When rape and fear is your only weapon

"[...] the policemen beat them, forced them to take their pants off, and threatened to rape them with truncheons and bottles if they did not confess to drug possession. Following the abuse, they confessed to drug possession before they were allowed to see their lawyer."

This is not a movie script. This is police brutality in Azerbaijan, member of Council of Europe, signatory to a number of international conventions and treaties. This is the country, whose president recently shook hands with President Obama, smiling, proud while people like Ilgar Mammadov and Khadija Ismayilova are kept in silence behind the bars in Azerbaijan prisons. 

This a country that hosts conventions, UN events, sporting events all the while stealing from its people and living off like kings at the expense of its people. 

It is a country where police never found perpetrators behind Elmar Huseynov, journalist who was brutally murdered in front of his house in 2005. It is a country where police never fully explained and got the bottom of a murder another journalist/writer Rafig Tagi. It is a country where police failed to find those were behind setting secret cameras in journalist Khadija Ismayilova's apartment, and those who later blackmailed her with sex tapes and released them online.

But is a country where police is quick to fabricate charges against activists and notable individuals. It is a country where police can easily "discover" following a "thorough investigation" substantial amounts of heroin or molotov cocktails or arms in homes of activists, journalists, and other government critics. 

It should not be surprising then it also happens to be a country featured in Panama Papers and where its leader is stealing off just fine. 

The opening quote in this post was from a recent reported published by Human Rights Watch documenting recent arrest of two youth activists and their treatment inside the police. The report also said, "They [the two young men] were also forced to clean the toilets and yard of the police station while police filmed them. While at the station trying to get access to Mammadov and Ibrahimov, Sadigov [lawyer] saw police kick and humiliate his clients as they cleaned the station yard. Sadigov tried to intervene to stop the ill-treatment, but police physically pushed him out of the station."

I understand Aliyev's personal pleasure in silencing his critics, but does this recent treatment indicates that he also gets pleasure from his thugs called police raping these people as well?

Alley Oop!

It is depressing. Reading news from Azerbaijan is depressing. Hearing terrible stories about detentions, arrests, kidnappings is depressing. Hearing government officials lie despite of everything that is going on is depressing. Hearing new human rights activists and advocates being barred from leaving the country is depressing. Hearing bank accounts being frozen is depressing. 

How easy it has become to kidnap people in Azerbaijan? 

How simple one can accuse someone of fraudulent engagements when the whole government is in nothing else but fraudulent.

Perhaps we don't even have to aim so high. Take any school, or a university for that matter in Azerbaijan. Look at the level of corruption there?! We have doctors with bought diplomas for Gods sake?! Do you know what this means?! That we have no future! Or we have a very depressing future ahead. 

It is depressing. Sometimes I cannot even stomach it. How can it be so easy. It just happens. Alley oop and all of a sudden you can land in jail. Alley oop and you are a drug addict. Alley oop, and you are a traitor.

But this is not a circus. Its all real. And its real people who are punished. Yes, punished! For speaking their mind, for being open minded, for embracing (or at least wanting to) a future that is not DEPRESSING!

And why? Because someone is not comfortable, someone needs to have the constant state of fear installed in such a way that it only needs an occasional update, like today, chuck few people in jail, freeze few more accounts and there you have it.  No need for an update until the pretrial detention times run out and then a new update is needed. Another alley oop and there, you have it- another innocent man or a woman in behind bars, or threatened, or blackmailed. Doesn't matter as long as the end goal is clear- more fear!

And its everyone. Everyone must live in fear. Activists, their family members, their friends, their distant family, and distant friends. 

You see what I mean! It is just depressing...

2+2= 5 or how Azerbaijan Ministry of Education sees the future?

We all know that 2+2= 4 but what if your life depended on the answer you gave? This short movie below questions the authority, the fear, and conformity of young students at a school during a math class. 

Lesson learned? We often underestimate the importance of education. We stop caring about the quality, the ethics and impact. Certainly in Azerbaijan this has been the case. Once upon a time there was a country that attached grave importance to education, unfortunately, this is not the case anymore.

So let this short film serve as a reminder to our Ministry of Education, because surely, this is the future it wants to see in Azerbaijan! Or how else can it explain the levels of corruption at our schools and universities?

Parliament for sale part 2- why there is no reaction from our very own parliament

A reaction on Facebook from a friend of mine, prompted me to write another post on this video scandal. And its a good point- why none of our so called democratically elected parliament members said anything about Guler Ahmadova's video? Why none of them came forward to say for instance that this is not true about the rest of them, that they haven't paid for their seats, or that they have been democratically elected, or that this is a terrible thing to happen and a disgrace to their reputation as the country's executive body... 

Here is probably why:

- Milli Majlis [MM] has been stripped of its many powers a very long time ago and is afraid to put in practice any of the powers it still posses;

- MM is merely a stamping machine approving everything sent in from "above";

- MM is not democratically elected body;

- MM members are afraid for their seats and mandates;

- As of 2010 MM consists of ruling party members;

and so on and so forth...