{"id":1399,"date":"2015-03-31T14:28:19","date_gmt":"2015-03-31T14:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1399"},"modified":"2015-04-02T13:52:20","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T13:52:20","slug":"dispatches-31-hours-marooned-at-azerbaijans-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1399","title":{"rendered":"Dispatches: 31 Hours Marooned at Azerbaijan\u2019s Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

By GIORGI GOGIA
\nHuman Rights Watch<\/em><\/p>\n

I just spent 31 hours in Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan \u2013 but not by choice.<\/p>\n

\"Giorgi<\/a>
Giorgi Gogia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I travelled there to attend the trials of two close colleagues and friends, prominent Azerbaijani human rights defenders who have been behind bars since August 2014 on a slew of bogus charges. Instead of being present to give support to my friends, I was stripped of my passport and spent the best part of a day-and-a-half in a kind of limbo, questioned by officials, marched back and forth between the passport control area and the transit zone, and questioned again.<\/p>\n

Unlike my friends, I got to leave at the end of it. But throughout, I was made to feel like a dangerous criminal. That\u2019s what it\u2019s come down to in Azerbaijan: in the eyes of the Azerbaijani government, if you work on human rights, you are a dangerous criminal.<\/p>\n

One of the people on trial today is Intigam Aliyev. He has represented hundreds of victims of human rights abuses before the European Court of Human Rights. I couldn\u2019t help but reflect on Aliyev\u2019s words at the time of his arrest: \u201cThose who defend human rights, and political prisoners and report on election fraud are considered criminals in this country. [So,] I am one of those criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other person on trial is Rasul Jafarov, who had been involved in compiling a comprehensive list of victims of politically-motivated prosecutions in Azerbaijan, and pressing for their release. Clearly, a \u201cdangerous\u201d guy.<\/p>\n

I spent a lot of time together with Rasul and Intigam, and Khadija Ismayiliova, Leyla Yunus, and others, getting the world to wake up to the crackdown underway in Azerbaijan. Now they\u2019re all behind bars, in hiding, or in exile, their organizations shuttered.<\/p>\n

When I got to passport control yesterday afternoon, officials took my passport and denied me entry into the country. I was never told why. They asked me to wait while they checked things out. So I waited. And waited. And waited.<\/p>\n

Several times during the afternoon and evening officials asked me who I worked for and why I was in Baku. I have nothing to hide, I answered them very openly. They took me upstairs to a transit hall. They took me back downstairs to the passport area. And up and down again.<\/p>\n

During my time marooned at the airport, I had ample opportunity to notice the brand spanking new, resplendent terminal, which Azerbaijan hopes will soon be filled with European leaders for the opening of the first European Games on June 12. Clearly the Baku Games are designed to boost Azerbeijan’s global standing and President Ilham Aliyev\u2019s prestige. But having so many human rights defenders and journalists behind bars does just the opposite.<\/p>\n

As afternoon spilled into evening, I still harbored hopes that I\u2019d get to Intigam\u2019s and Rasul\u2019s hearings the next day. As evening spilled into night, my frustration grew. I wanted to be at their trial, to show our solidarity.<\/p>\n

Finally, at 9 p.m. this evening, border police escorted me to a plane and handed my passport to the flight crew. After 31 hours without my passport, sleep, a shave, or a bath, I was happy to be allowed to go home, but angry that Rasul, Intigam, Khadija, Leyla, and her husband Arif can\u2019t do the same. It\u2019s time for the Azerbaijani government to free them and time for other governments to call on Azerbaijan to do so.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan Bars Entry to a Georgian Human Rights Worker<\/strong><\/p>\n

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
\nThe New York Times<\/em><\/p>\n

MOSCOW \u2014 Azerbaijan on Monday barred a veteran human rights worker from entering the country, the latest in a series of events that international rights advocates have condemned and cited as evidence of increasing political repression.<\/p>\n

The rights worker, Giorgi Gogia, who is a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, was blocked from entering Azerbaijan at the airport in Baku, the capital. He remained in the airport for 31 hours before being put on a plane to Tbilisi, Georgia, where he lives.<\/p>\n

As a Georgian citizen, Mr. Gogia does not need a visa to enter Azerbaijan, and he has visited the country several times a year for more than a decade. He said officials at the airport had not given any explanation for refusing to let him enter.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gogia had been planning to attend hearings in the court cases of two Azerbaijani human rights advocates<\/a>, Rasul Jafarov and Intigam Aliyev, who were arrested in August and are being tried in separate cases on tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship and other charges.<\/p>\n

The arrests were part of an intense crackdown on dissent. Among others who have been arrested are Leyla Yunus<\/a>, a veteran human rights advocate who was detained in July, and Khadija Ismayilova<\/a>, a well-known investigative journalist who had angered high-level officials. In December, the authorities also raided the offices of Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty and detained several staff members. Ms. Yunus and Ms. Ismayilova remain in prison.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Human Rights Watch said there had been at least 35 politically motivated arrests in Azerbaijan over the past year, and it noted that Mr. Jafarov had been seeking to raise awareness of these cases before the European Games, a major sporting event that will be held in Baku in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarring Giorgi Gogia from attending the trial hearings shows just how far Azerbaijan\u2019s authorities have taken their crackdown on human rights,\u201d Hugh Williamson, the director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch in Berlin, said in a statement. \u201cThey\u2019ve ruthlessly silenced many critical voices inside the country, and now they don\u2019t want to let anyone in to bear witness to what they are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Gogia, reached in Georgia, said that he had never had a problem entering Azerbaijan before and that he had never visited the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh by traveling through Armenia.<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been in a simmering war over Nagorno-Karabakh<\/a> for more than 20 years, and people who have traveled to that region are often barred from visiting Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was clear that they have made political decisions in the end not to let me in,\u201d Mr. Gogia said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By GIORGI GOGIA Human Rights Watch I just spent 31 hours in Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan \u2013 but not [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":988,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azerbaijan","category-azerbaijan-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1404,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions\/1404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}