Attorney's license terminated
December 10, Azerbaijan’s bar association appealed to a court requesting the termination of attorney Khalid Baghirov’s activity. In an interview with Azadliq Radio, Baghirov said “I accepted the decision of the bar association as a prize for the work I have done. Surely this decision was made as a result of my recent work. The goal is to silence me.”
Baghirov was overlooking the cases of many of the political prisoners, including Arif Yunus, the husband of Leyla Yunus, Ilgar Mammadov, Yadigar Sadigli, some of the N!DA youth movement members and as of yesterday, Khadija Ismayil.
Baghirov thinks the decision didn’t come directly from the bar association but was enforced from a higher level.
Interview with Khadija Ismayil at the Spring 2014 plenary session (April 9, 2014) describing the crackdown, the situation and the illegal businesses of government officials in Azerbaijan.
Khadija Ismayil "Keep fighting guys! If the arrest is the price for it, its ok, its worth it!"
Humarn Rights Watch (December 5 statement): Ismayilova is known for her extensive reporting on government corruption, including exposing the business interests of the ruling family. Her arrest on December 5 is the latest in a series of efforts by the authorities to silence her. Starting in February, police questioned Ismayilova several times as a witness in an investigation into the leaking of state secrets. The questioning started a few days after pro-government media outlets claimed she had handed files on Azerbaijani opposition politicians to United States Senate staff members who were allegedly working as US intelligence agents, a claim the US embassy denied.
Ismayilova is also facing a separate criminal defamation suit brought by a former political opposition member who claimed that Ismayilova posted a document online in which she revealed his name as an informant for government intelligence services. Ismayilova has denied the claim.
On October 12, customs officials prevented Ismayilova from leaving Azerbaijan to attend an international conference; the prosecutor’s office refused to explain the reasons for the travel ban. Earlier in October, Baku airport authorities detained Ismayilova for several hours as she was returning from Strasbourg, where she had met with Council of Europe officials to discuss the ongoing crackdown in Azerbaijan. The authorities searched her thoroughly and released her four hours later.
Ismayilova was the target of an orchestrated smear campaign in 2012, when a video appeared online containing intimate and illegally obtained images of her.
Ismayilova’s arrest is the latest move in the government’s systematic crackdown on independent voices. Over the last two-and-a-half years Azerbaijan has brought or threatened unfounded criminal charges against at least 50 independent and opposition political activists, journalists, bloggers, and human rights defenders. Most are behind bars.
“For months Azerbaijan’s international partners have expressed concern about the crackdown,” Gogia said. “But Ismayilova’s arrest should be the last straw. International partners need to make clear to Azerbaijan that there will be no more business as usual as long as critics remain behind bars.”
Rebecca Vincent: "Azerbaijan’s few remaining independent voices are under siege and will not be able to hold out much longer"
Twelve months ago Rebecca Vincent and Rasul Jafarov wrote for Index on Censorship magazine on a crackdown on photojournalists in Azerbaijan. A year later Vincent writes about Jafarov's imprisonment, and the events of 2014.
"The past year has seen the most unprecedented of all human rights crackdowns to date in Azerbaijan, as the authorities work aggressively to silence the country’s few remaining voices. As a result, there are currently more than 90 reported political prisoners in Azerbaijan, including some of the country’s leading human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, and bloggers [...]
"Rasul Jafarov’s case bears all the hallmarks of the pressure exerted on human rights defenders in Azerbaijan. He had been on the authorities’ radar for years, with his earlier work for the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety and, since December 2010, in his role as the founder and Chairman of the Human Rights Club. Perhaps most notably, Jafarov co-ordinated the Sing for Democracy campaign, which used the May 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, held in the capital Baku, as a platform to expose on-going human rights violations in the country and promote democratic change. He was the driving force behind the creation of the Art for Democracy campaign [...]
"Jafarov is only one of many prominent human rights defenders to have been targeted in Azerbaijan in recent months. On 26 May, the chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre Anar Mammadli, was sentenced to five and a half years in jail, and his colleague Bashir Suleymanli to three and a half years on charges including illegal entrepreneurship, abuse of office, and tax evasion. Elnur Mammadov of the International Cooperation of Volunteers’ Union was also sentenced to two years on probation [...]
"Parallel to these arrests, the authorities have stepped up other forms of pressure against both local and foreign NGOs, making it nearly impossible for organisations working on issues related to human rights and democracy to continue operating in the country. This has resulted in the closure or suspension of activities of many of the remaining human rights NGOs in the country. Parliament continues to tighten legislation related to the operations and financing of NGOs, cutting off vital sources of funding for independent groups and making it difficult to carry out even routine activities [...]
"Now, with Jafarov and so many of his colleagues behind bars and the organisations they represent effectively paralysed, concrete international support is needed more than ever. Azerbaijan’s few remaining independent voices are under siege and will not be able to hold out much longer.