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OSCE Slams Violent Attacks on Opposition in Azerbaijan
10/08/2005 01:59
BAKU, Aug 9 (AFP) - Europe's top election-monitoring body, the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, on Tuesday
condemned the violent attacks directed at the opposition in
Azerbaijan.
"We strongly condemn these acts of violence. It is unacceptable that
groups of private citizens decided to take justice into their own
hands," the Head of the OSCE Office in Baku, Maurizio Pavesi said.
Violent protests have erupted around the offices of the opposition
National Front of Azerbaijan party over the past two days after the
authorities announced the arrest of an opposition figure with alleged
ties to Armenian secret police.
Demonstrators on Monday exchanged volleys of stones and bottles, in
which no one was injured, and bizarrely beat each other with flowers
in another demonstration on Tuesday.
Tensions flared after Ruslan Bashirli, leader of the Yeni Fikir (New
Thought) youth opposition group, was arrested for allegedly accepting
money from enemy Armenian agents to fund a revolution in Azerbaijan.
The group shares an office with the National Front party.
Anti-government parties have dismissed those allegations as part of a
state-sponsored smear campaign meant to damage the opposition ahead of
parliamentary elections in November.
Pavesi called on the authorities to prevent "violent and unauthorized
public meetings," or risk the electoral campaign's "deterioration."
The last national vote, the 2003 presidential elections in which Ilham
Aliyev took over from his father Heydar Aliyev, ended in two days of
rioting and hundreds of arrests.
Azerbaijan lost a war against Armenia in the early 1990s in which
about 25,000 people on the two sides died. No peace deal has been
signed and an armed standoff continues.
10/08/2005 01:59
BAKU, Aug 9 (AFP) - Europe's top election-monitoring body, the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, on Tuesday
condemned the violent attacks directed at the opposition in
Azerbaijan.
"We strongly condemn these acts of violence. It is unacceptable that
groups of private citizens decided to take justice into their own
hands," the Head of the OSCE Office in Baku, Maurizio Pavesi said.
Violent protests have erupted around the offices of the opposition
National Front of Azerbaijan party over the past two days after the
authorities announced the arrest of an opposition figure with alleged
ties to Armenian secret police.
Demonstrators on Monday exchanged volleys of stones and bottles, in
which no one was injured, and bizarrely beat each other with flowers
in another demonstration on Tuesday.
Tensions flared after Ruslan Bashirli, leader of the Yeni Fikir (New
Thought) youth opposition group, was arrested for allegedly accepting
money from enemy Armenian agents to fund a revolution in Azerbaijan.
The group shares an office with the National Front party.
Anti-government parties have dismissed those allegations as part of a
state-sponsored smear campaign meant to damage the opposition ahead of
parliamentary elections in November.
Pavesi called on the authorities to prevent "violent and unauthorized
public meetings," or risk the electoral campaign's "deterioration."
The last national vote, the 2003 presidential elections in which Ilham
Aliyev took over from his father Heydar Aliyev, ended in two days of
rioting and hundreds of arrests.
Azerbaijan lost a war against Armenia in the early 1990s in which
about 25,000 people on the two sides died. No peace deal has been
signed and an armed standoff continues.