AZERBAIJAN: Anti-government activists arrested as they attempt to protest in Baku

Record ID: 218043

  • Title: AZERBAIJAN: Anti-government activists arrested as they attempt to protest in Baku
  • Date: 18th April 2011
  • Summary: BAKU, AZERBAIJAN (APRIL 17, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE BEING DETAINED AND DRAGGED TO POLICE VANS WOMAN BEING DRAGGED AND FALLING OVER POLICE PUSHING PROTESTER INTO VAN POLICE FORCING BACK CROWDS ON CENTRAL SQUARE PLAIN-CLOTHED POLICEMEN DRAG PROTESTER AWAY OPPOSITION LEAFLETS CALLING FOR RESIGNATION OF PRESIDENT VARIOUS OF POLICE ARRESTING PROTESTERS AND FORC
  • Embargoed: 3rd May 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan
  • Country: Azerbaijan
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAAD1LVW0PU3BXYN4HLIHNOWV4T
  • Story Text: Police in Azerbaijan detained a number of opposition activists on Sunday (April 17) and snuffed out an attempted rally against the hardline rule of President Ilham Aliyev.
    Policemen, deployed throughout the capital, bundled at least a dozen people into police vans at a square in the capital Baku, including two Swedish journalists and a woman walking with her young child.
    Flyers were scattered on the ground, calling on Aliyev to resign and for an 'end to dictatorship.' The opposition said several hundred people were detained in various parts of Baku, but this could not be independently verified and police could not be reached for comment.
    The abortive protest was the latest attempt by the opposition in the oil-producing ex-Soviet republic to emulate uprisings in the Middle East and northern Africa.
    Small protests over the past several weeks have been given short shrift by authorities in the mainly Muslim country of nine million people, with over 100 detained in April and March.
    Sandwiched between Russia, Iran and Turkey, Azerbaijan is an energy supplier to Europe and a transit route for U.S. troops in Afghanistan -- a role rights groups say has cushioned the country from Western criticism of its record on democracy.
    Amnesty International says 10 opposition activists face long prison terms for their involvement in the last protest in April.
    Analysts see little real threat to Aliyev, who has been president since 2003 when he succeeded his father and long-serving leader Heydar.
    Rights groups accuse his government of trampling on democratic freedoms under cover of an oil-fuelled economic boom.
    But the mainstream opposition is seen as divided and ineffective, its leadership still associated with the chaos and separatist war that marred Azerbaijan's first years of independence from the Soviet Union.
    Aliyev on Friday (April 15) dismissed the protesters as "anti-national forces."
    "The Azeri state is so strong and political stability is so firm that the Azeri people have said 'No' to those elements who would like to undermine our successful development and to those who in some cases get orders from circles outside the country," he said.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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