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| Caucasus |
| Azerbaijan: Two members of Islamic Party arrested |
| 2002-06-15 |
| Azerbaijani police have detained two leading members of the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan in connection with riots last week that authorities blamed on "Islamic fundamentalists". The party's political director, Gunduz Gadzhiev, said party head Alikram Aliev was detained yesterday and is currently being held without charge. He said Aliev's lawyers have been prevented from seeing him. Gadzhiev said party member Mirmehti Darafarin was also detained. The Azeris are a Turkic people, part of the old Soviet Union, who are sitting on a huge pot of oil. Though they are majority Muslim — Sunnis, I believe — they have a secular state. Iran has the idea they have some sort of historical claim to cultural influence in the area, and the Chechens being in the general vicinity probably feel that Azerbaijan would make a dandy part of their Islamic emirate, so they turn up there now and again. Police have detained about 30 people since the unrest in the village of Nardaran, 30 kilometers from Baku. The riots left one man dead and dozens of police officers injured. The crowd was protesting the arrest of four villagers at an earlier rally, saying authorities were trying to stifle dissent. This is not to say that it was specifically Islamism that led to the unrest. The Azeris have their own prediliction toward puffing and blowing — another macho society, where it's not manly to ignore whatever... Azerbaijan's parliament addressed the detentions today, but decided to postpone a resolution until President Heidar Aliev makes a statement on the issue. Aliev has been in power since prior to 1992, another of those "Fathers of His Country" who simply won't go away. It's all very tiresome, except for all that oil. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |