How to Rile Up the International Community: Arrest a Donkey (and His Friend)
Can't one arrest a donkey in one's own country?
Adnan Hajizade, a 2005 graduate of the University of Richmond and now a BP public relations staffer in Baku, put on a little prank three weeks ago. He posted a You Tube video of a mock news conference in which, dressed as a donkey, he spoke German, played the violin and joked about a lack of civil liberties in Azerbaijan. The costume itself was a send-up of a government program that imports donkeys at what local critics say is exorbitant prices.
In any case, a week ago Hajizade was in a cafe with his friend Emin Milli, an English and German interpreter who graduated from a German university, when two men walked in and started beating up Hajizade. Milli stepped in, and he got it, too, according to Milli's wife, Leyla Kerimli, a Ph.D student at Columbia University.
Hajizade and Milli went to a police station to file a complaint, but the authorities instead charged them, using the Soviet-era offense of hooliganism. They are now in two-month pre-trial detention, and face up to five years in prison.
It's been downhill for the Azeri government ever since. The U.S. and German embassies complained, to which the government responded by demanding that “embassies of separate countries end their interference in the investigation, which is outside of their diplomatic missions.” That had no effect. Oil companies almost never get into civil rights discussions with governments, but in this case BP also expressed its unhappiness. Hajizade's former classmates in Richmond weighed in.
That wasn't all. Donkeys apparently are intriguing news in a way that the by-now run-of-the-mill political arrests in the region almost never are. France 24 ran a piece. The same was in Brazil, and in Austria. Ellen Barry of The New York Times wrote a piece accompanied by a screen-shot of the donkey video. Bloomberg did a television piece.
Basically, these various officials and media outlets seem to be mocking Azerbaijan. But is that fair? We'll discuss that at another time.
For now, I shared coffee yesterday with Milli's 32-year-old wife, Leyla Kerimli. She's worried about her husband, whom she married two years ago. She and a friend think that there must be a mistake -- an overzealous police lieutenant or prosecutor trying to impress President Ilham Aliyev.
I have a feeling that is the case. After all, there is suspicion that murder in Russia occurs for a similar reason -- an attempt to make the boss happy.
No one serious in Azerbaijan truly thought they could arrest a donkey with impunity.
Adnan Hajizade, a 2005 graduate of the University of Richmond and now a BP public relations staffer in Baku, put on a little prank three weeks ago. He posted a You Tube video of a mock news conference in which, dressed as a donkey, he spoke German, played the violin and joked about a lack of civil liberties in Azerbaijan. The costume itself was a send-up of a government program that imports donkeys at what local critics say is exorbitant prices.
In any case, a week ago Hajizade was in a cafe with his friend Emin Milli, an English and German interpreter who graduated from a German university, when two men walked in and started beating up Hajizade. Milli stepped in, and he got it, too, according to Milli's wife, Leyla Kerimli, a Ph.D student at Columbia University.
Hajizade and Milli went to a police station to file a complaint, but the authorities instead charged them, using the Soviet-era offense of hooliganism. They are now in two-month pre-trial detention, and face up to five years in prison.
It's been downhill for the Azeri government ever since. The U.S. and German embassies complained, to which the government responded by demanding that “embassies of separate countries end their interference in the investigation, which is outside of their diplomatic missions.” That had no effect. Oil companies almost never get into civil rights discussions with governments, but in this case BP also expressed its unhappiness. Hajizade's former classmates in Richmond weighed in.
That wasn't all. Donkeys apparently are intriguing news in a way that the by-now run-of-the-mill political arrests in the region almost never are. France 24 ran a piece. The same was in Brazil, and in Austria. Ellen Barry of The New York Times wrote a piece accompanied by a screen-shot of the donkey video. Bloomberg did a television piece.
Basically, these various officials and media outlets seem to be mocking Azerbaijan. But is that fair? We'll discuss that at another time.
For now, I shared coffee yesterday with Milli's 32-year-old wife, Leyla Kerimli. She's worried about her husband, whom she married two years ago. She and a friend think that there must be a mistake -- an overzealous police lieutenant or prosecutor trying to impress President Ilham Aliyev.
I have a feeling that is the case. After all, there is suspicion that murder in Russia occurs for a similar reason -- an attempt to make the boss happy.
No one serious in Azerbaijan truly thought they could arrest a donkey with impunity.
Labels: Azerbaijan, hajizade, ilham, milli
2 Comments:
I didn' t read articles you related to and can be that I am repeating what they said. This arrest can be less at random, less uncoordinated than it seems. These young people have been dissident of the line of the official party by some time. Just watch the rest of videos that they have posted on Youtube. And this report of Eurasianet mentions their mildly dissident activities:
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav052909b.shtml
Of course, it is clear that they should be freed immediately.
Thanks for the link. Those outside the official tent were subject to beatings under Heydar Aliyev's leadership, but the reports are that Ilham is far more thin-skinned, and hence more likely to lash out at perceived offenses.
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