Azeri pressure group protests against visit by Armenian activist

ANS TV, Baku
5 Jul 05

[Presenter] Members of the Karabakh Liberation Organization [KLO]
today picketed the hotel, where a meeting is under way, in order to
protest against the participation of an Armenian representative in a
session of the sub-committee on refugees [of the Committee on
Migration, Refugees and Population] of the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe.

[Correspondent over video of the protest] The participation of Robert
Melik-Pashayev, a representative of the Armenian NGO Veradarts Hayk
[Back to Armenian Roots], in the Baku session infuriated the KLO
members. About 30 members of the organization attempted to stage a
picket outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel – the venue of the seminar.

[A protester] The Armenian must leave.

[Correspondent] MP Asim Mollazada met the protesters and tried to calm
them down. He managed to convince them that the Armenian
representative was absent from the session today. Only after he and
the police intervened in the action, the pickets stopped their
protest.

[KLO deputy chairman Firudin Mammadov speaking to microphone,
captioned] Irrespective of whether it is a legal entity, not a single
organization can invite Armenians to Azerbaijan. The Armenians must
not visit Azerbaijan as long as Azerbaijani territories are under
occupation, as long as we have not avenged the blood of our martyrs
and as long as the Armenians have not given up their claims to
independence. Not a single Armenian should visit Azerbaijan as long as
they think that the war started in [the Azerbaijani town of] Sumqayit
and that Karabakh belongs to Armenians.

The KLO will definitely foil such visits. We were told that no
Armenian was attending this event and we believed them. We did not
attempt to prevent it because we see how important it is for
Azerbaijan.

[Correspondent] Mammadov said that the KLO will take more determined
steps if this happens again in the future.

Elzar Agayev, Zeynal Zeynalov for ANS.

[Video showed one of the protesters demanding that the Armenian be
deported from Azerbaijan, protesters outside the hotel and Asim
Mollazada talking to protesters]