20:37, 15 August 2003

17 participators of protest action were arrested in Baku

Serious collisions between the police and participants of an unapproved protest action of the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan (DPA) took place in the center of Baku yesterday.

Reinforced police detachments blocked DPA activists' way. The latter were going to the building of the Azerbaijan Central Election Commission where they intended to hold an unapproved vigil. Police-officers began to beat oppositionists.

The police acted rather hard, batoning one and all regardless of age and sex of the oppositionists. 17 people in total were arrested.

Another action of DPA activists, in front of the Prosecutor General's Office, were suppressed in similar way.

The DPA daily holds actions of protest demanding to create conditions for their leader Rasul Guliyev, who has been lived in the US as an emigrant since 1996, so that he will be able to participate in a presidential election.