"Anything could happen in Azerbaijan"

Babek Bekir

A group of youth activist organizations in Azerbaijan is gathering signatures for a petition to release Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli. Member of the Protection of Youth movement, Ramin Hajili, says that the petition will be sent to President Ilham Aliyev: “We are planning several events that will start next week. These events will include public demonstrations. Unfortunately, we can not disclose any information in this regard now; otherwise, law enforcement will not allow us to how the demonstrations…”

VISITS FROM PARENTS ARE NOT ALLOWED

Adnan’s father, Hikmet Hajizade, appealed to the investigators to let him visit his son. However, he has not receive any permission to do so yet. Lawyer Elton Guliyev, while visiting the newspaper “Yeni Musavat” on July 17, delivered the rebuttal made by the arrested youth activists.

The article published by “Yeni Musavat” on July 15 states that according to an undisclosed source there was some information in the government camp that the West was planning another orange revolution and Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli were used in this context. According to Elton Guiliyev, he, on behalf of his defendants, told the leadership of the newspaper that this information is not true: “We need to convey the thoughts of people whose names were used in this article. The young people stated that the information published by the newspaper was not true. It is possible that the information provided by the undisclosed source was biased. These young activists have never been supporters of revolution. They are supporters of evolution.” Elton Guliyev hopes that the newspaper publishes the rebuttal letter of the two young men in its next issue.

The July 17th issue of the “Yeni Musavat” newspaper in its services section states that the newspaper does not have any rebuttals. However, it adds that the newspaper is ready to publish any denial or rebuttal letters that the young men may have. The issue is not only in publishing the rebuttal. Some observers are interested in the following question:

COULD MORE CHARGES BE BROUGHT AGAINST THESE YOUNG ACTIVISTS?

The commentator from “Zerkalo” newspaper, Rauf Mirgadirov, says that when journalist Eynulla Fatullayev was in jail charges were fabricated against him stating that he was calling for terrorist attacks. This shows that anything can be expected from the law-enforcement agencies in Azerbaijan. However, even if this kind of thing happens, he does not think that it could bring success to the government: “The inability to prove any of these charges can narrow the government’s ability to maneuver. This could also lead to granting the status of the prisoners of conscience to these young activists, which would not be in the interests of the government. Nevertheless, anything could happen in Azerbaijan.”

Rauf Mirgadirov thinks that the detention of the young activists under the pretext of hooliganism shows that the government did not want to raise political issues. Conversely, it would not be hard to press political charges against the young activists.

To see original article in azeri click here