On October the 16th last year, when the Baku police and army´s monitoring of the demonstrations following the presidential elections turned violent, Project Manager and Co-ordinator for HRH´s engagement in Azerbaijan Berit Lindeman, herself in Baku as an election observer, received a phone-call from a leading local human rights defender. “It is terrible,” the human rights defender yelled. “The police and the army are beating up the thousands of demonstrators downtown Baku, right at Freedom Square. They are shooting and killing us. You must help. There is only one wonderful thing: Your Ambassador is here to support us. He is standing as a living shield between the demonstrators and the police.” 

In her speech explaining why Gil was named HRH´s Human Rights Ambassador of the year for 2003, Lindeman drew attention to the fact that Gil´s work as a diplomat has been guided by the highest human rights standards ever since the eighties, when he was placed at the Norwegian Embassy in Warsaw. Back then, Gil was instrumental in getting the Polish oppositional Tomasz Wacko and his family out of the country and into Norway. Two years later, Wacko became a friend, colleague and central human rights activist at the Human Rights House in Oslo, where he remained, working for the Norwegian Helsinki Committee all until his untimely and tragically ironic death, at the hands of the Norwegian police early June of last year.

Now, as Norway´s Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Gil has taken the lead among the Corps Diplomatique in distancing himself with absolute clarity from the regime´s violations of human rights. Following the post-election demonstrations, two key oppositionals, the Imam of the Mosque in Old Baku Ilgar Ibrahimoglu and the editor of the newspaper Musavat Rauf Arifoglu, even sought refuge in the Ambassador´s residence, fearing that unless they sought such protection, they might be arrested. When a central supporter of President Ilham Aliyev suggested that the residency ought to be ransacked, Gil responded with typical clarity: “Let them try”. Instead of bowing to pressure, Gil only let the two go after receiving guarantees that they would both walk free and that their families would not be harmed either. This guarantee has since proven worthless, and Ibrahimoglu and Arifoglu are currently under arrest, serving preliminary sentences of three month´s imprisonment.

Gil´s stance has not gone unnoticed in Azerbaijan, where both the Ambassador personally and the country he represents, Norway, have been accused of joining forces with Iran in an attempt to undermine President Aliyev and his regime.