Standing Up for Eynulla
London-based activists lend their support for Azeri journalist jailed on defamation charges.
Standing Up for Eynulla
London-based activists lend their support for Azeri journalist jailed on defamation charges.
A little after one o’clock on April 20, a couple of dozen men and woman milled about on a side-street in leafy Knightsbridge, west London.
A handful pulled on high-visibility vests bearing Amnesty International’s candle and barbed wire logo, while others handed out bottles of water. Rebecca Vincent, a heavily-pregnant activist from Article 19, scanned the ranks, decided enough people were here to get started and, turning her back on the Azerbaijan embassy over the road, lifted her megaphone and addressed the throng.
“We need to demand the authorities release him and pay compensation and,” she said, noticing an old lady trying to push her way past the protesters, “and please leave room on the pavement so people can get by.”
The protesters, many carrying English PEN placards demanding that Azeri journalist Eynulla Fatullayev be released, obediently pushed back against the wall as the sun beat down.
April 20 marked four years since Fatullayev was arrested on charges of defamation – a criminal offence in Azerbaijan – after publishing an article questioning Azeri claims that war crimes were committed by Armenians in Khojali during the Karabakh war.
From jail, he was then subsequently convicted on further charges of supporting terrorism - after publishing an article about Baku’s ties to Washington - of inciting ethnic hatred and of tax evasion.
After the European Court of Human Rights demanded his release in a rare rebuke to a member state, he was additionally convicted on drugs charges and hence remains behind bars. If the Azeri courts were hoping to cow Fatullayev, they failed, however, since he has publically compared them to Nazis.
Vincent, who used to work for the United States state department in Baku and speaks Azeri, had prepared phonetic transcriptions of Azeri-language chants, and the crowd read them out like mass karaoke.
“Ah. Zahd. Look. Ah. Zahd. Look. Ah. Zahd. Look,” the chanted.
Perhaps because the chant sounded sufficiently like the Azeri word for freedom to be comprehensible, a plump, bald man stuck his head out of a window on the embassy’s first floor, watched for a while then slipped away.
“I hope this will increase the international pressure on Azerbaijan,” Vincent told me, while the crowd chanted on under the guidance of other activists. “There have been a lot of calls for his release, and I think Azerbaijan is sensitive to its international image, so hopefully this will help.”
Tural Ahmedzade, 23, listened with interest to what she had to say. Although he has lived in London since he was seven, he follows news from his homeland with concern.
The Azeri authorities, troubled by the recent uprisings in the Middle-East, have been more sensitive than ever to domestic protests in the last couple of months, and dozens of young opposition activists have been detained while trying to organise demonstrations.
“Yesterday or the day before a little girl and her mother were dragged away by police just because the little girl shouted ‘freedom’, so if the police could do that to a girl, I am sure they would act with greater coercion if they were to do something there like we’re doing here,” he said.
“The current situation is a difficult one. One problem is that organising a large-scale protest requires planning so you can’t really surprise them.”
The Knightsbridge protest took place under the watchful eye of three policemen who stood and sweated in their stab vests outside the embassy door. Presumably they were there because of the protest, since the four other embassies on the street – their flags gorgeous in the bright sunshine – went unprotected.
But the policemen had nothing to do except smile at the occasional amusing chant, until a small group of protesters marched across the road to hand over a letter for the ambassador.
“They said they’d accept it,” said Vincent, when one officer blocked her passage to the door.
“Really? Sometimes they say that and then do something different. Hang on,” the officer said, turning and pressing on the doorbell. The door opened almost immediately, and a young smooth-faced, well-coiffed man in a red tie and beautiful suit came out to face the crowd.
“You said you’d take it,” Vincent said accusingly, holding the letter out.
“Of course,” the young man said, buttoning his jacket and vanishing back inside.
The group of protesters headed across the road, where by now they lined the whole pavement opposite the embassy two deep, and I stopped to count them.
“So how many is that?” asked one of the policemen, a bearded man wearing a cap rather than a helmet. “Forty-two.”
He made a little impressed pout with his mouth. “That’s not bad,” he said. “You’d be surprised how often they hold these protests and no one turns up. Or else they turn up two hours late.”
Vincent had taken the microphone again. “Maybe we could conclude with the word that would get us all arrested if we chanted it in Azerbaijan today: freedom,” she declared.
“Ah. Zahd. Look. Ah. Zahd. Look. Ah. Zahd. Look,” the crowd chanted.
And the crowd dispersed back to their offices for the second half of the day.
Oliver Bullough is IWPR’s Caucasus editor.
