The Case of the Baku Bloggers
Adnan Hadji Zadeh and Emin Milli, two young bloggers were arrested on 8th July 2009 after reporting an incident where they claimed to have been assaulted in a Baku Café. They were then placed in pre-trial detention for several months and finally sentenced in December 2009 for ‘hooliganism’ under article 222.1 of the criminal code, whilst the other men were released without further questioning.
An appeal was due to be heard on 8th January 2010, but has been postponed once again (confirmation of this soon), following international condemnation of the trial including from Amnesty International calling for their immediate release.
“Donkey Bloggers” of Azerbaijan must be released immediately, says Amnesty [Released 6th january 2010]
Their arrest came just over a week after Adnan Hajizade posted a video critical of the Azerbaijani government, in which he is seen interviewing a donkey and posing the question ‘What about human rights?’. The video was posted in the wake of a news story about how the Azerbaijani government had allegedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars importing a dozen donkeys from Germany, in a deal that may have masked corruption or the theft of public funds.
Send an email to the Azerbajani authorities calling for a fair hearing for the appeal on 8th January 2010. Friends of Azerbaijan are are just one group amongst many calling for the immedate and unconditional release of Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade following an unfair trial and considers both men prisoners of conscience detained, as Amnesty states, ’solely for the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of association and expression’.
Biographies of the Baku Bloggers:
Adnan Hajizada Biography
Adnan Hajizada is a youth activist and blogger. He gained a Law Degree from Khazar University and BA in Political Science from University of Richmond.
He works for BP based in Baku as an Internal Communications Officer. In 2005 Hajizada was an Assistant Election Observer for the OSCE-ODIHR and during University he completed a summer internship at the Voice of America.
Hajizada was also a Project Assistant at EU TACIS program, a Research Assistant at Chesterfield Public School in Richmond, VA. In 2001 Hajizada was the Alumi Coordinator at the American Council for International Education. Within this role he tutored students in English in the regions of Azerbaijan and organized orphanage visits.
Hajizada is co-founder of the ‘Ol!’ Public Movement, a non-political, non-profit organization based in Baku. He was involved in creating ‘Ol! Media’ – the multimedia tool where Ol! members distribute and publish media reports and messages. ‘Ol!’ promotes non-violence, democracy, tolerance and education for everyone. The group is not linked to any political organization and advocates youth involvement in social change.
Emin Milli Biography
Emin Milli (Abdullayev), is a new media activist and a leader of the non-political, non profit youth organization AN (Alumni Network) in Azerbaijan which included involvement in FASE (Forum of Azerbaijani students in Europe).
He is a graduate of Baku State University International Law School, and gained his Masters degree at the University of Saarbruecken, European Law School. Milli worked as a Coordinator at the International Republican Institute and as the Director of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) in Azerbaijan.
As a consultant and legal expert he advised the Council of Europe (CoE) in matters concerning political prisoners in Azerbaijan in over 40 cases from 2002 to 2004. In 2005 Milli worked as an Assistant Political Analyst in the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission in Azerbaijan.
Emin Milli is the co-founder of AN Network established in 2005. He is one of the authors and organizers of the campaign – “Future Is What You Do Now” which contributed to the establishment of the Azerbaijan state-funded program to send 5,000 Azerbaijani students to the best universities abroad.
Following the recent action taken by the government to shut down foreign broadcasters (including radio stations -”Liberty”, “BBC” and “VOA”), Milli initiated a campaign to increase international pressure on the government of Azerbaijan to reconsider its position on both issues.
