flagrant". She claimed strengthening of authoritarianism in Azerbaijan and pointed to the presence in the country of more than 70 political prisoners, mass violations of property rights of citizens.

According to her, for the period from 2009, 60,000 Baku residents were unlawfully evicted from their apartments under the pretext of urban development of the city, and the song contest "Eurovision" had accelerated the process. According to Leila Yunus, "seizure of citizens' property was committed in violation of the laws, without general plan of the city, resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, and official budget allocations."

She called on journalists from Europe not to remain indifferent to the problems with human rights in Azerbaijan and to strengthen control over politicians in their countries to urge them not to go on compromises "with the corrupted regime in Azerbaijan."