Epress.am News from Armenia
Authorities in Azerbaijan have demolished the office of a prominent human rights group that has led criticism of a radical facelift of the booming capital Baku, the group said on Friday.
The building, housing the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD) as well as an anti-landmine group and a women’s crisis centre, was torn down after dark on Thursday without warning, IPD activist Azad Isazade told Reuters.
“They didn’t inform us of their intentions and didn’t even let us take our property out and almost everything was destroyed with the office,” said Isazade, who had been at work at the time.
The building was earmarked for demolition, but New York–based Human Rights Watch said the owner, IPD director Leyla Yunus and her husband, had obtained an injunction in May 2011 from a local economic court pending a final court decision.
“The government’s ruthless demolition of an office that serves as a hub for human rights activism in Azerbaijan sends a chilling message to all Azerbaijanis,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
Flush with the proceeds of oil and gas sales from reserves in the Caspian Sea, authorities under Azeri strongman Ilham Aliyev are transforming the capital Baku from an ex-Soviet backwater to a gleaming coastal capital for an emerging jet-set.
To make room, some old neighbourhoods have been swept away in a demolition campaign that has drawn condemnation from rights groups, most notably IPD.
Critics say Baku’s transformation, paid for by petrodollars that have driven rapid economic growth over the past decade, masks a serious regression in democratic rights under Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar in 2003.
Isazade said officials from the Baku mayor’s office and the State Property Committee, who were present during the demolition, had said there was a gas leak in the building and cited plans to demolish a number of old buildings in the area.
Neither the mayor’s office nor the State Property Committee could immediately be reached for comment.
Yunus had been quoted on Thursday in a New York Times article about the demolition campaign.
“This night-time demolition, without warning or allowing the tenants to remove personal property, suggests that the authorities were looking to punish Yunus for her work defending people’s property,” HRW said.
HRW says the demolition campaign has affected hundreds, possibly thousands, of homeowners and residents, and violated property rights.
It has cited cases of apartment buildings torn down while court challenges were still pending, their residents detained at night by police. HRW says compensation offered in many cases is far below the market value for property in central Baku.