However, with this sentence, the Azerbaijani Government has added another political prisoner to its already long list of convicted activists and journalists.
Government feels threatened by a young, educated man
– Bakhtiyar Hajiyev and his message was probably too appealing to be left in liberty, Head of Information Berit Lindeman says. – The Azerbaijani Government feels
threatened by a young, educated man in command of the tools for mobilising a popular protest.
On May 18, a court in Ganja convicted Hajiyev to two years in prison for evading military service. The Court decision follows a string of arrests and convictions related to the March and April protests in the Azerbaijani Capital Baku demonstrating the ever tightening grip of president Ilham Aliyev.
Hajiyev told the judge in court that “you have a chance to show that this verdict [will not be] a political order. [However] I don’t believe you will pass a fair decision,” RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service reports.
Hajiyev, a Harvard graduate and former parliament candidate, denied the charges and attributed his arrest to his Facebook activity trying to organize antigovernment protests.
Hajiyev’s lawyer said he was planning to appeal the verdict. Hajiyev’s mother told the trial was in the spirit of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s 1937 show trials. “From day one I was saying that it is still [1937] in Azerbaijan…. Now I can see that it is even worse than ’37.”
Called for protests
Hajiyev and his supporters launched the March 11 “Great People’s Day” online event in which they asked people to click their approval of the protest, as well as to gather in different towns and cities across Azerbaijan.
Hajiyev said during the trial – which was monitored by Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe observers — that the reason he returned to Azerbaijan from the United States last year was because he thought “we had a chance to make some reforms.”
He was arrested on March 4 and ordered he
ld in pretrial detention for a month for violating an order not to leave Ganca while previous charges of evading military service were being investigated.
Isa Qambar, the chairman of the opposition Musavat Party, condemned Haciyev’s conviction. Qambar told RFE/RL the verdict “shows how afraid the authorities are of society becoming more active. This decision will only embarrass the Azerbaijani government in the eyes of its own people and in the international arena. The government should stop playing games and start real, serious reforms. And it should start by freeing journalists, youth activists, and opposition members from jails.”
The U.S. Embassy in Baku said in a statement that the timing of Haciyev’s arrest following his efforts to organize antigovernment protests “raised questions about [the] authorities’ use of the judicial system to punish dissent.”
It said the United States “firmly supports the strengthening of democratic institutions and the rule of law in Azerbaijan and calls upon judicial authorities to ensure Haciyev’s appeals are reviewed in accordance with Azerbaijani law and international commitments.”
On May 12, the European Parliament condemned the crackdown on opposition protests in Azerbaijan and expressed “deep concern” at the increased number of attacks on civil society, social-network activists, and journalists in the country.
European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek is scheduled to begin a visit to Azerbaijan on May 20.
The second one of many
Two weeks ago, on 4 May another youth activist Jabbar Savalan was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment on politically motivated charges of drug possession.
Savalan was among the first cyber activists targeted in connection with a series of pro-democracy protests. He was a member of the opposition Popular Front Party’s (APFP) youth group, and was apparently targeted for using Facebook to call for a “Day of Rage” inspired by protests in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Azerbaijani authorities have a history of using drug possession charges to imprison government critics, including satirical journalist Sakit Zahidov and editor Eynulla Fatullayev. Fatullayev is still behind bars.
On May 3, Baku’s Nasimi District Court remanded a human rights defender, Vidadi Isganderov, to two months in pretrial custody for allegedly interfering with the November 2010 parliamentary election.
Isganderov, a lawyer by education, is the head of “Support for Protection of Democracy,” a nongovernmental group that does a wide range of human rights work. Isganderov had defended the rights of homeowners who had been swindled by bogus construction companies and also those who had been victims of alleged police extortion. In past years, Interior Ministry officials had brought several defamation charges against him, but none resulted in convictions.
Isganderov was arrested twice in April for participating in unsanctioned opposition rallies and was sentenced on misdemeanor charges of disobeying police orders. When his second sentence was about to expire, instead of releasing him, the authorities initiated the new criminal charge of interference in elections against him.
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Statements:
Statement on the closing of the Human Rights House Azerbaijan
Youth activists targeted as freedom of expression clampdown continues
