Azerbaijan Diaspora hold meeting of protest in Moscow against violations of law during election campaign

A meeting of representatives of the Azerbaijan Diaspora took place on August 28on Kaluzhskaya Square near the Oktyabrskaya metro station in Moscow. About 1200 people took part in the action of protest. According to the meeting organizers' opinion, it was aimed to express the protest and attract international public attention to "rude violations of law by the Azerbaijan authorities in the process of election campaign and mass violations of political liberties and rights of the Azerbaijan citizens."

The representative of the meeting organization committee Nizami Guliyev (Ayaz Mutalibov's assistant) alleged that the bulk of participants had been advocates of Ayaz Mutalibov. The organization committee had also invited representatives of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party to take part in the action.

Here are some extracts from the resolution adopted at the meeting:

"Today we witness an attempt to make up the precedent of putting into practice the hereditary power transfer in Azerbaijan. For the past years the Azerbaijan authorities have declared a democratic way of development but actually tried to return to the old totalitarian government".

"We demand that an investigation should be conducted in order to find out whether the election commission kept to the law while making decisions to deny the registration of presidential contenders. We also request that the violations of electoral legislature should be eliminated and the Central Election Commission should be formed on a just and equal basis. We call the wide international public, international democratic institutions and heads of democratic states to pay their attention, at last, to the miserable, humiliating and unjust conditions of the Azerbaijan people. We ask to take all necessary actions to make the Azerbaijan authorities discharge all the obligations taken when Azerbaijan had been admitted to the Council of Europe and execute the requirements contained in the report of the PACE monitoring group (June 2003). Those requirements provide that the liberation of all political prisoners be carried out to September 1, 2003 and the first president of Azerbaijan Mutalibov and the ex-speaker of the parliament Guliyev be given an opportunity to return to Azerbaijan and take part in the elections".

"The choice of all Azerbaijan people is the democratic development of the country, free democratic elections, equal rights and legitimacy".