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Baku’s Hotel Europe hosted a conference titled “To Freedom with Mavi Marmara." A scandal occurred between the organizers of the event and hotel management while Turkish reporter Hakan Albayrag was delivering a speech. Turan reports that the hotel management demanded that the organizers remove the large pictures of the Mavi Marmara vessel (ship of the Peace Flotilla which was carrying humanitarian aid to the Palestinians) and the pictures of the attacks on the Peace Flotilla in 2010 May.

The hotel management described the conference as a unilateral political event and the hotel’s general manager, an ethnic Turk, said that “his career was over.” According to Turan, the photos were removed but the general manager remained agitated.

The conference "To Freedom with Mavi Marmara” had been organized by the “Asian Dialogue” NGO. The event was dedicated to the events of May 2010, when the Peace Flotilla was trying to break the blockade of Gaza.

On May 31, 2010, six ships of the so-called “Freedom Flotilla” destined for Gaza were stopped by Israel’s Navy off the coast in the Mediterranean Sea. Five of the ships heeded the call, one however the Mavi Maramara refused, precipitating a forced boarding by troops from Israel’s Navy. During the struggle, nine activists were killed, and many were wounded. Ten of the commandos were also wounded, one of them seriously. The five other ships in the flotilla employed passive resistance, which was suppressed without major incident. The ships were towed to Israel, where all passengers were detained and deported.