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The Azerbaijani government's human rights record in the pre-election period has been a step backward from its commitments, in a repetition of patterns seen in other countries across the southern tier of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Information gathered by Human Rights Watch researchers in Azerbaijan since October 4 confirms the reports compiled by domestic monitoring groups of massive government interference in pre-election processes, mainly with regard to candidate registration. Local governments used delaying tactics to prevent opposition candidates from completing the registration process in time, and intimidated those who gathered signatures for opposition candidates's registration and citizens who signed nomination sheets. Once candidates completed the registration process, election commissions arbitrarily declared their signature lists invalid, blocking access to the ballot for hundreds of independent, opposition, and other candidates who had completed requirements for registration. No independent domestic groups are permitted to monitor the vote. For months prior to the elections, the government attempted to intimidate the opposition-affiliated and independent media. This short background paper will present selected instances of this interference compiled by Human Rights Watch.

These actions clearly contravene the Azerbaijani government's commitments to the Council of Europe and violate its obligations under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Copenhagen document, which elaborates standards for the conduct of free and fair elections, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Azerbaijan is a party.

Since Azerbaijan's independence, and particularly since the overthrow of the Popular Front government in 1993, opposition political parties have gained strength and participated in contested elections. The government, however, has consistently exercised its overwhelming power to control and manipulate electoral processes. International and domestic observers found that Azerbaijan's first parliamentary post-independence elections, held in November 1995, the October 1998 presidential elections, and the country's first municipal elections of December 1999 and March 2000 fell far short of established international standards.

Hopes that the 2000 parliamentary vote would improve on past failings have largely withered, particularly after steps the government has taken in the wake of the June 28 Council of Europe accession vote. In fact, several provisions of recently enacted electoral laws actually retreat from relatively more democratic rules that governed previous elections. Government actions over the preceding months against those identified by domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as political prisoners also add to the atmosphere of fear and intimidation, and further constitute an implicit threat against opposition activists.

Under international pressure to implement OSCE recommendations on electoral law and practice issued after the 1998 presidential poll, and to prove its democratic credentials in advance of the Council of Europe accession vote, this summer Azerbaijan undertook to amend its laws on the composition of the Central Electoral Commission, the Law on Parliamentary Elections, and the Law on Nongovernmental Organizations. However, the final versions of these laws contain provisions which represented a step backwards from its commitments.

Unlike previous election legislation, the Law on Parliamentary Elections, as passed on July 5, contains no separate article regulating the participation of domestic observers, although one article regulates the participation of international observers. The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), other international organizations, and foreign governments have protested that article 8 of the OSCE Copenhagen document clearly provides for the participation of domestic electoral observers. The Law on Nongovernmental Organizations, which entered into force on October 6, explicitly prohibits NGOs that receive foreign funding from acting as election observers. As a result, the Azerbaijani NGO "For the Sake of Civil Society," cannot monitor the November 5 vote. This organization had monitored the 1998 presidential and 1999 municipal elections and issued scathing reports about them. Reportedly, the Central Electoral Commission is currently considering whether to register individual monitors from the list submitted by "For the Sake of Civil Society" on September 26.

Amendments to both the Law on Parliamentary Elections and the Law on the Central Electoral Commission backtracked from improvements contained in the original versions of the laws as enacted in early July, immediately after the Council of Europe vote. When both laws were under discussion in parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) based its decision to approve accession on commitments it had received from President Aliev to implement "substantial democratic reforms," including the revision of election legislation, "so that the next general election in autumn 2000 can confirm definitively the progress made...." The Central Election Commission law as adopted on June 9 provided for one-third of the eighteen members to be appointed from opposition parties, one-third from President Aliev's ruling party, Yeni Azerbaycan (New Azerbaijan, or YAP) party, and for one-third to be independents, originally required two-thirds majorities for any decision, and mandated a two-thirds quorum was required to hold a vote. After opposition members boycotted the first sittings of the Central Electoral Commission to protest the adoption of the Law on Parliamentary Elections, the parliament amended the Central Electoral Commission law to remove the two-thirds majority provisions.

Other reversals occurred between readings of draft versions and the final passage of the Law on Parliamentary Elections. As discussed in parliament in June, the law envisioned the participation of civil society and opposition political parties in the formation of territorial election commissions and precinct commissions; the final version of the law, passed on July 5, allows the Central Electoral Commission to directly appoint territorial commission members (who in turn appoint the precinct commissions). Also, the final version of the law, in contrast to the draft, requires persons wishing to appeal a territorial commission's refusals to register their candidacies to first obtain a ruling from the Central Electoral Commission before filing suit in court.

If the legislative framework for the elections established electoral commissions of questionable partiality, the first proof of bias came on September 11, when the Central Electoral Commission refused to register the candidate lists of eight political parties which had applied to contest the twenty-five seats to be allocated by proportional representation, based on the overall vote received by each party. Earlier, international organizations monitoring elections were heartened by the August 28 Constitutional Court decision which invalidated a provision of the election law that had required parties wishing to contest the elections to have been registered at least six months in advance of the announcement of the elections. The OSCE/ODIHR and other international actors outspokenly urged the government of Azerbaijan to allow all registered political parties fielding candidates access to the balloting for the proportional mandate seats. President Aliev garnered their praise when he appealed to the CEC to reverse its decision not to register the political parties, among them the most powerful opposition groups. On October 8 the Central Electoral Commission complied with his request and registered the parties, a move that belied the Commission's independence; many in Azerbaijan have challenged the legality of this action.

Police have violently broken up peaceful demonstrations at which people protested the government's electoral policy. On October 28, a group of about 400 gathered near the Gabala cinema to demand the registration of Civic Unity, an unregistered party affiliated with Ayaz Mutalibov, who was president of Azerbaijan at the time of independence. Several minutes after protesters gathered at 4:00 p.m., police ordered them to disperse. Police beat the peaceful protesters, including those who were dispersing, inflicting wounds to the head and neck. Human Rights Watch researchers saw at least ten injured protesters with red marks from police batons and open wounds; many others had presumably run away. This recalled the break-up of the April 29 demonstration protesting the election law; at least fifty people were injured as a result of police violence then.

Another important Council of Europe recommendation issued in advance of the accession vote asked the government "to release or to grant a new trial to those prisoners who are regarded as 'political prisoners' by human rights protection organisations, especially Mr. Iskander Gamidov, Mr. Alikram Gumbatov and Mr. Raqim Gaziyev," respectively a former minister of internal affairs, a leader of a failed uprising, and a former minister of defense. Accordingly, in June, President Aliev issued a decree providing amnesty to many political prisoners; the president also signed an agreement to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross access to places of detention. As of October, 125 prisoners were released by presidential pardon, although the three specified by the Council of Europe were not affected.

Casting serious doubt on official statements that these were the last political prisoners in Azerbaijan, however, human rights groups claimed hundreds remained in custody, chiefly those convicted on charges related to terrorism, alleged coup attempts, ethnic separatism, illegal weapons possession, and abuse of office. Moreover, several domestic human rights activists complained that conditions for political prisoners are worsening in Azerbaijan. In September, approximately nine political prisoners of Correctional Labor Institution (Colony) No. 11 were transferred to the high-security Gobustan prison after prison authorities allegedly falsely charged them with violating prison regulations; at least nine more were transferred from other facilities. Under a new penal code that entered into force in September many prisoners with good records would have been eligible for early release and those on death row could have come up for clemency had they had records of good behavior.

Azerbaijan's record of backtracking on its commitments on democratization, particularly those made to the Council of Europe, gained broader meaning in a statement by the head of the Presidential Administration, Ramiz Mehtiev. In October he announced that Azerbaijan does not consider any Council of Europe recommendations on democratization to be legally binding, and that attempts to pressure their adoption should be considered as infringements on the country's sovereignty.

Pre-election Conditions

In violation of Azerbaijani domestic law and the country's international commitments, local government authorities are engaging in widespread and systematic interference in electoral procedures, principally by blocking access to the ballot for opposition and independent candidates in the country's one-hundred single-mandate constituencies. Central Electoral Commission member Ilgar Abbasov (independent) acknowledged, in an interview with the independent daily Zerkalo (The Mirror) published October 12, that as in previous elections, some local executives are "excessively active." Adil Ismailov, a Baku-based lawyer for five prospective candidates, told Human Rights Watch, "the local executive power operates everything and the election commission member are obliged to do what they say." In response, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations has created a telephone hotline, the Line for the Protection of Electoral Rights, which as of mid-October has received hundreds of complaints.

At the end of the registration period, 817 individuals had submitted registration materials to their territorial electoral commissions. Those commissions registered only 409 single-mandate candidates, and rejected the remaining 408 applications. Many of those whose registration applications were refused simply withdrew their candidacies. Some would-be candidates never received the necessary signature collection forms from their local commissions in order even to begin the process of registration. Most of those refused registration are affiliated with opposition political parties or are independents, although in at least six cases, according to the Baku-based Human Rights Resource Center, similar obstacles have been created for members of the ruling party.

Obstacles to Candidate Registration

In violation of explicit provisions of the Law on Parliamentary Elections, local government officials exert persistent and decisive pressure on territorial electoral commissions to restrict access to those candidates the government favors. At least 150 rejected candidates have united to form the Rights Defense Committee of Unregistered Candidates, asserting in an October 24 press conference that they have received a "flood-tide" of reports of electoral law violations by government bodies.

Territorial electoral commissions find various pretexts to block undesirable candidates, mainly by disqualifying signatures given in their support. According to the Law on Parliamentary Elections, territorial electoral commissions are required to provide official signature sheets, on which the potential candidates must gather at least 2,000 (but reportedly not more than 2,300) signatures and passport information from residents of their electoral district. After the sheets are submitted, the commission chooses at least 15 percent of the signatures to verify by lottery; candidates are present for this process. Any missing, incorrect, or false information may invalidate a signature. If fewer than 2,000 valid signatures remain, the application for candidacy must be rejected. Human Rights Watch has interviewed twelve would-be candidates whose applications have been rejected; what follows is a representative sample of government election law violations they have encountered.

Refusal to issue or to accept applications

Although the law requires territorial electoral commissions (TECs) to provide all potential candidates with signature sheets immediately upon application, many cases have surfaced in which these bodies delay or even refuse to issue them. Chingiz Rahimov, an independent whose candidacy was first registered, but then repealed by TEC #5 in Julfa Ordubat district of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, recalled that although he applied at the same time as a YAP candidate, he did not receive the signature sheets until five days later. He told Human Rights Watch, "The TEC secretary told me to get permission first. They meant from the executive branch of Nakhichevan, Mr. Mamishov."

Burat Muriev, an applicant in the Hurdivan region, TEC #46, turned in his signature sheets in early September before leaving for a business trip. When he returned a week later, the TEC told him that they had torn up his sheets under orders from the local government, but that he could re-submit them.

Akiv Kerimov, who intended to run in electoral district #61 in the Gabala region, was not so lucky. His TEC simply refused to issue signature sheets. He went to the TEC headquarters for three days in a row, on September 9-11, and finally appealed in writing. The next day Oktai Khajiev, the TEC chairman who had previously served as the deputy regional governor, called him in and entreated him "Don't get me into trouble, take your candidacy back...Anyway, you will not be able to win." During the following four days, Kerimov again attempted to obtain the signature forms from the TEC to no avail. He finally sent an appeal to a court in Baku, which rejected it on the grounds that he had only submitted one copy of his appeal, on the final day of candidate registration, September 30.

Harassment and intimidation

Candidates, their campaign personnel, and those voters who gave signatures in support of their candidacies all faced harassment from local government authorities. Akper Akperov, forty-three, a history teacher and Musavat party member, recounted that the local governor stopped him in the street as he gathered signatures in support of Musavat's party list, saying "I know you are collecting signatures for the opposition and I told you not to do it." Additionally, his family was threatened with the loss of their jobs because of his activities.

Another Musavat signature collector from the same district, "Elshan E.," (not the man's true name) told Human Rights Watch that the local governor had harassed him as well in September. Two days after this harassment, a local tax inspector visited his shop, accusing him of not having a license to sell alcohol and cigarettes. The inspector returned the following day, threatening him, "We can take your shop away, we can destroy it." According to Elshan E., no tax inspector had visited his shop in the six months since he had opened it.

Azer Hassanov, a potential candidate in the town of Sheki, TEC #43, noted that three days after he had begun to collect signatures, several of those who had signed for him came to tell him they had been visited by the police--and asked to remove their names. Official pressure against his supporters continued after he submitted his signature sheets to the TEC, inducing several more persons to rescind their signatures.

Supporters of Chingiz Ganizadeh, a lawyer and former prosecutor, currently the chairman of the nongovernmental Committee for Democracy and Human Rights and a would-be candidate in the Agdash region, gathered signatures in the village of Liaki. After these signatures were submitted to TEC #49, workers from the Agdash youth department visited these villagers to "check" their signatures, accompanied by the local deputy mayor. Ganizadeh told Human Rights Watch that the TEC informed him that several of the villagers retracted their signatures.

Arbitrary Revocation of Candidacy

In the case of Chingiz Rahimov, described above, on September 28 the TEC initially registered his candidacy. After an item appeared in the official provincial government newspaper on October 4 announcing the decision, the provincial prosecutor's office appealed to the TEC to repeat the signature check, although article 7.2 clearly forbids government bodies from interfering with the work of election commissions. The provincial executive demanded an emergency meeting of the TEC, which was attended by the deputy governor. On October 6 Rahimov received word from the TEC--one of the members of which is the provincial tax inspector, who reports directly to the governor--that his candidacy had been rejected. Members of the commission told Rahimov that they were pressured to confirm his disqualification.

Disqualification of signatures

Most often, TECs reject candidates' applications after disqualifying the signatures submitted on their behalf. "Checks" of the signatures' validity are conducted by special working groups formed by the TECs, which may include local police "experts" and civil registry workers. These reviews may invalidate the signatures on various grounds, including duplication, incorrect or incomplete passport information, purported falsification, or even stray pen marks. One of the most frequently lodged complaints is that TECs do not accept the new Azerbaijani national passport (issued to replace the Soviet passports) as proof of identity for the purposes of signature-gathering. Instead, citizens must show a state identity document, form I-9, which some have received in lieu of new passports. Article 41.4 of the elections law is notably silent on which identity documents that may serve the purpose of signature gathering.

According to a written complaint, TEC #11 of Baku's Khatai district rejected the application of naval Captain Dzhan-Mirza Ismail ogly Mirzoev, ruling that the members of the military who gave their signatures in support of his candidacy supposedly have no right to do so because their military papers are not valid identity documents (although this is not stipulated in the law on elections). TEC #49 rejected Chingiz Ganizadeh's candidacy, finding 469 of the 2,249 signatures submitted on his behalf to be invalid on several grounds: stray marks, missing data, and alleged duplication.

TECs undertake the process of signature checking with extreme partiality. Although article 43.4 of the Law on Elections to the Parliament allows candidates' representatives to observe the process of signature-checking, in most cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch, TECs either ignored this provision, or disregarded those representatives' objections to unfair practices. TEC #9 rejected the candidacy of independent Azer Hasret, chairman of the Independent Journalists Union, invalidating ninety-six of 2,091 signatures; he was disqualified by nine signatures. In Kuba region, registered candidate Gulaga Agaev told Human Rights Watch that he asked to see the signature sheets of his rival, Vagif Arzumanli, rector of Baku's Institute of International Affairs, suspecting some fraud. The local TEC refused to show him the sheets. Agaev alleges that representatives of the local government actually gathered signatures on behalf of Arzumanli, in violation of the elections law. Two members of electoral commission #64, signed a statement protesting the alleged falsification but no action has been taken.

Shahid Ibragimov, secretary of TEC #49, even when confronted article 43.4 , refused to allow Gunduz Ganizade, the brother and campaign representative of Chingiz Ganizade, to accompany signature checkers on their house-to-house rounds.

Appeals to the Central Electoral Commission and to the Courts

According to the Law on Parliamentary Elections as it was adopted in July, the CEC must review disputed registration cases before applicants may file suit in a court. In practice, this procedure adds to the potential for delays and obstruction, lessening the already meager chances that an unsuccessful applicant might ultimately gain registration. In the case of Burat Muriev, more than two weeks after his initial appeal to the Central Electoral Commission that body had still not begun to consider his complaint.

Once the Central Electoral Commission has rejected a candidate's claims, or refused to review them, it usually instructs candidates to appeal to their local district court, or in some cases to apply directly to the court of appeals. In the courts, candidates have not generally obtained satisfactory redress. Would-be candidate Dilshod Guseinova tried for several days during the third week of October to lodge her complaint with the court of appeals in Baku, before giving up hope. She found either that the court was closed, or that the court secretaries would not accept her documents.

As with the TECs, it is alleged that local government pressure has caused judges to uphold the denial of registration in nearly all cases. In one court proceeding observed by Human Rights Watch on October 23, Agdash District Court judge Ishallah Guliev approved the finding of TEC #49, invalidating several sheets of signatures in support of candidate Chingiz Ganizade because they were gathered by the director of a local small enterprise. The TEC had maintained that this person, as director, was in fact a legal entity (not a physical person), and therefore according to the Law on Elections was prohibited from gathering signatures; yet during the hearing, TEC secretary Shahid Ibragimov withdrew this claim.

Courts may also delay issuing copies of their decisions, which prevents candidates from filing timely appeals, and reduces the chances that they may ultimately be registered in time to appear on the ballot. In the case of Chingiz Ganizadeh, the district court rendered its decision on the October 23, but has refused either to give the candidate's representatives a copy of the decision, or to transmit it to the court of appeals in Baku (three hours journey by car) any sooner than ten days after the decision, leaving only four days before the election.

Harassment of the Media

Freedom of expression and equal access to the media are key elements of the conduct of free and fair elections. Both principles are enshrined in paragraph 7, section (8) of the Copenhagen document. Despite the formal abolition of censorship immediately preceding the 1998 presidential elections, in accordance with OSCE recommendations, Human Rights Watch remains concerned that instances of harassment of the media during the current election campaign serve to inhibit critical reporting and inspire self-censorship.

The August 22 detention of Rauf Arifoglu, the editor-in-chief of Yeni Musavat (New Musavat), in connection with a failed August 18 hijacking attempt by a Musavat party member, which the paper reported, boded poorly for media freedom. Arifoglu, who was later named to the Musavat party list, was held for forty-five days in solitary confinement and was initially interrogated without a lawyer present. Authorities released him on October 5, but trumped-up charges remain, including of illegal firearms possession, terrorism, and "calling for a coup d'etat," which carry a maximum life sentence.

Tax audits, and libel suits and other criminal charges have been deployed against critical print media in the six months preceding the elections. Immediately following the publication of an article critical of the president, tax officials raided the Baku-based Monitor Weekly, on May 9. The paper's editor, Elmar Husseinov recounted that although the tax police filed suit against the paper, he was never notified of the hearing and learned only in September that the paper's license was revoked, which prevented him from filing a timely appeal. The court order, issued July 17, instructed the Ministry of Information to prevent Husseinov from registering another media outlet.

Other Baku-based papers Uch Nokta and Avropa continue to appeal highly questionable libel awards and fines in court.The editor-in-chief and founder of Uch Nokta, Khoshgadam Bakhshaliyeva, claimed that these pending cases serve to inhibit editors who might consider criticizing the government in the run-up to the elections.

Electronic media are also vulnerable to government pressure, as the October 1999 closure of independent station Sarah-TV attests. On October 3 of this year, authorities suddenly shut down Azerbaijan Broadcasting Agency (ABA), an independent station that does not broadcast political material, for ten days. The closure came immediately after two opposition parties interested in purchasing air time had approached the station. The station's president, Faiq Zulfugarov, told Human Rights Watch that he believes that the closure was a warning from the government not to get involved in politics. At the same time, the tax inspectorate began an audit of the station. Tax inspectors present during Human Rights Watch's interview on October 18 would not indicate when their inspection would be finished.

The OSCE/ODIHR Needs Assessment Mission to the Azerbaijan Parliamentary Elections report of September 11 stated that despite significant shortcomings, "the current conditions can provide for competitive elections...In particular, a transparent and inclusive completion of the political party and candidates' registration procedures is essential for a competitive elections process." The registration procedures, however, are anything but "transparent and inclusive," and effectively prevent the citizens of Azerbaijan from exercising their right to choose their representatives and be elected to office, before even a single vote has been cast.

Although on October 10, ODIHR Director Ambassador Gerard Stoudmann called for the government to register all candidates "unduly denied registration, " and it has been reported that President Aliev planned to ask the Central Electoral Commission to register all candidates who applied to contest the one hundred single-mandate seats, no such action has been forthcoming.

Given the experience in Azerbaijan and other countries in the region, Human Rights Watch urges OSCE/ODIHR to develop a policy that would enable it to, if necessary, reassess its election monitoring strategy as election day nears. In cases in which nonpartisan domestic election observers are prevented from undertaking their duties on election day, and in which the candidate registration process is systematically arbitrary or subject to overwhelming government influence, the OSCE/ODIHR should, in consultation with local NGOs, reconsider the deployment of short-term monitors.

The incidents recounted above also clearly demonstrate that the government of Azerbaijan is not engaged in a good-faith effort to fully implement the democratic reforms it promised to enact at the time of the Council of Europe accession vote. Azerbaijan's significant backtracking since the June 28 vote clearly contradict the Council of Europe rapporteur's conclusion that any previous reform is "irreversible," and that "the country [will] progress more rapidly along the path of reform if it were a full member of our Organization." On the contrary, the international community should confront the likelihood that moving ahead with Azeri membership in the wake of yet another clearly undemocratic election will only entrench the very practices that Council of Europe membership was intended to uproot.