Humor me please- or how seriously Azerbaijani police takes its orders

Oh yes they do! You see, yesterday, on December 10th over 80 Azerbaijani activists were arrested and detained (and later released) as a result of unsanctioned public rally in Baku organized by some members of the opposition parties and some youth movements. 

As always police was there, all ready, geared up. After all, this rally was not approved by the city authorities so instead the police was approved to do what it took to "prevent hooligans from distorting public calm". And prevent they did. Not only they made sure every anti- regime activist was taken off the public square but they also arrested one gentleman in particular, who instead of protesting the regime, was calling for its support!

The video of the man being dragged by the local police while praising the late and the current president apparently gone viral. See it yourself :) 

Ironic isn't it?! I guess Azerbaijani police does take its orders pretty seriously, the mere uttering of the word "President" can be cause for arrest, no matter what the context it.

Bloggers for Democracy

On December 5th, European Greens organized "Bloggers for Democracy" conference at the European Parliament. I was invited as a guest speaker to talk about my experience as a blogger in the context of Azerbaijan. There were other really incredible and prominent bloggers on the same panel, as Sarrah Abdelrahman from Egypt, Oleg Kaschin from Russia and Michael Anti from China.We talked about our countries, our political contexts, revolutions, human rights and freedom of expression. 

But as always, it was the Q&A session that brought a lot more into the discussion. I will write on that more later but for now, if you missed it, if you weren't there, you can watch it below (bloggers presentations are part 2).