From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Mon Jul 08 2002 - 11:22:45 EDT
Azeri authorities want to get rid of evidence in Azeri riot village - paper
Excerpt from R. Orucov report by Azerbaijani newspaper Ekho on 5 July
entitled "MP for `special assignments'"
Residents of Nardaran [village near Baku] don't want to lose the last
remaining evidence
Many people from the neighbouring villages and from Baku came to attend the
traditional weekly remembrance evenings for the killed residents of
Nardaran yesterday. In the morning, people gathered in the central local
square to listen to prayers and Koranic verses and then visited the grave
of the killed Alihasan Agayev. The ceremony lasted till 1600 [Baku time].
When the visitors started dispersing, seven residents of the neighbouring
Digah village were detained at one of the local police posts. They were "as
usual" taken to the 12th department of the Sabuncu district police. Shortly
afterwards, the chief of the police department, Togrul Rahimov, arrived
there and urgently summoned a representative of the Digah village
authorities. After the latter had confirmed the identities of the detained
villagers, they were released.
Later, however, three other residents of Nardaran were arrested on their way
back home from the city. They were made to get off a bus and taken to the
same police department. After the newly-appointed chief of the Nardaran
village police had intervened, the people were also released.
A member of parliament Asmatxanim Mammadova also visited the village
yesterday to remember the victims. It later turned out that this was not
her sole mission though. Mammadova, obviously on someone's directive,
suggested to local residents again that the burnt out remains of police
cars and buses be removed from Nardaran. In return, she said, the
authorities would lift all police posts around Nardaran. Local people told
Mammadova that such an "exchange" was ruled out until the arrested
villagers were released, because the cars and buses were the only remaining
evidence of the police action in the village on 3 June.
The MP replied that all the arrested residents of Nardaran would be released
after the necessary investigation procedures. In response, the villagers
said that they had been hearing that for one month... [ellipsis as
published] After some time Mammadova left. People in Nardaran tend to think
that the MP's visit was nothing but an attempt by the authorities to get
rid of the last evidence to the crimes committed against local residents.
According to a local elder, Haciaga Nuriyev, two deputy heads of the
Sabuncu district executive authority also attended the ceremony in the
central square yesterday, sitting together with everyone else and listening
to prayers. In fact, it was these very officials who tried to persuade
local residents on 28 June to remove the remains of police vehicles from
the village.
There are no other conspicuous changes in and around the village. All police
posts are still there which restrict the villagers' movement. Neither is
there any clarity with the general situation - people don't know whether
they will still be considered fully-fledged citizens of the country,
whether the authorities are going to resolve the problems of the village,
whether the authorities want to gradually hush up the problem, as was the
case in other parts of the country, or whether a new provocation is being
masterminded in order to punish Nardaran once again but much more severely.
[Passage omitted: minor background details]
Source: Ekho, Baku, in Russian 5 Jul 02 p 1
BBC Mon TCU 050702 ha/eb
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