Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev chats with OSCE PA President Ranko Krivokapic, Jun. 28, 2014, in Baku. Credit: OSCE Parliamentary Assembly/CC-BY-2.0

By Shahin Abbasov
BAKU, Aug 10 2014 (EurasiaNet)

Azerbaijan in recent months has launched a clear assault against various civil society activists and non-governmental organisations. While rough treatment of critics is nothing new in this energy-rich South-Caucasus country, one question remains unanswered: Why pick up the pace now?

Some observers link this behavior to two causes: The February resignation of Ukraine’s ex-President Alexander Yanukovich in response to mass protests, and the Azerbaijani government’s keen desire for a protest-free 2015 European Games, a Summer Olympics for European countries that is a pet-project of President Ilham Aliyev.

And so, in the best of Soviet traditions, the cleanup has begun.

"Two months ago, the deputy head of the presidential administration, Novruz Mammadov, openly accused the U.S. of financing a revolution in Ukraine. Therefore, the authorities [here] want to deprive the local civil society of any foreign funding [...]." -- Emil Huseynov, director of the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety
The tactics appear to fall into two categories – criminal prosecutions and scrutiny of financial resources. Since June, several leaders of local NGOs, critical bloggers and opposition activists have been arrested and sentenced to long prison terms on various criminal charges, including alleged tax-evasion, hooliganism and possession of illegal narcotics.

On Jul. 30, the crackdown accelerated with the filing of criminal charges, including treason, against outspoken human-rights activist Leyla Yunus. She is now in jail for three months awaiting trial. A former defense-ministry spokesperson actively engaged in citizen-diplomacy with neighbouring foe Armenia, Yunus and her husband, conflict-analyst Arif Yunus, have been under investigation since April.

Shortly before her detention, Yunus and a group of fellow activists publicly denounced the upcoming European Games as inappropriate for “authoritarian Azerbaijan, where human rights are violated.”A group led by Yunus has appealed to the European Olympic Committee (EOC) and the European Union’s EOC representative office to cancel the decision to hold the Games in Baku.

Yunus’ problems with the government, though, are not unique. The list of people sentenced to prison since June reads like a “Who’s Who” of Azerbaijani civil society.

Anar Mammadli, director of the Election Monitoring Center has been sentenced to 5.5 years on charges of tax evasion; his deputy, Bashir Suleymanly got five years. Hasan Huseynli,  head of the youth-education NGO Kamil Vetendash, or Intellectual Citizen, received six years for allegedly illegally carrying weapons and wounding a person with a knife.

Yadigar Sadigov an activist from the opposition Musavat Party is in for six years on charges of “hooliganism.” And three so-called “Facebook activists,” bloggers Elsever Mursalli, Abdulla Abilov and Omar Mammadov were sentenced to upwards of five years for carrying illegal drugs.

On Jul. 25, Baku police put another Musavat activist, Faradj Karimli, into pre-trial detention for allegedly “advertising psychotropic substances.” All of the accused deny the charges.

The prosecutions follow on the heels of legislative changes that now allow law-enforcement and tax agencies greater scope to audit and fine registered NGOs and ban outright unregistered NGOs’ ability to receive grants.

“Obviously, Baku is following the Russian way – to control the financial flows and, thus, to control the situation,” commented political analyst Elhan Shahinoglu, head of Baku’s Atlas Research Center.

“If the pressure will continue further, it will not be possible to talk about the normal activity of NGO’s in the country,” warned Elchin Abdullayev, a member of a network of NGO’s created to resist perceived intimidation-tactics.

The fact that these events are taking place during Azerbaijan’s six-month chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the continent’s primary human-rights organ, seems to pose no contradiction for the government.

And the desire for control apparently extends to international groups as well. The Baku office of the Washington, DC-based National Democratic Institute was officially closed on Jul. 2 after the authorities accused it of financing “radical” opposition youth groups.

Like others, Emil Huseynov, director of the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety, which also faces funding problems, traces that accusation to Baku’s fear of an Azerbaijani EuroMaidan.

“Two months ago, the deputy head of the presidential administration, Novruz Mammadov, openly accused the U.S. of financing a revolution in Ukraine. Therefore, the authorities want to deprive the local civil society of any foreign funding […],” Huseynov charged.

Gulnara Akhundova, a representative of the Danish-run International Media Support NGO, said that the government has refused to register any of the organisation’s grants to local NGO’s and individuals. “Most of our partners in Azerbaijan cannot work. The bank accounts of some of them are frozen,” Akhundova said. No reasons have been given.

According to the pro-opposition Turan news agency, the government also reportedly has expressed a desire to halt activities by the U.S. Peace Corps, which has operated in Azerbaijan since 2003.

President Aliyev, however, insists that Azerbaijan has no problem with civil rights. Last month, speaking at the Jun. 28 opening of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly’s session in Baku, President Aliyev repeated that Azerbaijan is “a democratic country where freedoms of assembly, speech, media and Internet are guaranteed.”

Roughly a week later, speaking to Azerbaijani foreign-ministry officials, he claimed that he had never “heard any criticism of Azerbaijan’s domestic policy at meetings with European leaders.”

If so, it is not for lack of talking.

The OSCE has termed the number of journalists in prison in Azerbaijan “a dangerous trend,” while the European Union on Jul. 17 urged Baku to meet its obligations as “a Member of the Council of Europe.”

A difference in perspective poses an ongoing obstacle, however, noted U.S. Ambassador to Baku Richard Morningstar on Jul. 25, Turan reported.

“The major task of Azerbaijan is to keep stability. But we believe that if people would get more freedom, there will be more stability in Azerbaijan,” Morningstar said.

While Shahinoglu believes that the U.S. and European Union, for all their energy and security interests, will have to continue pressing Baku about its “poor human-rights record,” President Aliyev already has cautioned that the complaints will fall on deaf ears.

“Some people who called themselves opposition or human rights defenders believe that somebody would tell us something and we will obey,” he commented on Jul. 8. “They are naïve people.”

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org. Shahin Abbasov is a freelance correspondent based in Baku.

The Azerbaijan government crackdown on civil society has worsened in recent months, human rights campaigners are warning, and activists are increasingly falling victim to official efforts to limit dissent.

Human Rights Watch, the global watchdog, is calling for an end to what it refers to as harassment and oppressive tactics against the prominent human rights activist Leyla Yunus and her husband, Arif Yunusov. The group says it is now up to the international community to step up pressure on the Azerbaijan government.“Mirgadirov and the Yunuses are the voices that the Azerbaijani government doesn’t want to be heard." -- Rachel Denber

“Azerbaijan’s international partners, in particular fellow members of the Council of Europe, should make clear that continued harassment of human rights defenders, and the Yunuses in particular, will affect their relationships with Azerbaijan’s government,” the U.S.-based watchdog group said.

The call was particularly aimed at President Francois Hollande of France, who is scheduled to visit Azerbaijan on May 11 and 12. Campaigners are urging President Hollande to insist on seeing the Yunuses and to signal that their freedom is of significant importance to French-Azerbaijani relations.

Concern is also being expressed for the plight of Rauf Mirgadirov, an Azerbaijani journalist accused of spying for Armenia. He’s been in prison since late last month, awaiting trial.

Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, called the charges against Mirgadirov “bogus”.

“Mirgadirov is a man who has been for many years a strong critique of the Azerbaijani government, and the Azerbaijani authorities, who are known for having a longstanding pattern of bogus allegations, were just looking for a pretext to put him behind bars,” Denber told IPS.

“Mirgadirov and the Yunuses are the voices that the Azerbaijani government doesn’t want to be heard. But the outrageous facts of their scandalous treatment have to be exposed to the public and addressed immediately.”

Azerbaijan will soon be taking over the rotating chairmanship of Europe’s foremost human rights body, the Council of Europe. Human Rights Watch is also calling on the body’s secretary-general, Thorbjorn Jagland, to express urgent concern about the treatment of the Yunuses and Mirgadirov, as well as other civic activists and journalists that have fallen victims of the regime in recent months.

“No government should be allowed to get away with targeting human rights defenders while it’s seeking to boost its international prestige,” Denber said in a brief.

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The warnings come just days after an annual private-sector U.S.-Azerbaijan convention took place here in Washington. There, the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan, Richard Morningstar, called the detention of the Yunuses a “mistake”.

In follow-up comments to IPS, State Department officials expressed “deep concern” about the human rights situation in Azerbaijan, and said that they are “closely following the situation”. The U.S. Embassy in Baku, they said, has been in “direct touch” with the Yunuses.

“As with the Rauf Mirgadirov case, we are disturbed that the actions taken by the Azerbaijani government against Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunusov appear to be related to their participation in people-to-people efforts aimed at building confidence and facilitating a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.”

Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto independent but unrecognised state, which is internationally seen as part of Azerbaijan. However, the area remains populated by significant numbers of ethnic Armenians.

The Yunuses’ detention occurred at about the same time as the U.S.-Azerbaijan Convention took place here in Washington. The event is seen by some as a public-relations show for energy-rich Azerbaijan, with significant participation by the country’s influential oil and gas industry.

Leyla Yunus’s brother-in-law, Ramis Yunus, a long-time Washington-area resident and a columnist for a number of Azerbaijani and Russian language media outlets, was not allowed to attend the convention after his family members were detained in Azerbaijan.

Although attempts by IPS to contact Ramis Yunis proved unsuccessful by deadline, he was quoted in local media stating that he had hoped to ask U.S. legislators whether their priority lay with human rights or oil.

“They call it the ‘U.S.-Azerbaijan Convention’, organised by ‘friends of Azerbaijan’,” Ramis Yunus was quoted as saying. “I am both a U.S. citizen and an Azerbaijani citizen. But why I am treated as an enemy here?”

This year’s U.S.-Azerbaijan Convention celebrated two decades of bilateral ties following Azeri independence from the Soviet Union.

Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute, who spoke at the convention, told IPS the event’s goals are “to further the conversation between American policy-makers and Azerbaijani counter-parts.”

Vatanka continued: “Such efforts are important in introducing Azerbaijan’s agenda to policy-makers here in Washington.”

Track-two crackdown

Leyla Yunus is the director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, a group formed in 1995 that focused on combating politically motivated prosecutions, violence against women and unlawful house evictions. Since then, the group has also been involved in the projects targeted at rebuilding the relationship between Armenia and Azerbaijan around the unresolved conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Leyla and Arif Yunusov were detained by Azerbaijan’s government earlier last week as they were boarding a plane to Doha, where they planned to attend an international conference. Leyla Yunus’s detention is visibly related to their work on building dialogue with Armenians and her relationship with Mirgadirov, the journalist.

Mirgadirov has been involved in track-two diplomacy between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, having taken part in meetings in Armenia aimed at improving the relationship between the two countries. Leyla Yunus and the Institute for Peace and Democracy have also been involved in organising some of these projects.

Human Rights Watch cites media reports from in which the Azerbaijani officials state that the Yunuses are considered witnesses to a criminal investigation. The officials also assert that the Yunuses had previously disregarded an attempt to be served with an interrogation summons, and had not responded to phone calls asking them to appear for questioning.

Yunus’s lawyer confirmed to Human Rights Watch that a government official delivered such a summons on Apr. 24. Leyla Yunus refused, however, explaining that she had not received adequate notice.

“Azerbaijan has a long history of using bogus charges to imprison its critics, including on treason charges,” Human Rights Watch states.