Azerbaijan: Anger at Jailing of Opposition Activist

Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, an Azerbaijani activist who tried to organise an opposition protest via the social networking site Facebook, has been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment on charges his allies say are politically motivated.

Sentenced on May 18 after being convicted of evading military conscription, Hajiyev is the latest in a series of youth activists who have been arrested in recent months, a trend that analysts say reflects the Azerbaijani authorities’ jittery response to uprisings across the Middle East.

Hajiyev, who was educated at Harvard and stood as a candidate in the 2010 Azerbaijani parliamentary election, was arrested shortly after he and others set up a Facebook group calling for protests on March 11.

“I am not at all surprised by the verdict,” his defence lawyer Elayif Hasanov said.

According to Arastun Orujlu, head of the East-West Centre for Strategic Studies, “These repressive measures are being used to intimidate young people who want to live in freedom. But times have change, as have other countries’ attitudes to places like Azerbaijan. The European Union is already placing Azerbaijan on a par with Belarus. Azerbaijan is severely criticised in all the reports on human rights and democratisation from international organisations.”

Jabbar Savalan, a 19-year-old student at Sumgait university and a member of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, was the first victim of the wave of arrests.

Charged with illegal possession of narcotics, he received a two-and-a-half year sentence on May 4 for possession of marijuana. His lawyer said Savalan was pressured by police into signing a confession, which he retracted two days later.

Savalan was arrested a day after posting a message on his Facebook page saying Azerbaijan needed pro-democracy protests like those taking place in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries. He also posted a copy of an article from a Turkish newspaper criticising Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev. (See Calls for Release of Azeri Facebook Activist.)

“I knew that in joining an opposition party, my son risked creating problems for himself. In this country, it is very dangerous to express an alternative view,” his mother Taravat Aliyeva said after his conviction. “But I could not turn my son away from this path. He could not remain quiet when he saw injustice, and this is the outcome.”

After protests on April 2 and 17, the head of the youth wing of the opposition Musavat party and his two deputies were detained, as well as the non-aligned activist Elnur Israfilov. Elnur Majidli, a journalist living in France, has been charged with inciting mass disturbances and overthrowing the government, and his arrest is being sought through Interpol.

All the youth activists who are students have been thrown out of university.

Rabiyyat Aslanova, who chairs the parliamentary committee for human rights, expressed the line the Azerbaijani authorities are taking on cases of this kind.

“Police in our country are always on the side of civil rights. If someone is detained, that means there’s some basis for it,” she said in reference to Savalan. “This has now been demonstrated in court. Savalan’s allies are trying to justify him. I’m convinced that if he is innocent, his case will be swiftly reviewed by an appeals court and a fair decision will be reached.”

Seymur Orujov, who heads the youth wing of the governing Yeni Azerbaijan party, meanwhile, denounced would-be protesters as puppets of external forces keen to destabilise the country.

“We would ask the opposition why it is trying to force our youth down a dark tunnel that leads who knows where,” he said. “Why don’t they let us take the opportunities afforded by our government, and behave as good citizens? Why are you calling us out onto the squares, and turning us into traitors to our country?”

Despite such recriminations, Orujlu of the East-West centre said many young people in Azerbaijan were opposed to the government, and arrests were unlikely to change many people’s minds.

Idrak Abbasov is a correspondent for the Ayna newspaper in Azerbaijan.