Freedom in the World 2001 - Azerbaijan

2001 Scores

Status: Partly Free
Freedom Rating: 5.5
Civil Liberties: 5
Political Rights: 6

Ratings Change

Azerbaijan's civil liberties rating changed from 4 to 5 due to increased harassment of the media and opposition political groups leading up to the November parliamentary elections.

Overview

Azerbaijan's November parliamentary elections, in which President Heydar Aliev's Yeni Azerbaijan ruling party won an overwhelming victory, were marred by widespread electoral fraud. International election monitors cited numerous serious irregularities, while political opposition parties refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new legislature and convened mass rallies to protest the results. Despite the widespread condemnation of the vote, Azerbaijan was accepted as a member of the Council of Europe only days after the poll.

Controlled by the Ottoman Empire since the 17th century, Azerbaijan entered the Soviet Union in 1922 as part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federal Republic, becoming a separate Soviet republic in 1936. Following a referendum in 1991, Azerbaiajn declared independence from the disintegrating Soviet Union.

In June 1992, Abulfaz Elchibey, leader of the nationalist opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front, was elected president in a generally free and fair vote. A military coup one year later ousted him from power and installed the former first secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party, Heydar Aliev, in his place. In October 1993 presidential elections, Aliev reportedly received almost 99 percent of the vote. Azerbaijan's first post-Soviet parliamentary elections, held in November 1995, saw five leading opposition parties and some 600 independent candidates barred from the vote in which President Aliev's Yeni Azerbaijan party won the most seats. A new constitution adopted that year further strengthened Aliev's already sweeping powers.

In October 1998, Aliev was chosen president with more than 70 percent of the vote in an election characterized by serious irregularities, including election law violations and a lack of transparency in the vote-counting process. Six months later, Aliev underwent heart bypass surgery in the United States, returning to Azerbaijan after almost two months of recuperation in Turkey. His illness focused attention on his eventual successor, with most suspecting that Aliev's son Ilham, who is vice president of the state oil company SOCAR, was being groomed to be the country's next president. On August 22, Abulfaz Elchibey died of prostate cancer in Turkey, with tens of thousands of mourners attending his funeral service in Baku.

More than half a year before the November 5, 2000, parliamentary election, several thousand people attended an April 29 demonstration in Baku, which was organized by the opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front to protest an unfair draft electoral law. Clashes between the protesters and riot police left over 50 injured while dozens were arrested. Opposition parties criticized the law, which was eventually adopted in July, for providing them with insufficient representation on the country's Central Election Commission (CEC). In September, the CEC ruled to disqualify most opposition parties, including Musavat and the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, from competing in the upcoming parliamentary poll for allegedly failing to collect the required number of signatures to appear on the ballot. After considerable international pressure, President Aliev ordered the CEC to reverse its decision in early October. Nevertheless, according to Human Rights Watch, the government continued to use means to prevent opposition candidates from contesting the poll, including intimidating those gathering signatures for candidates' registration, arbitrarily declaring signature lists invalid, and using delaying tactics to prevent candidates from completing the registration process in time.

In a widely expected victory, the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party captured 62.5 percent of the vote for the 25 seats distributed by proportional representation, according to the CEC. The Azerbaijan Popular Front received 11 percent of the vote, followed by the Communist Party with 7 percent and the Civil Solidarity Party with 6 percent. While Yeni Azerbaijan also received a majority of the 100 seats awarded in single-mandate constituencies, the CEC ordered new elections for nearly a dozen to be held on January 7. International monitors, including representatives from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Council of Europe, cited mass fraud during the elections, including stuffing of ballot boxes, a flawed counting process, falsified election results, a strong pro-government bias in state run media, intimidation of voters by local officials, and denial to international observers of access to polling stations. According to the OSCE, the actual voter turnout was far below the 70 percent claimed by the CEC.

Despite widespread criticism of the elections, the Council of Europe approved Azerbaijan's application for membership just days after the vote. International human rights groups criticized the decision, which would allow Azerbaijan to join the organization in January 2001, because of the country's lack of progress on human rights and serious irregularities in the parliamentary poll.

On November 14, opposition parties announced their refusal to recognize the election results, declared their intention not to participate in the new parliament, and called for the holding of new elections. Four days later, they convened rallies in several cities to protest the election and demand the resignation of Azerbaijan's leadership; nearly 15,000 demonstrators gathered in Baku alone. Although election results were overturned in 11 voting districts, in which new votes were scheduled for January 2001, the results in the remaining districts were officially declared valid.

In May 2000, parliament ratified agreements for the construction of the proposed Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline. However, the U.S.-backed project, which is projected to begin operating in 2004 or 2005, will still require an assured supply of oil and financial backing to be commercially viable. The pipeline, which would bypass Russian territory, is widely regarded as a means of reducing Moscow's influence in the region.

The most recent international mediation efforts over control of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which call for the enclave and Azerbaijan to form a common state, remained inconclusive at year's end. While Armenia has largely accepted the plan, Azerbaijan has pushed for clearer guarantees of sovereignty over the territory. At the same time, Azerbaijan continued to lobby for the repeal of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which blocks U.S. aid to Azerbaijan. The sanctions, which were enacted in 1992 during the height of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, represent the only ones of their kind against a former Soviet state.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Citizens of Azerbaijan cannot change their government democratically. President Aliev, who in 1999 celebrated 30 years of almost uninterrupted rule since becoming Azerbaijan's Communist Party leader in 1969, has imposed an authoritarian rule while building a cult of personality. The 1995 constitution gives the president control over the government, legislature, and judiciary. The 1993 and 1998 presidential and 1995 and 2000 parliamentary elections were considered neither free nor fair by international observers. Opposition political party members face frequent harassment and arrest by the authorities.

Although the constitution guarantees freedom of speech and the press, journalists who publish articles critical of the president or other prominent state officials are routinely prosecuted, and self-censorship is common. Many newspapers struggle financially in the face of heavy fines or imprisonment of their editors and staff. A new media law adopted by parliament in December 1999 and signed into law by President Aliev in February 2000 empowers an agency of the executive branch to distribute broadcast licenses and shut down broadcasters charged with violating broadcast regulations, while broadcasters do not have the right to appeal through the court system.

The government stepped up its campaign against the country's independent media in 2000, particularly during the pre-election period. The journal Monitor Weekly, which had been critical of the government, was forced to suspend publication in May, while the independent Azerbaijan Broadcasting Agency (ABA) was shut down without warning for ten days in October. Physical attacks against journalists during the year included an April 29 police beating of 17 journalists covering an opposition rally in Baku and an assault by police officers against two newspaper reporters from the daily Bu Gun on May 27. Rauf Arifoglu, the editor of the country's largest opposition newspaper, Yeni Musavat, was arrested in August and charged with several serious crimes. Human rights groups insisted that the charges were a politically motivated attempt by the government to intimidate Arifoglu prior to the November parliamentary elections, in which he planned to run. Although he was released after six weeks of pretrial detention, the charges against him remained at year's end.

Following President Aliev's November 1999 public statement of his commitment to religious freedom, a number of groups with long-standing registration applications, including the Jehovah's Witnesses, were registered, while abuses against foreigners and converts to nontraditional faiths decreased. Nevertheless, the government continues to restrict some religious activities of foreigners and Azerbaijanis who are members of nontraditional religious groups through burdensome registration requirements and interference in the dissemination of printed materials. Muslims, Russian Orthodox Christians, and Jews are considered "traditional" religions and their members can worship freely.

The government frequently restricts freedom of assembly and association, particularly for political parties critical of the government. In October, police prevented members of the Civil Unity Party from holding a demonstration in Baku to protest the government's refusal to register their party. According to Human Rights Watch, several members were beaten and injured. In June, President Aliev signed a law on NGOs which prevents domestic organizations from monitoring elections if they receive a certain amount of funding from foreign sources. Most trade unions belong to the state-run Azerbaijani Labor Federation, and there is no effective collective bargaining system.

The judiciary, which does not function independently of the executive branch, is inefficient and corrupt. Detainees are often held for long periods before trials, and their access to evidence and lawyers is restricted. Police abuse of suspects during arrest and interrogation reportedly remains commonplace, with torture often used to extract confessions. Despite presidential decrees in June and October granting amnesty to dozens of political prisoners, opposition and human rights groups insist that hundreds remain in custody.

The more than 750,000 refugees who fled the war in Nagorno-Karabakh remain in Azerbaijan, often living in appalling conditions. Most are unable or unwilling to return to their homes because of fears for their safety and concerns over dismal economic prospects in the breakaway territory.

Significant parts of the economy remain in the hands of a corrupt nomenklatura, which severely limits equality of opportunity. Most women work in the low-paying public sector, and traditional norms perpetuate discrimination and violence against women.