HRW: European Games in Baku to open amid unprecedented repression

PanARMENIAN.Net - The first European Games will open in Azerbaijan on June 12, 2015, in an atmosphere of government repression unprecedented in the post-Soviet era, Human Rights Watch said Thursday, June 11.

The authorities have detained dozens of critics of the government and failed to allow several journalists from major European outlets to enter the country to cover the games. They have also barred the human rights organization Amnesty International from releasing a report in Baku, the capital.

“Government repression is making the European Games historic for all the wrong reasons,” said Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The European Olympic Committee still has the chance to prevent the Games from being tarnished by the Azerbaijani government’s abuses, but time is running out.”

Azerbaijan is hosting the inaugural European Games, a multi-sport event for over 6,000 athletes from 50 European nations, in Baku from June 12 to 28. The European Olympic Committees (EOC), an association of 50 National Olympic Committees, owns and regulates the games. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, is also the president of the country’s National Olympic Committee, and has strong ties with the sports world.

In recent weeks Azerbaijani authorities denied or failed to provide required press accreditation and visas to at least three foreign journalists with European media outlets. A reporter with a leading European television station said he has yet to receive accreditation despite following all of the procedures. The authorities denied accreditation to Regis Gente, a journalist with Radio France Internationale who has been based in the South Caucasus reporting news stories on Azerbaijan since 2002. A third journalist denied accreditation works for a major European news media outlet.

Also on June 10, Azerbaijani border police at the airport in Baku refused entry to and deported Emma Hughes, an activist with the London-based group Platform who was accredited to cover the Games as editor of Red Pepper magazine. Hughes has advocated the release of government critics wrongly imprisoned by the Azerbaijani authorities, and her book criticizing the Azerbaijani government is scheduled for publication on June 12.

Human Rights Watch wrote to officials with the EOC on June 5 and again on June 9, urging them to raise these cases with the Azerbaijani authorities, but has not received a substantive reply. It is unclear what, if any, steps the EOC has taken to resolve the accreditation issues.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly urged the EOC to use its unique leverage with the Azerbaijani government in the lead-up to the European Games to press for the release of wrongfully imprisoned journalists, human rights defenders, and government critics. It is unclear what, if any, action the EOC has taken, and EOC officials have said in media interviews and other public statements that the EOC “cannot accept political engagements” or “dictate to a sovereign state what to do.”

The Azerbaijani government’s unprecedented moves to bar external scrutiny have followed the worst crackdown the county has seen in the post-Soviet era, Human Rights Watch said.

After several years of a revolving-door policy of detaining and releasing government critics, in 2014 the authorities prosecuted or imprisoned at least 35 Azerbaijani journalists, human rights defenders, and political activists on unfounded charges. The crackdown has prompted others to flee the country or go into hiding. The government has also frozen the bank accounts of dozens of independent groups, forced some groups to close, and made it nearly impossible for groups that engage in human rights work to obtain foreign funding.