Yes to Freedom! No to Violence!
Video
Yes to Freedom! No to Violence!
12 December, 2012
Azerbaijan is a country with no freedom of speech and assembly. The mafia regime is in so much fear of the citizens that the police are ordered to shadow even book-readers and disperse any meetings of young people, especially when they propagate education and get together on steps of public libraries.
It is banned to read, assemble and criticize the regime. It is already 7 years since 2005 that Baku City Executive Authority has banned any rallies, meetings and pickets within Baku. The authorities put internal troops to battle peaceful citizens demanding respect for the Constitution.
You can see how the brave men are dealing shortly with the women daring claim their rights. Either in police or civil uniform they demonstrate indifferent brutality and total self-impunity. The history of Azerbaijan has never seen such brutality and mass violence against women!! They are allowed everything.
You can see a little girl who dared scream out the banned word ‘Azadlig’ (‘Freedom’). The girl must be taught a stressful lesson, so that the girl and her mommy will never forget it. They are allowed everything.
The police are beating the journalists with extreme atrocity. Idrak Abbasov has been beaten up not by the police, but the security service of the State Oil Company. The journalist has bad eyesight, his internals are damaged, he will have many surgeries. But none of his offenders has been punished. The criminal authorities are even keeping on persecuting Idrak Abbasov. They are allowed everything.
These faces, these eyes…..what are inside them? They probably have families, mothers, kids…
Dictators do not know history, they ignore its lessons. Violence begets violence. A sober-minded man is against revolution, social disruption and blood. But swelled of oil and corruption revenues dictators suppress any chance for democratic reforms, evolutional development of the society. They are doomed to repeat history.
This is Baku in 2011- 2012 and that is Baku in 1988-1989
The monuments are first to be knocked down even by those who use to bow before them.
US Ambassador Richard L. Morningstar at Heydar Aliyev monument, Baku, September 2012
A US soldier near Saddam Hussein monument, Bagdad, April 2003
We are all responsible for the future of this girl and for the future of our country
Music by Fikret Amirov, Gambar Huseynli, Uzeyir Hadjibeyov, and Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle
All publications expresses the authors private opinion. UK Embassy does not bear responsibility for the contents of the text.
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