APPEAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF PEACE AND DEMOCRACY
Yesterday, on July 30, 2014 the Director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD), winner of the Prize named after Teodora Hacker, Holder of the Order of the French Legion, a human rights activist Leyla Yunus at 11:45 left the house to go to a hearing on the drug trafficking situation, organized by the National Council of Democratic forces of Azerbaijan. However, as soon as she got in the car, the car was immediately attacked by three men in plainclothes who took Leila Yunus in an unknown direction. Later it became known that she was forcibly taken away by the Office for Serious Crimes of the Prosecutor General Office of the country.
At the same time a few minutes later six people in civilian clothes break into an apartment of Yunus, demanding that her husband Arif opened the door. Otherwise, they threatened to break the door and windows, and to storm the apartment. He refused to open the door, and called lawyers and journalists, as well as representatives of diplomatic and international missions in the country and abroad. Soon he learned that Leyla Yunus was being interrogated without a lawyer, as her public defender lawyer Yusif Agayev is not a member of the Bar Association. It became clear that they indent to convict Leyla Yunus without a lawyer. In order to change the situation, Yunus with his lawyer Khalid Bagirov voluntarily went to the General Prosecutor, and there until coming the second lawyer Javad Javadov, Bagirov temporarily performed the role of a lawyer.
During the interrogation, the spouses were brought totally absurd, but serious accusations: allegedly since 1992, but more actively since 2002 the Yunus family conspired with representatives of Armenian secret service, and recruited agents for the Armenian intelligence, and passed Armenia military secrets. These charges looked more like articles from the pro-government media than the accusations of professionals investigators. Indeed, in the role of “agent” and the Armenian intelligence officer was put Laura Baghdasaryan , journalist and head of the NGO Research Center “Region”, multi-year (2005) the partner of the Institute for Peace and Democracy for a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict, with which Yunus established in 2012 a joint Azerbaijani-Armenian website (http://www.publicdialogues.info/). This is a unique platform on the Internet, which holds e Internet-conferences, video bridges, discussions experts in various fields, not only from Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, USA, Europe. Moreover, due to the arrest on 19 April, 2014 Rauf Mirkadirov , a Laureate International Prize Gerd Bucerius, honored journalist in Azerbaijan for participation in the activities of “people’s diplomacy”, Leyla Yunus and Laura Baghdasaryan made on April 25, 2014 a joint statement (
http://contact.az/docs/2014/Want%20to%20Say/042500076779ru.htm
).
Then Laura Baghdasaryan also publicly responded to all the absurd and ridiculous claims against her on the part of the Prosecutor General (
http://publicdialogues.info/node/768
).
Therefore, spouses Yunus categorically denied all charges against them, regarded them as absurd falsification, and individually stated that there is no investigation, there is an order for their arrest and the General Prosecutor’s Office investigators are involved in it . Therefore, based on constitutional law, they refused to testify against themselves and their families.
After interrogation lasting for six hours at 18:10 serious charges were brought against Leyla Yunus: under Articles 274 (high treason), 178.3.2 (fraud on a large scale), 192.2.2 (illegal business), 213.2.2 (evasion tax), 320.1 and 320.2 (falsification of documents), and Arif Yunus is changed under the Articles 274 (treason) and 178.3.2 (fraud on a large scale) of the Criminal Code. These Articles are the most serious, for which the defendant faces up to 15 years to life imprisonment and, most importantly, the trials on these items are closed to the public, and even relatives, during which as it happens often in recent years, the court in Azerbaijan agrees with all unproven allegations of investigation.
Thereafter, senior investigator for particularly important issues of the Office for Serious Crimes Prosecutor General of Azerbaijan Ibrahim Lemberansky decided that Arif Yunus dopted a decision that Arif Yunus recently had a hypertensive crisis, and in his respect preventive punishment was transference under police surveillance. As for Leyla Yunus, she was taken to Nasimi District Court, where at about 19:00 was decided to – arrest her for three months.
All this was a natural result of the struggle of the ruling criminal regime against dissidents and human rights defenders in particular. In this struggle, the Institute for Peace and Democracy and personally Leyla Yunus were on the forefront, and were subjected to persecution and repression. In 2009, after the publication of the specific facts of the participation of a number of senior officers of the Interior Ministry in people trafficking, Interior Minister Ramil Usubov sued against Leyla Yunus (claim was withdrawn after the start of an international campaign in defense of Yunus) , and the persecution of her family and close associates began. As a result, at the same time her daughter Dinara Yunus and employee of the IPD, Javanshir Huseynov were forced to leave the country, and seek refuge in European countries.
In 2011, Yunus published a research on the mechanism of corruption in the illicit destruction in 2009-2011 owned by the residents of Baku. In her study, she pointed out exactly who and how committed criminal offenses, as a result of which more than 60,000 civilians were unlawfully deprived of their homes and apartments. On August 10, 2011 interview with her on this subject was published in the “New York Times”, and on August 11, in the evening her house in which was an office IPD was bulldozed with all who are in it and the property documents (pictures you can see the demolition of houses in this video –
http://www.azadliq.org/content/article/24294298.html
).
Recently, the Azerbaijani authorities became particularly annoyed with activity of the IPD, and personally Yunus who work on the situation of political prisoners and her peacekeeping activity with the Armenian counterparts for a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict. And it was all against the backdrop of the bellicose rhetoric of President Ilham Aliyev and his statements about the alleged lack of political prisoners in the country.
On January 15, 2014, President Ilham Aliyev, speaking in Brussels, said there are not political prisoners in Azerbaijan. After a week L.Yunus presented a list of political prisoners and “prisoners of conscience” IPD, and on April 15, 2014 posted on the site of Turan agency full list of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, with full data bank, evidence of wrongdoing brought against these civil charges. At the same IPD constantly updates the list of victims of political repression, which is always available in Russian and English on the website and on July 8, 2014 in this list 109 victims of political repression in Azerbaijan (
http://ft.contact.az/?p=14
).
On April 28, 2014 the Yunus family was illegally detained without a court order at the airport on departure to Brussels at the invitation of the European Endowment for Democracy. During the arrest their passports were taken away, and during a searched were seized computer and personal documents. While Arif Yunus suffered a hypertensive crisis and was in intensive care hospital, Leyla Yunus was subjected to 26-hours questioning! There were also attempts to put pressure on employees IPD. On May 1 and 2 to the Public Prosecutor summoned and interrogated for 8-10 hours Matanat Azizova, head of the Women’s Crisis Center, established IPD in 2001 and permanently in the house of Yunus. They demanded from M.Azizova to evidence the espionage activity of L.Yunus, otherwise threatened with arrest. On May 3 Azizova was forced to leave Azerbaijan. In response, on May 22 while trying to cross the Azerbaijani-Georgian border were stopped her 18-year-old son Jamal and husband Eldar, and were banned from leaving Azerbaijan. Border guards referred to the Prosecutor’s Office order Azizovs family are held as hostages.
But even after that the fight against the criminal regime continued. All this greatly irritated the authorities, especially the president. Because Leyla Yunus sent two open letters to president urging him to abandon his policy of repression, release all political prisoners, and start democratic reforms in the country. Here are the texts of these open letters:
Open letter to President Ilham Aliyev –
http://www.contact.az/docs/2014/Want%20to%20Say/062400082486ru.htm
2. Stop panicking, Mr. President! –
http://www.contact.az/docs/2014/Want%20to%20Say/073000085556ru.htm
The IPD headed by Leyla Yunus started simultaneously other actions. On June 9, 2014 on the basis of IPD was established a Repression Resistance Center, which on July 17 launched a campaign to organize a boycott of the European Olympic Games in Azerbaijan in 2015 (text of the statement – “Authoritarian countries are not for the Olympic Games” –
http://www.contact.az/docs/2014/Want%20to%20Say/072300085057ru.htm
).
This boycott campaign immediately caused serious concern and fear among the authorities of Azerbaijan, who have decided that it is time to stop Leyla Yunus and her work, hoping for a silent reaction of the Azerbaijani people and the international community, especially Western countries. Just this is an explanation for such a tough and unprecedented action to apprehend and arrest the couple Yunus. It is well known that 60-years-old Leyla Yunus is seriously ill, she has diabetes, and she needs not only medicines, but also specific food, but her stay in jail is the right way to premature death of the human rights activist.
But we want to say that IPD continues its activity. On the other hand, we believe that Azerbaijani people will not keep silent, will not be afraid of the authorities of the republic. Likewise, the international community will not take the position of the observer. We invite all who are committed to the ideals of democracy and freedom, rise up and bring about a change of government policy towards dissidents and human rights activists in Azerbaijan.
For our and your freedom!
Press service of the Institute for Peace and Democracy,
Baku, July 31, 2014
Source: http://contact.az/docs/2014/Want%20to%20Say/073100085603en.htm#.U9oSdah4wXw
