Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

Will Azerbaijan Change Its Name?
February 2, 2012 - 9:20am, by Giorgi Lomsadze
The country of Azerbaijan may answer to a different name in the future, if local lawmakers go to town with a proposal to rename the oil and gas-loaded country the Republic of Northern Azerbaijan.

The idea, pitched by minority lawmakers and applauded by representatives of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party, spells trouble for the already less-than-neighborly relations between Azerbaijan and Iran. The name Northern Azerbaijan emphasizes the fact that the Azeri nation is split between an independent state, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and a province in northern Iran, known to many Azerbaijanis as Southern Azerbaijan.

Things have not been too chummy of late between Iran and Azerbaijan, both majority Shi’ite Muslim countries, and the proposed name change for Azerbaijan is unlikely to improve matters.

Or to calm concerns within Azerbaijan about what trouble with Iran might mean for their country.

But some lawmakers still like the sound of Northern Azerbaijan.

And why not?, asked Yeni Azerbaijan Party parliamentarian Siyavush Novruzov. We already have the examples of North and South Korea, North and South Cyprus, so “Azerbaijan, as a divided state, should be called Northern Azerbaijan,” he argued, Trend reported. The lawmakers have proposed to hold a national referendum on the name change.

Iran, so far, is not known to have responded.

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/64942

So does this mean the UN resolutions will not be in force anymore as they are about the Republic of azerbaijan and not the republic of northern azerbaijan? I think this is the first step of their claims towards Northern Iran with the second being trying to annex it. I think that is why they have been coming up with these idiotic claims that Iran has been trying to assassinate Israeli parliament members in azerbaijan, etc. because war with Iran would be good for them, they can get more land and expand their fictitious country and isolate Armenia even more.
Also if Iran decides to attack azerbaijan, i say Armenia sends all its troops to help out, no matter what the US or the UN says. Then Russia will join in and we won't have this annoying country to deal with anymore.

[Mher]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

The good news is their leadership is dumb enough to actually attempt something like that and get crushed. Either way, this is great news for Armenian-Iranian relations. It is only going to bring Iran closer to Armenia.

[Federate]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

Revolution in Azerbaijan?

"Today (March 1, 2012), people in the northern city of Azerbaijan, Guba burned down the house of the governor of Guba region. They are on the streets fighting for their dignity and freedom in Azerbaijan. According to rumours the governement has already sent the tanks to the city." From http://eminmilli.posterous.com/revolution-in-azerbaijan

This was a live stream of the protests: http://bambuser.com/v/2413506



Video 1(protest in the main square):

Video 2(people break down the police lines):

[Federate]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

[retro]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

Azerbaijan: Forced Evictions

(Baku) -- The government of Azerbaijan has forcibly evicted homeowners and demolished their homes for urban development projects in Baku, the capital, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Dozens of families have been evicted from the neighborhood where the arena for the May 2012 Eurovision Song Contest is being built.

The report, "They Took Everything from Me’: Forced Evictions, Unlawful Expropriations, and House Demolitions in Azerbaijan’s Capital," documents the authorities’ illegal expropriation of properties and forcible evictions of dozens of families in four Baku neighborhoods, at times without warning or in the middle of the night. The authorities subsequently demolished homes, sometimes with residents’ possessions inside. The government has refused to provide homeowners fair compensation for the properties, many of which are in highly desirable locations. Azerbaijani law stipulates that market value should be paid in compensation for a forced sale.

“The Azerbaijani government is not just demolishing homes, it’s destroying peoples’ lives,” said Jane Buchanan, senior Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “It should immediately stop illegal expropriations, evictions, and demolitions and compensate the people who have been evicted for both the loss of their homes and emotional suffering.”

The evictions have been carried out for a variety of projects, including construction of parks, roads, luxury housing, a parking garage, and a shopping center.

The authorities forcibly evicted Arzu Adigezalova, 41, a math teacher and a single mother of two young children, without warning from her apartment next to the National Flag Square in the pre-dawn hours of October 29, 2011.

“I woke up because the building was shaking and I could hear something like thunder,” Adigezalova told Human Rights Watch. “I took the kids and went outside. [I went up to] the official in charge and asked him to give us time to take our belongings out. He looked at me and said, ‘OK,’ but then in the next moment said to the bulldozer driver, ‘Break it down!’”

Adigezalova frantically tried to collect her belongings and take them out of the building, but lost many of her family possessions.

The eviction campaign accelerated in recent months in the seaside National Flag Square area, one of the four neighborhoods covered in the report. It is adjacent to the construction site for the Baku Crystal Hall, the modern, glass-encased arena for the May 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. The annual televised competition features music acts from 56 countries in and around Europe.

The government’s actions to clear residents from the National Flag Square area intensified after May 2011, when Azerbaijan won the contest and as a result became host to the 2012 event.

“Eurovision gives the government an opportunity to showcase Baku to thousands of visitors and millions of television viewers,” Buchanan said. “But instead, Azerbaijan’s government is showcasing its disregard for human rights by forcing people from their homes steps away from the contest site. With heightened visibility there will be more scrutiny, so it’s in the government’s interest to change its course.”
........

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/human-rights-watch/azerbaijan-homeowners-evi_b_1311367.html?ref=world

[retro]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

More on the protests.

Security force, protesters clash in north Azerbaijan

Security forces in the Republic of Azerbaijan have clashed with thousands of protesters in the northern city of Quba, using tear gas to disperse them.

Police charged at demonstrators in Quba city, situated 145 kilometers (89 miles) north of Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, on Thursday after local residents torched the local governor's house in an apparent anger over a recent televised remark that they deemed to be offensive.

Both Quba governor Rauf Habibov and Azeri Minister of Transport Ziya Mammadov apologized before protesters. However, the angry protesters insisted that the governor must step down and then set fire to his house. Police then threw tear gas canisters at the crowd to break up the protest. Authorities said four people, including three police officers, were injured. At least one journalist was among those hurt in clashes between police and protesters.

Additional security forces and armored vehicles were said to be arriving from Baku and other regions. The unrest follows comments from Habibov earlier this week in which he calls Quba residents "traitors" for selling their lands for as little as $40 to Azeris from other regions.

Habibov’s remarks came despite the fact that many local residents in Quba, home to 160,000 people, are too poor to cultivate their lands. “He insulted the people of Quba! He accused us of treason. Quba residents have always supported our state,” one protester said. The protest is the largest public demonstration to occur outside Baku since President Ilham Aliyev came to power in 2003. He succeeded his father, Heydar, who had ruled Azerbaijan since 1993.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229433.html

[UrMistake]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

That country is so broken that o god even if aliev left his position it will take years to be healthy society

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

Report: Clashes in Azerbaijan Prompt Dismissal of Regional Government Official
March 1, 2012 - 11:04am, by Shahin Abbasov Tamada Tales Azerbaijan Civil Rights
An unexpected riot in the northern Azerbaijani city of Guba on March 1 has seriously shaken up Azerbaijan’s usually calm political situation, and reportedly led to the dismissal of a regional government official appointed by President Ilham Aliyev.

Several thousand people gathered this morning in front of the main government building in Guba, about 180 kilometers north of Baku, to demand the immediate resignation of the region’s government head, Rauf Habibov, over offensive remarks he had made a few days earlier. In a video posted on YouTube, Khabibov was shown charging that the “residents of Guba sold their city for 30-40 manats. They sold their country, their land, their family.”

The reason for the remarks is not clear, but, apparently, it proved enough to send local men out into the streets.

Chanting "Resign!" and "Ungrateful!," protesters -- some carrying portraits of President Aliyev in an apparent attempt to emphasize that they were not opposing the central government itself -- laid siege to the Guba government building, reporters on the scene told EurasiaNet.org.

Local police and reinforcements from neighboring areas proved unable to disperse the crowd. Instead, by mid-afternoon, large numbers of interior ministry troops, equipped with three water-jet machines, three armored personnel carriers, and three armored vehicles, moved in. But by that time, protesters had already burned a local government guesthouse and smashed a metal fence. The next target was Habibov’s house, which was burned completely. No one was injured.

The protesters moved on to the local police station to demand the release of 22 people detained during the morning. Clashes with interior ministry troops, using tear gas, ensued for about two hours and left dozens injured.

With tensions still building, Guba parliamentarian Vahid Ahmadov, who’d earlier arrived on the scene, phoned Interior Minister Ramil Usubov in front of the protesters to demand that all the detainees be released.

Ahmadov later reappeared to report that the presidential administration had told him that President Aliyev had fired Habibov, local journalists told EurasiaNet.org. All arrested protesters were released. The crowd dispersed, and calm was restored, although groups of police are still patrolling the streets, reporters say.

No official statement about Habibov’s removal has been released. Online reports that President Aliyev has left for Guba have not been confirmed. The president reportedly earlier held a meeting with the head of law enforcement agencies about the situation in the town.

Despite much online speculation, though, the protest was neither the work of opposition activists inspired by the Arab Spring, nor Islamists protesting government restrictions against practicing Muslims. Facebook and Twitter reports that similar protests are planned nationwide on March 2 have not been confirmed.

The long-term political implications of this outburst of anger against a local official -- and his dismissal -- remain to be seen, however. Azerbaijan's tightly centralized power structure does not make protests against government officials a regular occurrence.

Already, one opposition movement, the Public Chamber, has used the occasion to issue a statement condemning the use of police force against protesters and to assert that the events in Guba reflect popular discontent with "the wrong policy of the government." Habibov, not a particularly high-profile regional official, was appointed the head of Guba’s government a few years ago after serving in similar positions elsewhere in Azerbaijan. He is reportedly the protégé (and, some reports claim, the relative) of influential Transportation Minister Ziya Mammadov, who rushed to Guba along with Ahmadov and senior presidential administration official Zeynal Nagdaliyev, to try and calm the crowd.

One of Azerbaijan’s oldest cities with a population of about 200,000, Guba has always ranked as a relatively rich region thanks to developed agriculture and tourism sectors and trade with nearby Russia. The city’s fresh mountain air and comfortable hotels and resorts have made it a favorite get-away destination for many Baku residents.

Now, it will prove memorable for another reason, too.

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/65068

[Mher]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

22 arrested in Azerbaijan in plot on US, Israeli embassies

Published March 14, 2012

| FoxNews.com


Officials in Azerbaijan have arrested 22 people suspected of plotting attacks on the American and Israeli embassies on behalf of Iran in the Azeri capital of Baku, the Agence France Presse is reporting.

Iran lays just to the south of Azerbaijan.

"Twenty-two citizens of Azerbaijan have been arrested by the national security ministry for cooperating with the Iranian Sepah," the ministry said, referring to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, according to AFP. "On orders of the Sepah, they were to commit terrorist acts against the US, Israeli and other Western states' embassies and the embassies' employees."

The ministry said in a statement to AFP that those arrested were recruited beginning in 1999 and trained at military camps in Iran to gather information on foreign embassies and organizations in Azerbaijan. Their training included weapon use and spy techniques to stage attacks, according to the AFP.

"Firearms, cartridges, explosives and espionage equipment were found during the arrest," the statement said.

In the past few months, a series of arrests have been made in Azerbaijan with alleged connections to Tehran.

The former Soviet nation of Azerbaijan is reported to have purchased hundreds of millions of dollars to weapons from Israel, allegedly angering Iran, the AFP reported.

Azeri Defense Minister Safar Abiyev visited Tehran this week, however, as the neighbors declared friendship in an effort to improve relations.

"We are sure that we will face no problem from our brother and neighbor Azerbaijan," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/03/14/22-arrested-in-azerbaijan-in-plot-on-us-israeli-embassies/

[Mher]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

14 March 2012 Last updated at 10:17 ET

Azerbaijan arrests 22 suspects in alleged Iran spy plot


The authorities in Azerbaijan have arrested 22 people on suspicion of spying for Iran, accusing them of links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

The undated arrests were confirmed in a brief statement by the Azerbaijani national security ministry.

Azerbaijani TV reported last month that a plot to attack the Israeli embassy and a xxxish centre had been foiled.

At the time, Iran was also suspected of attacking Israeli targets in Thailand, India and Georgia.

It was not immediately clear on Wednesday if these were new arrests, or official confirmation of those made in February.

However, according to Contact, a non-government Azerbaijani news website supported by the US National Endowment for Democracy, the arrests took place between late January and 20 February.

Contact said the detainees were being charged with treason and illegal possession of weapons.

It added that they were "not the first group of individuals... arrested recently in Azerbaijan on charges of working for the Iranian secret services".
Covert war?

"Firearms, cartridges, explosives and espionage equipment were found during the arrest," the Azerbaijani national security ministry said.

The 22 detainees are said to have received orders from the Revolutionary Guards to "commit terrorist acts against the US, Israeli and other Western states' embassies and the embassies' employees".

Recruited as far back as 1999, they were allegedly trained in the use of weapons and spy techniques at military camps in Iran.

Iran and Israel appear to be engaged in a covert war of threats, bomb attacks and assassination plots in the Caucasus, the BBC's Damien McGuinness reported recently.

Recent tensions suggest that Iranian spies and agents of Israel's secret service Mossad are active in the southern Caucasus, made up of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, our Tbilisi correspondent adds.

Iran says Azerbaijanis have been helping Israeli assassinations in Iran.

The development of Azerbajiani oil and gas in the Caspian Sea, with major export pipelines pumping energy to Western markets, heightens the region's strategic importance.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17368576