WUNRN
Azerbaijan - Risks Continue for Silencing Women Human Rights
Defenders
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AZERBAIJAN - WOMAN JOURNALIST FEARS
ARREST AS PART OF CONTINUING GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN
Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova
(left) outside the Prosecutor General's Office in
By Robert Coalson – October 01, 2014
An An Azerbaijani
investigative journalist has been told that she faces arrest upon her return to
Khadija
Ismayilova, who is known for her extensive reporting on the business interests
of the family of
"I have been warned that, upon returning from my trip,
I will be facing arrest and maybe this is another way to warn me," she
told RFE/RL in a telephone interview. "I believe they want me either not
to go back to
Ismayilova sees the case as part of a broader crackdown
against civil society that has been going on in
The case against Ismayilova centers on a purported
document that she posted on social media alleging that the Azerbaijani secret
services used an explicit, illegally filmed sex tape to blackmail an opposition
activist into informing on other opposition figures.
Ismayilova says she deleted the name and all references
to the individual in question, but he has nonetheless filed a criminal-libel
complaint against her.
'Disabled' Civil Society
She says her purpose was to expose the government's use
of this tactic.
"The Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan and
the special services of
"I am not avoiding prosecution," Ismayilova
said. "I am eager to go and I really look forward to having a loud
discussion about the methods the special services of
Last year, a website connected with the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party published
an article under the headline "Khadija's Armenian Mother Should Die"
that included the name of the neighborhood in
In 2012, an illegally obtained explicit video of her was
published on the Internet.
Ismayilova says that her lawyer is among those who have
been jailed during the crackdown and the Baku-based Media Rights Institute,
which has been defending her, has been effectively shut down.
"Institutionally, civil society has been disabled in
She added that she traveled to
"Khadija's role in Azerbaijani civil society cannot
be overstated," says former
"Khadija's arrest would be a major blow to the
already embattled independent media and human rights community," she
added.
Ismayilova says she will not consider remaining abroad.
"I'm going back to
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Amnesty
International Called on Azerbaijani Authorities to Investigate Immediately the
Case of Imprisoned Human Rights Defender Leyla Yunus
September
30, 2014 - International human rights organization Amnesty International issued
a statement in which it called on the Azerbaijani authorities to immediately
investigate the incident and to ensure the safety of Leyla Yunus, provide her
with necessary medical treatment, and free her and husband without any
preconditions. This is stated in the statement of the Amnesty International,
posted on the organization's website.
As noted in the article Azerbaijani human rights defender Leyla Yunus was
beaten in the Kurdakhany detention facility by the administration staff on 23
September. In last few days there was no hot water in Leyla Yunus’s cell, and
she had to take cold showers. As a result, she caught a severe cold, and had a
high fever. In spite of this, she had not been provided with any medical care.
On September 24, Yunus' lawyers reported that her cell was searched, the
officers tried to find some of her records. After the search, the
Administration announced about the punishment - month ban on talking on the
phone with her friends. Due to the high temperature, she was not able to meet
with her lawyers on Monday and Tuesday. Leyla Yunus also informed the lawyers
that on Tuesday night a detention centre warden twisted Leyla Yunus’s hands and
forced her to leave her cell for the next empty room where she was thrown on
the floor and the warden began pulling her hair. At the same time, he yelled at
her, saying: "Well, you're not smarter?" Then he began to beat her
kidneys. He yelled at Leyla Yunus: “Well, you do not want to grow wiser?” after
which, the warden started hitting her in the kidneys.
Human rights activist Yunus was arrested on July 30 in the courtyard of his
house. She was charged with treason, tax evasion, illegal business, forgery and
fraud on a large scale. Her husband Arif Yunusov is also accused of treason and
fraud on a large scale. On the basis of these allegations the court arrested
Yunus for three months.
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----- Original Message -----
From: WUNRN
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To: WUNRN ListServe
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2014 11:33 AM
Subject: Azerbaijan Gets Tough to Silence Woman Leader, Defender of
Rights & Justice
WUNRN
AZERBAIJAN
GETS TOUGH TO SILENCE WOMAN LEADER, DEFENDER OF RIGHTS & JUSTICE
Leyla Yunus in a photo from a protest.
By Robert Coalson and Ilkin Mammadov - July 31, 2014
Leyla Yunus of Azerbaijan is not one to keep quiet. In a video posted in April, the 58-year-old activist stands outside a Baku police station shouting as loudly as possible that she was detained for hours without being allowed to eat and only being allowed to use the restroom in the company of a male police officer.
"This is the way you treat me -- five men can't deal with me, with one woman," she hollers with an intensifying mix of anger and despair. "Five police officers? Was he supposed to be protecting me in the toilet while he was watching me? He was watching me! He was defending me? He is not a decent person!"
Yunus has been shouting truth to power in Azerbaijan for years, earning a reputation as the conscience of her country. But on July 30, after six hours of interrogation, the authorities in Baku charged her with treason, tax evasion, and fraud. Her husband, Arif Yunus, was also arrested and charged with treason and fraud.
The two have been remanded to pretrial detention for 90 days.
International rights advocates are concerned that both could become ill if they are mistreated while in detention. Leyla Yunus has diabetes and Arif was hospitalized with hypertension after the couple endured 24 hours of interrogation and searches in April.
Speaking to RFE/RL's Azerbaijan Service about that ordeal in May, Leyla Yunus said that, given President Ilham Aliyev's record on rights, she "was not even surprised when someone from the prosecutor's office threatened me, an old woman, by saying he would rape my husband with a bottle in front of me and then rape me in front of my husband."
"I have been hearing these stories from other people for more than 30 years," she said. "And now it happened to me."
The authorities seem bent on playing hard ball in this case. A lengthy statement by the prosecutor's office tries to connect the Yunuses with Armenia's secret services and accuses them of providing detailed military information relating to the simmering dispute over Azerbaijan's breakaway ethnic-Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In addition, a scandalous, pornographic website tied to the ruling political party that is notorious for its no-holds-barred harassment campaigns against Azerbaijani journalists and activists has stepped up its campaign against Leyla Yunus. One cartoon on the site shows a scantily clad Yunus speaking on the telephone to U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Morningstar, asking him to "send over another black Congressman" because the one she's already with is impotent.
Fellow rights activist and independent journalist Shahveled Cobanoglu told RFE/RL on July 31 that the arrest of Leyla Yunus "was not unexpected for us."
"For years Leyla Yunus has been criticizing this government on human rights and political prisoners, demanding justice very loudly, telling the truth to society and the international community," Cobanoglu said. "She was not scared of the government. She never gave up. But the government doesn't either."
Leyla Yunus is the director of the Baku-based Institute for Peace and Democracy, which defends political prisoners and exposes corruption and other crimes. It has been particularly active in promoting citizen's diplomacy over Karabakh by fostering exchanges between Azerbaijani and Armenian intellectuals and local leaders.
Yunus has also vocally calling for a boycott of the 2015 EuroOlympic Games, which will be held in Baku and is being actively promoted as a way of polishing Azerbaijan's international image.
The espionage charges apparently are connected with her cooperation with Armenian intellectuals in a bid to reduce tensions between the two countries. Speaking in Washington in April, Ambassador Morningstar called the Yunuses "strong proponents of the Track II process," referring to the program of confidence-building measures set up by the Minsk Group, the international forum for discussing and attempting to resolve the Karabakh conflict. He said that Baku's harassment of the couple is having "a chilling effect on any contact between Azerbaijanis and Armenians."
The fraud charges against the Yunuses stem from the fact that the Azerbaijani government has refused to register the institute as a legal nongovernmental organization. In 2011, the authorities destroyed the building that housed the institute, ostensibly as part of a development project.
The tax charges stem from grants the institute received from organizations such as National Endowment for Democracy, the German Marshall Fund, and the Open Society Institute.
Leyla Yunus's arrest comes just one day after she published a scathing open letter to President Aliyev, in which she criticized him for arresting critical bloggers and activists. "Why are you so scared," she asked him directly, urging him not to go down in history as "a tyrant and a dictator."
Azerbaijan earlier this month marked the 45th anniversary of the Aliyev dynasty. Ilham Aliyev's father, Heydar, was named head of the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan by USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1969.
Speaking to RFE/RL in June, Leyla Yunus had one unambiguous message for the people of her country.
"They should not give up or accept the situation," she said. "They should fight. They should demand their rights."
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