Rights activist Idrak Abbasov first learned that the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan had an interest in his suburban Baku home when he received a call from frantic family members telling him that company bulldozers had started demolition work.
Azerfon, a Baku-based telecoms company that operates under the brand Nar, is one of the success stories of the new Azerbaijani economy. Founded in March 2007, the company already boasts nearly 1.7 million subscribers and covers 80 percent of the country's territory. Azerfon is Azerbaijan's only provider of 3G services.
With neighbors cheering in the streets, 34-year-old Azerbaijani newspaper journalist Eynulla Fatullayev experienced a triumphant homecoming on May 26 after four years in prison.
The Azerbaijani government has quietly stopped the operations of two international non-governmental organizations in what some local observers claim is a further attempt to clamp down on the country’s relatively weak civil society. The government counters that it is merely following the terms of its NGO registration requirements.
Tension in Azerbaijan appears to be escalating following a police crackdown on an unsanctioned rally in Baku that resulted in numerous injuries and in 30 activists receiving jail terms.
Facebook-inspired protests in Azerbaijan are evolving into a game of cat-and-mouse designed to invigorate protesters while straining law-enforcement authorities by keeping them on a constant state of alert.
Police in Azerbaijan arrested dozens of civic activists in Baku and Sheki on March 11 in an attempt to snuff-out a Facebook appeal for nationwide, peaceful protests against corruption, civil rights restrictions and alleged government mismanagement. Despite the crackdown, organizers are vowing to press on with their protest movement.
Rustam Ibragimbekov, an Azeri screenwriter, did not look to international negotiations or non-governmental organization reports for help in trying to show the impact of Azerbaijan and Armenia’s 23-year conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh on ordinary lives.
Youth organizations in Azerbaijan are linking the recent arrest of a 20-year-old activist who called for a “Day of Rage” in Baku to the government’s apparent concern about political fallout from events in Egypt. Azerbaijani police deny that the arrest had any political connection.
