{"id":186768,"date":"2017-09-30T17:06:15","date_gmt":"2017-09-30T17:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meydan.tv\/article\/outcry-as-azerbaijan-police-launch-crackdown-on-lgbt-community\/"},"modified":"2021-10-29T14:28:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-29T10:28:57","slug":"outcry-as-azerbaijan-police-launch-crackdown-on-lgbt-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meydan.tv\/en\/article\/outcry-as-azerbaijan-police-launch-crackdown-on-lgbt-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Outcry as Azerbaijan police launch crackdown on LGBT community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Authorities in Azerbaijan\u2019s capital, Baku, have begun a vicious crackdown on the city\u2019s LGBT community, according to activists in the country. Reports suggest that over the past 10 days dozens of gay and trans people have been arrested. One person the Guardian contacted said he had been beaten in police custody.\n<\/p>\n

\n Homosexuality is legal in the oil-rich, post-Soviet country, but a
\n
\n survey released last year
\n <\/a>
\n by a rights organisation ranked Azerbaijan as the worst of 49 European countries in which to be gay.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere have been previous crackdowns on LGBT people, but this one is much bigger, with systematic and widespread raids,\u201d said Samed Rahimli, a Baku-based lawyer who is helping coordinate legal defences for those who have been detained.\n<\/p>\n

\n Rahimli said he was aware of 60 cases of LGBT people who had been either sentenced to 20 days\u2019 imprisonment or fined as part of the recent crackdown. Those currently in jail were charged with resisting police orders. \u201cThis is a common charge used in Azerbaijan for arbitrary arrests.\u201d He said many more people could have been caught up in the sweep but not formally charged.\n<\/p>\n

\n Azerbaijani authorities denied that the roundup targeted all LGBT people. Eskhan Zakhidov, a spokesman for the country\u2019s interior ministry, told the local APA news agency: \u201cThese raids are not against all sexual minorities. The arrested are people who demonstratively show a lack of respect for those around them, annoy citizens with their behaviour, and also those whom police or health authorities believe to be carriers of infectious diseases.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Zakhidov did not clarify what might count as annoying behaviour or a lack of respect. Other officials have said the raids did not target LGBT people specifically but were instead aimed at people engaged in prostitution, and were launched after complaints from local residents.\n<\/p>\n

\n The Guardian exchanged written messages with three gay men who said they had been caught up in the wave of arrests. None of them wanted their names disclosed and all said they were currently in hiding in Azerbaijan. One of the men said he had been beaten in a police station and released after being made to pay a 150 manat (\u00a365) fine. \u201cThe police told me they would arrest me if they see me in the street again. Now I am afraid to leave my house,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

\n Another said he was approached in a Baku nightclub by police who said they were conducting a search for LGBT people. All three said they had friends currently in detention, and reported police carrying out sweeps of the city searching for people who \u201clook gay\u201d. Their stories could not be independently verified but chime with the testimony of local lawyers and rights activists.\n<\/p>\n

\n Samad Ismayilov, an Azerbaijani LGBT activist who left the country in 2014 citing safety fears and who now lives in the US, said he first began receiving information about the roundups on 16 September. \u201cSo far I know of 33 people involved, but this is only those who have gone to lawyers. I think there many more people who just want to keep quiet and hide,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere are no gay clubs in Azerbaijan, but there are some nightclubs that are considered gay-friendly, and friends have told me that for the first time there are police outside the clubs looking for gay people to detain.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Boris Dittrich, of the LGBT rights programme at Human Rights Watch, said the organisation was aware of reports about the events in Baku and was still trying to confirm them. He called for a \u201cthorough and independent investigation\u201d into the reports.\n<\/p>\n

\n The crackdown has echoes of a
\n
\n roundup of gay men
\n <\/a>
\n in the southern Russian region of Chechnya this year, many of whom were detained and tortured.\n<\/p>\n

\n It was not immediately clear what prompted the Baku raids, or what the authorities\u2019 end goal might be. The topic of homosexuality is taboo in conservative Azerbaijani society, and last year\u2019s
\n
\n ILGA-Europe Rainbow Index
\n <\/a>
\n ranked it the worst place in Europe to be gay, based on the number of violent homophobic attacks and discriminatory remarks by public figures.\n<\/p>\n

\n In 2014 a 20-year-old Azerbaijani gay rights activist, Isa Shakhmarli, hanged himself with a rainbow flag. \u201cThis world is not able to hold my colours,\u201d he wrote in a suicide note.\n<\/p>\n

\n Rights groups have long criticised Azerbaijan\u2019s rights record under President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father as the country\u2019s ruler in 2003. However, the country\u2019s oil wealth and
\n
\n lobbying efforts
\n <\/a>
\n have meant international criticism has often been muted.\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n Orkhan Mammad contributed to this report.
\n <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least 60 people have been imprisoned or fined after a spate of raids in the capital, Baku<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":93018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","infinite-scroll-item","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOutcry as Azerbaijan police launch crackdown on LGBT community - MEYDAN.TV<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.meydan.tv\/en\/article\/outcry-as-azerbaijan-police-launch-crackdown-on-lgbt-community\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Outcry as Azerbaijan police launch crackdown on LGBT community - 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