Azerbaijani youth group slams leader’s arrest as smear campaign

Agence France Presse — English
August 5, 2005 Friday 2:02 PM GMT

BAKU Aug 5 — An Azerbaijani youth movement slammed Friday the arrest
of its leader for allegedly orchestrating an Armenian-sponsored coup
plot as a government smear campaign ahead of elections.

“The authorities are trying to link the youth movement to Armenian
operatives in order to crush it,” said Fikret Farmazogly, the deputy
leader of Yeni Fikir. “This is slander.”

The arrest of Yeni Fikir leader Ruslan Bashirli has captured the
headlines in this oil-rich former Soviet Caucasus state since it was
announced by prosecutors on Thursday.

His group, modeled on movements that helped topple entrenched regimes
in Georgia and Ukraine over the last two years, has participated
in some of the most visible protests since a ban was lifted on
demonstrations this summer.

Prosecutors have accused Bashirli of attempting “to take power by
force,” after national television networks aired footage they said
showed the youth leader accepting money from Armenian secret police
posing as Armenian and Georgian democracy activists.

The video, allegedly shot in the Georgian capital Tbilisi in July,
showed Bashirli drinking with the men and discussing the possibility
of a velvet revolution in Azerbaijan.

“Those men were agents of (Azerbaijan’s) ministry of national security,
he did not know who they were,” Farmazogly said.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have held a fragile ceasefire since the two
republics fought a bloody war for the contested Nagorno Karabakh
enclave in the early 1990s.

They have yet to sign a peace agreement and the status of the mostly
Armenian enclave has yet to be determined.

Bashirli’s lawyer Elchin Gambarov said the authorities would not
allow him to meet his client.

“We don’t know where he’s being held, or if he is being physically
and mentally coerced into providing the evidence that the authorities
want,” Gambarov said.

Bashirli’s arrest comes amid increasing government pressure on
opposition political parties ahead of parliamentary elections in
November.