Azeri rights activist under pressure after visiting Karabakh, Armenia

Turan news agency
10 Jun 04

Baku, 10 June: A group of unidentified people today insulted and
humiliated the Azerbaijani coordinator of the international working
group for the release of POWs and hostages and for the tracing
of missing persons, Avaz Hasanov. Hasanov told Turan that in the
afternoon five young people turned up at the humanitarian research
centre he heads and demanded that he stop visiting Nagornyy Karabakh
and Armenia. They threatened that they might settle scores with him
otherwise. The “patriots” said that Hasanov should not go to Karabakh
through Armenia. They think that people should go there only via
Azerbaijan. Moreover, they demanded that the human rights activist
report on the work carried out in Karabakh and Armenia.

Hasanov said that he had been regularly receiving intimidating phone
calls since he returned from Karabakh.

To recap, the Azerbaijani press and some public organizations attacked
Hasanov after his statement that he will continue to trace POWs and
hostages despite Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s call for an
end to contacts with Armenia.