Freed anti-Armenian protester hails court for “principled” stance

ANS TV, Baku
22 Sep 04

An Azerbaijani protester, imprisoned for breaking into the hotel in
Baku which hosted the 21 June NATO meeting over the presence of
Armenian officers, has been set free after three months in prison,
Azerbaijani independent TV station ANS has said.

In an interview with the “Point of View” programme on 22 September
hours after his release from the courtroom along with five other
members of the Karabakh Liberation Organization group, its chairman
Akif Nagi thanked the people for “a single and principled stance on
the issue”. He told the programme that his fellow KLO members were
expecting to be released because of the mounting public pressure.

Asked whether he thought the initial court ruling to sentence them to
up to five years in jail and later replaced with suspended sentences,
was fair, Nagi said the trial had clearly shown that there was no
weighty argument in the hands of the prosecution. “Let’s speak
logically: they have started a criminal case against us. But such
protest actions had repeatedly been held before. Roads have been
blocked, representatives of different groups have entered the
buildings of various government agencies. We ourselves have done that
many times. We have entered state and nongovernmental buildings in
protest. The day before, on 20 June, we entered the Hyatt Regency
hotel because we thought that the Armenians were staying there. In
other words, this had happened before. And when it happened, either
the demands were met in part or in full, or an administrative
punishment was handed down. But there was no criminal offence to
institute criminal proceedings against us,” he said.

In reply to a question whether he was aware of the fact that one of
the protesters was carrying a knife, Akif Nagi said he had no prior
knowledge of that and added that he could not blame the person either
because their “voices weren’t heard”. “But why isn’t anyone listening
to these people’s demands? Why do they resort to terrorist acts?
Because they cannot reach out to certain people. We have been holding
protest actions outside the offices of international organizations
demanding that they recognize Armenia as aggressor-state and reject
the policy of double standards. We hold an action once, twice, three
times, ten times, but no-one listens to us and no-one even bothers to
read what we write after such demonstrations. And then we have to hurl
stones at their windows so that they could at last react to the noise
of their smashed windows. Again, these are forms of protest and have
nothing to do with terror, but demands have to be heard.”

When asked about living conditions in prison, Akif Nagi said prison
life certainly had its drawbacks but added that his group was treated
“with great respect”. He said that despite sharing a cell with people
convicted for different criminal offences, he found that everyone was
very supportive of the organization in general and of its position on
the anti-Armenian protests in particular. Akif Nagi went on to say
that many prisoners even expressed the wish to join the KLO.

Akif Nagi also welcomed NATO decision to cancel the Cooperative Best
Effort-2004 military exercises in Baku and noted that Azerbaijan had
achieved its goal by barring Armenians from Baku. He said the
Azerbaijani authorities had given a due response to the remarks by
senior Armenian officials who suggested earlier that the officers
would attend the Baku drills at all cost.