Report News ›› Caucasus

Azerbaijan's Bloody Election

By Rafail Shakirov - Caucasus
17 Aug 03
  • Baku, Wed, Oct 8. Oil workers for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline are invited to the opening of an office of the government party New Azerbaijan in Baku and given new uniforms.
  • Baku, Sun, Oct 12. The last demonstration organized by the main opposition party Musavat before the elections. Musavat leader Isa Gambar called on the police not to become an instrument of oppression.
  • Sun, Oct 12. Opposition demonstration in Baku.
  • Baku, Sun, Oct 12. Residents of the village of Nardaran, scene of clashes between demonstrators and police last year, attend the Musavat rally.
  • Nardaran, Wed, Oct 15. Villagers from Nardaran cast their votes in the presidential election.
  • Kala, Wed, Oct 15. Voters who are refugees from the village of Lichna, now held by the Armenians, cast their votes.
  • Baku, Thur, Oct 16. Opposition demonstrators threw stones and sticks at police cars and government buildings and attacked policemen as they poured through the streets of Baku towards Freedom Square.
  • Baku, Thur, Oct 16. An opposition demonstrator throws a soldier's helmet at a portrait of President Heidar Aliev.
  • Baku, Thur, Oct 16. Opposition demonstrators try to overturn a police bus.
  • Baku, Thur, Oct 16. A policeman beaten up by demonstrators.
  • Baku, Thur, Oct 16. The opposition demonstrators easily break through the police cordon and take possession of Baku's biggest public space, Freedom Square.
  • Baku, Thur, Oct 16. Exultant Musavat Party leaders in front of Government House on Freedom Square. For the first time in 10 years they have managed to take possession of the square.
  • Baku, Thur, Oct 16. The security forces use teargas, truncheons and firearms to break up the opposition demonstration and retake Freedom Square.
  • Baku, Thur, Oct 16. Journalists had gathered in the square on the steps of Government House and were charged by the police.
  • Baku, Thur, Oct 16. Police brutally beat the demonstrators with truncheons.
  • Thur, Oct 16. These casualties of police violence in Baku are not dead, just badly beaten. The authorities announced that no one had been hurt in the violence except police officers.