Azerbaijan: ruthless repression in the shadow of the first European Games

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On 12 June 2015, the Azerbaijani capital of Baku will host the first edition of the European Games, a high-level sporting event set up by the Olympic Committee in 2012.

The multi-sport competition is being financed by the Azeri government to the tune of US$1.25 billion and will bring some 6000 sports people from 50 European countries to this small but very rich country, known for its grave and systematic human rights violations.

For many organisations, it is a chance to raise the alarm and call on European leaders to boycott the opening ceremony of this event on Friday said Ulrike Lunacek, vice president of the European Parliament, during a hearing on the subject held one month before the start of the Games.

“We want to use the Baku Games to get people out of prison, to free the political prisoners. I think that pressure could be brought to bear by letting President Ilham Aliyev know that the governments of the European Union (EU) member states and representatives of the European institutions will not stand by his side at the opening ceremony if he fails to release Arif Yunus, Leyla Yunus, Rasul Jafarov and so many others. We need to make sure that EU governments do this, and as Members of the European Parliament we will be working in this direction.”

Azerbaijan, despite being a member of numerous intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe, is a country where arbitrary arrests, forced displacements, religious discrimination and attacks on freedom of expression are all too commonplace.

Denouncing the government’s abuses, human rights violations and corruption is very dangerous.

Dozens of journalists and activists have suffered the consequences, such as Khadija Ismayilova, an independent investigative journalist, who uncovered the Aliyev family’s involvement in corruption and was held in detention awaiting trial for having “incited a former colleague to attempt suicide”.

Rusul Jafarov has been held in detention since August 2014 on charges of “illegal affairs” and “tax evasion”, among others.

Jafarov is the head of the Human Rights Club. He led an awareness-raising campaign prior to the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku, in 2012, and was starting work on a similar campaign to denounce political imprisonment in the run-up to the European Games when he was arrested.

 

“Quiet diplomacy is not working”

In Brussels, Equal Times met in Brussels, with the daughter of two leading Azeri human rights activists, Arif Yunus and Leyla Yunus, who have been in prison awaiting trial since 2014 for “treason against the state” and “fraud”.

Dinara is living in exile in the Netherlands, where she is fighting relentlessly to raise public awareness in Europe about these political prisoners and the deteriorating health of her mother, a Sakharov Prize finalist.

Leyla Yunus is suffering from acute diabetes coupled with hepatitis but is receiving no medical treatment in prison. Her daughter is convinced that the systematic extension of her remand “shows that the government is determined to kill her behind bars”.

Dinara has not been back to Azerbaijan for five years, as the government “habitually uses family members to put pressure on prisoners”; she has no direct contact with her parents.

“Quiet diplomacy is not working,” says Dinara.

“I am appealing to governments to publicly denounce the abuses and I expect the French government to take the initiative, because my mum is a Knight of the Legion of Honour. I don’t know what they [the governments] are doing but it isn’t working, because there’s no improvement.

“There are other, economic interests involved, and my parents are paying the price. I have the feeling that my parents have been abandoned and it won’t be much longer before we hear that one of them has died, given the state of their health.”

Human Rights Watch shares this opinion. As Giorgi Gogia, an expert on human rights in the South Caucasus, confirms: “Quiet diplomacy doesn’t work with Azerbaijan, and if there is one thing that matters to Azeri leaders it is status and prestige. If we do not criticise them publicly, I don’t think we’ll get any results,” he says, whilst recalling that government repression has never been as strong.

The calls made by NGOs and human rights activists as the European Games draw nearer are unambiguous: if boycotting the sporting event is not on the agenda, European leaders should under no circumstances legitimise, through their presence at the opening ceremony on 12 June 2015, a regime that rides roughshod over fundamental rights and arbitrarily jails anyone who speaks out against it.

But after the Baku Games, the fundamental questions will need to be addressed regarding Europe’s economic relations and energy dependence vis-à-vis this country that has become rich thanks to fuel exports.

“Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is another important issue, not only from a climate change perspective but also from a human rights perspective. If we reduce our dependence on Azeri gas, our governments will be freer to denounce the abuses,” concludes Ulrike Lunacek.

 

This article has been translated from French.