Youth movements

January 31, 2010

Democracy is … POSSIBLE

Despite the arrest and conviction of one of their co-founders, Adnan Hajizade with an apparently trumped-up charges, OL! Youth movement has released a new video telling that they are still in and not disillusioned in their quests.


November 12, 2009

Two Azeri Bloggers receive prison terms

On 11th November, despite huge international and internal pressure, Sabail District Court of Baku presided by Justice Araz Huseynov convicted two Azerbaijani bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade on controversial hooliganism charges.


September 28, 2009

Story of a father and son, with intermission

Democratic activism is a long tradition in Hajizade family, as well as the state of being assaulted and beaten for their activities – the new element here is the fact that Adnan Hajizade now is being tried for both. A story of a father and son with intermission of sixteen years


July 23, 2009

Republic of Facebook

Following the beating and arrest of two youth activists and bloggers in Baku, who were using new media as well as Facebook to spread their ideas among their followers, the local online community has exploded in a way that prompted support from global community ifor the arrested bloggers and in general, the freedom of speech […]


July 11, 2009

Beaten activists sentenced for two months while investigation goes on

On 10 July 2009, a session of Sabail District Court of Baku, chaired by Justice Rauf Ahmedov, has sentenced two civil society activists – Emin Abdullayev (Milli) and Adnan Hajizada to two months of pre-trial investigation detention. Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada are accused of ‘domestic group hooliganism’ according to Article 221.2 of Criminal Code […]


July 9, 2009

Beaten youth activists to stand trial for hooliganism

As I reported in my previous post, two prominent civil society activists and leading figures of youth movement in Azerbaijan – Emin Milli (Abdullayev) and Adnan Hajizada have been attacked while dining at a downtown restaurant and got severely beaten. Moreover, when they tried to complain to police, they were detained as suspects in ‘hooliganism’ […]


July 9, 2009

Civil society and youth activists beaten and detained in downtown Baku

Two prominent Azeri civil society and youth activists – Emin Milli, one of the founders of Alumni Network, a grassroots youth movement and Adnan Haji-zadeh, a video-blogger from OL! Youth Movement have been attacked by unidentified persons while dining with a group of fellow activists in a restaurant in downtown Baku. According to witnesses, two suspicious ‘sportsmen’ entered the […]


May 29, 2009

Azerbaijan marks anniversary of its first republic

On 28th of May, Azerbaijan marked 91th anniversary of its first republic. Azerbaijan Democratic Republic or ADR as known by its initials is considered the first democratic republic in Muslim East with a functional parliament and clean record of human rights. As I wrote in my post last year, Proclaimed on 28 May, 1918 and […]


May 4, 2009

A historic wall in Baku

Well, not as historic as the Berlin wall, but still interesting one with graffiti across all spectra of political scale. Slogans vary from "Sexual Revolution" and "Our Fatherland is USSR" to "Death to Israel" and "[email protected]#$ Bush!". With an English guide by the members of local OL! movement.


April 16, 2009

Youth activist expelled from university

Once I wrote an innocent piece for azadliqciragi.org, an Azeri-language version of Cato Institute’s Lamps of Liberty and I don’t know how, but my dean N.A. at university got aware of it (too old and conservative to surf in Internet). Later followed what my dean called "educational conversation" between us in order to persuade me […]