Day: September 11, 2023

While Azerbaijan’s authorities deny that there are political prisoners in the country’s prisons at all — local and international rights groups disagree. Many former prisoners and their families complain that those locked up on political grounds face not only an unjust deprivation of their liberty, but special prohibitions such as on reading and speaking with their families.  

According to the Centre for the Protection of Political Prisoners, an Azerbaijani rights group, there are 150 political prisoners being held in Azerbaijan.

International human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, frequently issue harsh statements against the Azerbaijani government over the arrest and detention of journalists, activists, and opposition politicians.

Despite this, the authorities deny the very existence of political prisoners in the country.

A prohibition on reading

Atlas Huseynova says that she constantly brings books to her son in prison, but not all of them are delivered to him.

Huseynova’s son, Ilkin Rustamzadeh, has already served more than six years in prison after protesting against deaths in the Azerbaijani army.

Rustamzadeh, a member of the pro-democracy NIDA youth movement, was arrested in 2013 and charged with ‘inciting violence and organising mass disorder’, charges Human Rights Watch called ‘bogus’.

‘Several times we tried to deliver some books [to Rustamzadeh]. Some of them were allowed and some were sent back. Last time they didn’t allow any of them. The books were not political, they were selections from world literature. But they banned them without any explanation’, Huseynova tells OC Media.

Tofig Yagublu an opposition politician from the Musavat Party, was detained on charges of organising riots in Ismayilli in 2013. He was released in a presidential amnesty in 2016.

According to Yagublu, all prisoners in Azerbaijan face restrictions, but control over political prisoners is much stricter.

‘For example, if political books are brought to a criminal or a drug dealer, no restrictions are applied. They only check the books for drugs inside. But when a political prisoner asks for a book, they immediately look at the content and at the name of a book’, Yagublu tells OC Media.

‘The true reason for such restrictions is imposing control. It is a special order by the authorities here.’

Yagublu says that artificial barriers are put in place aiming to keep the prisoners tense.

‘When I was in prison, they did not allow us to buy opposition newspapers. In Kurdakhani prison No 10, seven detainees united and demanded newspapers for a long time. After a while, our complaint was satisfied’, says Yagublu.

‘We were given only one hour for reading, but it was physically impossible to read two newspapers between seven people in an hour’, he says.

Azerbaijani lawyer Fariz Namazli says that there is an official list of books prohibited by law, but according to him, in many cases non-listed books are also banned, something he says is illegal.

Namzali told OC Media that in his own observations, this is usually applied to people detained for political reasons.

A communication ban

Investigative journalist Afgan Mukhtarli was kidnapped in Georgia in May 2017, before showing up a day later in Azerbaijani custody and sentenced to six years in prison accused of smuggling cash, illegal border crossing, and resisting police.

[Read on OC Media: The Afgan Mukhtarli case: an investigation stalled?]

Although by law Mukhtarli has the right to talk to his family every week, his wife, Leyla Mustafayeva, says that recently he has been able to make calls just once a month.

‘At first we could not speak with him for a month. Later, the calls were continuous and every week he called at approximately the same time. But in the last few months, I was able to speak to him only once’, Mustafayeva tells OC Media.

Mustafayeva says her husband is forbidden from reading books at all.

Natig Adilov, chief spokesperson for the opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (APFP), says that three members of the party arrested in May — Babak Hasanov, Agil Ali Muharram, and Ruslan Nasirli — were not able to talk to their families by phone for four months.

‘Every prisoner has the right to talk to their families every four days. Lawyers are appealing, but they are deprived of these rights without any justification’, Adilov tells OC Media.

‘Even prisoners who have committed serious crimes have this opportunity, but not political prisoners. This biased attitude proves that these arrests are politically motivated’, he concludes.

‘Crushed and abandoned’

Ali Hasanov, assistant to the President on social and political affairs, told the media in February that the problems of political prisoners and political pressure were far worse in Western countries.

‘Azerbaijan is a democratic state, and according to the norms of the constitution, the independent activity of the legislative, executive, and judicial authorities is ensured in the country’, he said.

‘Therefore, we do not accept biased statements that diminish the image of the branches of government, certain state bodies on the basis of some “facts”’.

According to Mehman Sadigov, the head of State Penitentiary Service, prison authorities do not deprive any prisoners of their legal rights, and only books  ‘promoting religious and racial extremism and immorality’ are prohibited.

‘All books brought to prisoners by relatives and friends are checked by overseers, and if these books are allowed by law, they are delivered to a prisoner, if not, they are returned’, Sadigov tells OC Media.

‘We do not differentiate political prisoners from other prisoners, moreover, there is no understanding of “political prisoners”. In general, they are all prisoners, and the law is equal for all of them’.

Sadigov said the Penitentiary Service encouraged prisoners to read and enhance their intellectual abilities. For this reason, according to him, prison libraries are constantly being enriched both at the expense of the state and with support from NGOs .

Journalist Rauf Mirgadirov, who spent several years in jail himself on espionage charges, agrees that there are well equipped libraries in Azerbaijani prisons.

‘There are very good libraries in prisons, there are even serious political books’, Mirgadirov tells OC Media.

‘The main purpose of the prohibition against reading for political prisoners or the ban on speaking with families is to shake them psychologically’.

Mirgadirov says that prisoners are unlikely to be able to join the political processes from prison, and the government likely knows this. Instead, he says the goal is to ‘create direct psychological tension. They want intellectuals to feel crushed, abandoned.’

‘Another reason is to create information shortages for political prisoners who are interested in reading’, Mirgadirov adds.

Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of the Azerbaijani capital to call for the release of a jailed anticorruption blogger and other people they consider political prisoners.

The protesters taking part in the sanctioned rally in Baku on January 19 demanded President Ilham Aliyev’s government release Mehman Huseynov and other political prisoners.

Police said some 2,800 people took part in the rally, though opposition organizers said the figure for the number of demonstrators was around 20,000.

The National Council for Democratic Forces, an umbrella group of opposition parties, organized the rally.

Security forces said there were no violent incidents at the event. Police checked participants for weapons before allowing them to attend the demonstration.

Protesters held signs saying “Freedom For Political Prisoners” and “We WIll Win,” among others.

A resolution was adopted at the end of the demonstration calling for all political prisoners to be freed and that activists who were detained on the eve of the protest action also be released.

Rally organizers said about 100 activists had been detained by police ahead of the demonstration, with most of them still being held.

Azerbaijani officials reject the notion that there are political prisoners in the country.

Speakers at the rally also criticized what they called widespread corruption in the state government.

Ilqar Mammadov, the head of the opposition REAL Party who was recently released from prison, said “if Azerbaijan was a true republic then the…serious problems of Azerbaijan would be discussed in the [parliament].”

He also pointed out that Azerbaijan’s neighbors, Georgia and Armenia, had become progressively more democratic than Azerbaijan in recent years.

Calls for Huseynov’s release have intensified inside and outside Azerbaijan since he was targeted with a new charge late last month, just weeks before his expected release from prison.

He is accused of “resisting a representative of the authorities with the use of violence dangerous to [the representative’s] health and life.”

Huseynov himself and several other political prisoners have started hunger strikes in protest.

Mehman Huseynov (file photo)

Huseynov is already serving a two-year prison term on libel charges that he and his supporters considered to be politically motivated. He was originally arrested and charged with slandering a police officer.

Huseynov has also alleged that he has been tortured while in prison.

Rights groups and Western governments have urged the Azerbaijani authorities to release political prisoners for years, and have accused the government of fabricating criminal cases to stifle dissent and media freedom.

Aliyev, who has ruled the oil-producing former Soviet republic of almost 10 million people with an iron fist since shortly before his long-ruling father’s death in 2003, has shrugged off the criticism.

Twenty-two years ago, Americans across the country found themselves in varying states of shock, disbelief, horror and anger.

For many, the early-morning news that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center dealt a blow not felt in their lifetimes. The attack on American soil was the first since Japan launched a surprise strike on Pearl Harbor 60 years prior.

But then came news of another passenger plane hitting a second World Trade Center skyscraper. And then another struck the Pentagon. The attacks unfolded in rapid succession as panic filled the nation.

Shortly after the Defense Department was struck, the US moved to close all airspace in a bid to curtail further strikes.

Just minutes later, passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 rushed toward the cockpit of their aircraft in an effort to wrest control of the plane from al-Qaeda hijackers. About five minutes thereafter the plane would jackknife into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all onboard.

In New York City, hundreds would jump or fall to their deaths from the North Tower, the first World Trade Center building that was struck. The images remain a stark reminder of the desperation and loss felt that day.

The chaos was compounded as the two World Trade Center towers collapsed in lower Manhattan, sending an ashen poisonous dust cloud across the borough and into neighboring Brooklyn with long-term health effects for first responders and those trying to escape the tragedy.

Nearly 3,000 victims would lose their in the attack with thousands more injured. About 400,000 others were exposed to the carcinogenic dust cloud, particularly firefighters and police who worked tirelessly to rescue as many survivors as possible.

The Global War on Terror

The US would go on the march to stamp out al-Qaeda and all nations who provided terror groups with safe harbor as then-President George W. Bush boldly proclaimed nine days after the attacks: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

“From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime,” Bush said during a joint address to Congress, putting the US squarely on a war footing.

“The only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows,” he added.

Roughly three weeks later, the US would launch the opening salvo against the Taliban after the hardline group refused to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the self-professed 9/11 mastermind, and other al-Qaeda operatives.

The Global War on Terror had officially begun.

It would take the US and allied forces just two months to bring the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan to an end, but bin Laden would elude capture.

Roughly two-and-a-half years after the invasion began, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would declare an end to “major combat” operations in Afghanistan, but the US would not formally withdraw from the war-torn nation for an additional 18 years amid the relentless bloody conflict that could not secure the future of the internationally-recognized government in Kabul.

The Taliban would rapidly close in on the Afghan capital in August 2021 as US and international forces hastily withdrew, marking their return to control in the impoverished nation.

War in Iraq

While the war in Afghanistan would ultimately prove to be the longest in US history, the Iraq war and its fallout would result in active hostilities that continue to this day.

The war began in March 2003, less than two years after the US invaded Afghanistan.

Washington led yet another international coalition in its effort to oust Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein on allegations that he was developing an illicit weapons of mass destruction program. But those charges, made before the UN Security Council by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, proved false.

“My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions,” Powell told the Council one month before the invasion. “What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”

No chemical or biological weapons were ever found despite robust investigative efforts after Saddam and his military were eliminated. Powell later reflected that the speech was his singular greatest regret during his decades of public service.

But even with the longtime Iraqi leader removed from power, there was no reprieve from hostilities. A post-war insurgency would form against the international coalition, bringing with it sporadic, bloody fighting that largely came to define the US occupation, which did not end until 2011.

But war’s legacy would not conclude with the US exit.

Guantanamo and torture

As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq flared, another battle was being waged beneath the surface — a shadow war that included secretive renditions of terror suspects, torture, CIA black sites and the now infamous military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hundreds would be swept up in the intelligence effort, many of whom were subject to what was colloquially referred to as “enhanced interrogation” — a euphemism for what many, including the US Senate, have concluded was torture.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s more than 500-page report on the CIA’s actions, released in redacted form in 2014, was nothing short of a full-scale indictment that lambasted the intelligence agency for its actions, as well as its efforts to minimize the extent of the abuses by lying about the program’s effectiveness.

“CIA personnel, aided by two outside contractors, decided to initiate a program of indefinite secret detention and the use of brutal interrogation techniques in violation of U.S. law, treaty obligations, and our values,” Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein wrote in the report.

“It is my personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured. I also believe that the conditions of confinement and the use of authorized and unauthorized interrogation and conditioning techniques were cruel, inhuman, and degrading. I believe the evidence of this is overwhelming and incontrovertible,” she added.

The report brought to light systemic, widespread abuses perpetrated by CIA officers, including the now infamous practice of waterboarding, placing detainees in extended periods of stress positions, sleep deprivation and punitive forced rectal feeding and rehydration.

It further said the CIA’s justifications for the program, based on its alleged effectiveness, were “inaccurate.” A review of 20 cases used by the agency to justify the enhanced interrogation techniques found that there was either no link between torture that was used and counterterrorism successes, or found that the CIA falsely claimed a correlation between the intelligence it gained and the methods used.

The report determined that in such cases the intelligence was either gained from a detainee prior to interrogation or was already available to the CIA from other sources.

Bin Laden killed a decade after Afghanistan war begins

Nearly 10 years after the US began its invasion of Afghanistan in the hopes of killing the 9/11 mastermind, it would finally catch up to bin Laden. Ultimately, the al-Qaeda leader was not found in Afghanistan where he had been holed up in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

He was discovered across the border in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, residing in a sprawling compound less than 1 mile from the country’s premier military academy.

The raid was largely based on intelligence gleaned from a CIA operation set up at a neighboring safe house where the agency was able to identify an al-Qaeda courier who proved pivotal to ascertaining bin Laden’s location.

On May 2, 2011, a pair of previously unknown modified Black Hawk stealth helicopters crossed the Pakistani border, flying fast and low as they closed in on bin Laden’s safe house. As soon as they reached their target, US special operations forces rapidly disembarked, entered the compound and killed the al-Qaeda leader, and took his body for confirmation.

He was subsequently buried at sea after a positive identification was made in what marked the most significant US victory in the war on terror.

ISIS and the forever war

But the milestone proved short-lived with the rise of a new terror threat in Iraq that far surpassed the dangers posed by al-Qaeda.

The Daesh/ISIS terror group grew to global prominence in 2014 when it declared its self-styled caliphate, drawing adherents from around the globe who traveled to Iraq and Syria as its territorial control grew.

At its height, Daesh/ISIS controlled one-third of Syria and 40% of Iraq amid widespread instability, claiming major cities including Mosul and Raqqa and bringing with it an iron-fisted fundamentalist rule that attracted people from around the world.

While it no longer lays formal claim to any territory in either country following an international military campaign led by the US, the terror group maintains cells in the region and has grown to include affiliates as far afield as West Africa and Afghanistan.

To this day, American forces are engaged in efforts around the world aimed at ending threats posed by Daesh/ISIS, and al-Qaeda.

There is no end in sight.

This article was originally published by Anadolu Agency on September 10, 2023.