Support for Adnan and Emin spans the globe!

The support for Emin and Adnan takes a new form as bloggers make videos to support their colleagues in Azerbaijan. Here are the instructions included with this video:

What can you do?
1. Take a camera
2. Introduce yourself: My name is ... I am from...
3. Send your support message to Adnan and Emin
4. Finish your video with the words: I call on Azerbaijani government to end this lawlessness.
5. Upload this video to Youtube with subject Support to Adnan and Emin
6. Send the link of the video to ol.azerbaijan@gmail.com

Bike Polo

While polo played on bikes is considerably cheaper than equestrian polo, the players become just as tangled. There is also an element of risk, although I don't think it's nearly as dangerous as equestrian polo. (Now I can say that I have photographed both variations.)

Free press, gas pipelines, and jailed activists

I came across a provocative post on this blog today, following a link from Facebook. You can read it for yourself, but the author states her position clearly in the headline: Why Facebook Hurts Democratic Movements. She objects to the recent activity on Facebook, as sympathizers protest the arrests of Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada.

I have to disagree respectfully with the author. I believe that in the struggle to improve democratic governance and safeguard human rights, every peaceful tool should be used. It appears that the author of the post believes that the activists of the Internet are not incurring enough risk to validate their activist credentials. In fact, as we can see the young people who are using the Internet to discuss democracy in Azerbaijan do incur significant risk.

Every peaceful tool should be used if we are to effect political change. We don't know which ones will be most effective. Also, not everyone has the same tools to use. For some people, attending a demonstration in Baku is possible. For others, circulating information about the human rights abuses in that country is a more feasible action.

In other news, I was glad to hear about this agreement being signed, even though many of the details remain to be ironed out. I am a supporter of democrats in Russia, and so I am all for creating some competition to Gazprom. Azerbaijan pay provide gas for the pipeline. It is one of the many details for Nabucco.

Finally, I expect to be reading this report tonight. The report was produced by Free Press, a media reform group started in 2002 by media scholar Robert W. McChesney. The article that John Nichols and McChesney wrote for the Nation earlier this year was thought-provoking and well argued. I expect that the new report will contain some similar suggestions.

Case of Emin and Adnan gets attention of bloggers

I'm not sure it will help, but I don't think the publicity about the case of Emin and Adnan will hurt. Among the websites carrying information about this case are OL!, Elites TV, Reporters Without Borders, and Human Rights House.

In other news, a businessman was convicted in U.S. court of conspiring to pay bribes to late President Heydar Aliyev and other government leaders. What is unusual about the case is that it actually went to trial! Will the case have any repercussions in Azerbaijan? I doubt it.

Victims jailed and the guilty parties walk

Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada have been sentenced to two months "pre-trial investigative detention." Presumably this is for investigation into the incident where they were both assaulted and seriously injured. Confused? You should be.

There is a movie called Absurdistan. Azerbaijan is perceived to be the model for the fictional country. It is such incidents that cause such perceptions. Yes, if you are assaulted in Azerbaijan, you will be jailed and your assailant will go free.

Of course, this is the case if you are a trouble-making activists like Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada. Emin Milli was agitating on the Internet, using Facebook to get the word out about protests and the conditions in Azerbaiajan. Adnan Hajizada was one of the founders of OL Youth group. This group also used the Internet to publicize the problems that young people in Azerbaijan face. Radio Free Liberty has an article about the case. Global Voices and Flying Carpets and Broken Pipelines write about the case as well.

Officials from the US Embassy & the Norwegian Embassy are objecting to the persecution of the activists - but I don't hold much hope that external pressure will change things. To me, the case is a reminder that even authoritarian governments are not monolithic. Within the power structure, there may be different elements that have different agendas. Some people in Azerbaijan breathed a sigh of relief last month, when legislation concerning NGOs was not as restrictive as feared. As it was - it is plenty restrictive - but perhaps it was less than some hard liners wanted. Here is an example of the hard line elements in the government taking off their gloves - and showing human rights activists - and the populace in general - that they better not make noise about the thieves who are running their country.

Dragonfly

This little resident of a pond in North Carolina - photographed by me last week - now gets to travel around the world!

Emin Milli and Adnan Haji-zadeh at Police Station

Here is the ANTV clip that shows an interview with one of the two activists beaten by thugs in Baku a couple of days ago. No charges brought against the people who beat them. Of course, the activists who were the victims are the ones who are presumed to be guilty. As one of my friends in Baku remarked, "Nothing new here."