IMC Sends Emergency Teams to Nias and Simeulue Islands
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Azeri opposition to rally over journalist's murder
03 Mar 2005 10:40:55 GMT
Source: Reuters
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By Lada Yevgrashina BAKU, March 3 (Reuters) - Opponents of Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said on Thursday they planned to turn the funeral of a murdered opposition journalist into a popular protest against the ex-Soviet state's authoritarian regime. Authorities in the oil-rich Caucasus republic said they would not allow the funeral to become a political confrontation. The 38-year-old Elmar Huseinov, editor-in-chief of Monitor magazine and a fierce critic of the government, was shot dead by unidentified assailants outside his front door in the capital Baku late on Wednesday. The funeral is scheduled for Friday. A pistol with a silencer was found 150 metres from the scene of the shooting. Huseinov had four bullet wounds, two of them to the heart. "We will organise the funeral in a way that will show the popular hatred of the regime," Ali Kerimli, the head of the key National Front opposition party, told Reuters. "The opposition will unite in removing this regime in a peaceful way." Azerbaijan became the former Soviet Union's first dynasty when Alieyev succeeded his iron-fisted father in 2003 as leader of the mainly Muslim state of 8 million people. His election, criticised by observers as falling short of international standards, was greeted with protests in the capital in which two people were killed and scores injured. More than 100 people were arrested. Most have since been released but a small group of opposition leaders were handed long jail terms. The European Union said this month there were "extensive, credible, allegations" of torture in the country's jails. Huseinov's magazine has been closed several times and fined for critical articles about leading politicians and businessmen. The murdered journalist had spent six months in jail for his opposition activities. SURGE IN UNREST The plan by the opposition follows growing popular unrest in some ex-Soviet republics. There has been an upsurge in street protests even in Russia, most of them over social reforms. In just over a year, new governments have come to power in Georgia and Ukraine on the back of 'people power' revolutions. That has triggered speculation that the position of other leaders in a region stretching from the edge of the European Union to central Asia -- most of whom trace their rise to power from the Soviet era -- might be shaky. But Azeri officials say Aliyev's popularity and the memory of the political turmoil in Azerbaijan which almost turned into civil war in 1993 mean there is no chance of a revolution in the Caspian Sea state. "People will not be so naive as to entrust their fate to those would bring them to the edge of the abyss once again," presidential chief of staff Ramiz Mehtiyev said last month. Prosecutor General Ramiz Rzayev said Huseinov's killing might have been a deliberate attempt to create unrest. "The murder aims at disrupting political and social stability in the country," he told reporters. The Interior Ministry, national security service and prosecutor general's office issued a joint statement saying they would do everything to keep the situation under control. "It is not acceptable to use the murder of Elmar Huseinov for political reasons, for stoking public and political tension and for artificially creating confrontation," the statement said. "The president has ordered (government agencies) to speed up the investigation of this violent crime and to step up control over the situation in the country," it added.
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