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Azerbaijan hosted the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, casting an international spotlight on the government’s deteriorating human rights record. The atmosphere for political activists and independent and pro-opposition journalists grew acutely hostile, the annual report of the Human Rights Watch reads.

“Authorities used imprisonment as a tool for political retribution and forcibly dispersed a number of peaceful demonstrations, indiscriminately arresting activists and passersby. Restrictions on freedom of religion and the prosecution of unregistered religious groups continued. The government intensified its urban renewal campaign in the capital Baku, forcibly evicting thousands of families and illegally demolishing homes,” the report says. The HRW notes that foreign actors failed to fully realize the potential of their relationships with the government to press it to honor its human rights obligations.

Touching upon the freedom of speech the organization mentions that series of journalists have undergone to trumped-up charges in hooliganism and drug possession. Among the repressed journalists in Azerbaijan the organization gives the names of Faramaz Novruzoglu, Hilal Mammadov, Idrak Abbasov, Anar Bayramli and others.

According to the report government limited freedom of assembly by breaking up peaceful protests, in some cases violently, and arresting protesters. In March, at the first sanctioned opposition protest since 2006, police detained two popular musicians as they played at the peaceful gathering. Police beat and denied them access to their lawyer.

“In April, police detained 20 activists distributing flyers encouraging people to attend an opposition rally. Courts sentenced 7 of the activists to 10 to 15 days of detention, and fined or released others. In the days before and during May’s Eurovision Song Contest, police broke up several protests in Baku’s center,” the document says.

In October, as the report notes, the police rounded up dozens of protesters in an unsanctioned rally in central Baku, roughed them up and forced them into buses. Courts imprisoned 13 on misdemeanor charges for up to 10 days, and fined several others. The HRW also highlights that the parliament increased sanctions for participating and organizing unauthorized protests, establishing fines of up to 1,000 AZN ($ 1,274) for participation, and 3,000 ($ 3,822) for organization.

“Imprisonment on politically motivated charges is a continuing problem. A June 2012 report by a committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) described the cases of 89 political prisoners in Azerbaijan. Just before the report’s publication, nine were released under a presidential pardon,” the report says. Another problem according to Human Rights Watch in Azerbaijan is torture and ill-treatment that remain with impunity. It says that two men died in police custody in 2012. “In the first eight months of 2012, the Azerbaijan Committee Against Torture, an independent prison monitoring group, received 136 complaints alleging ill-treatment in custody,” the report says.

As for illegal demolition of houses HRW notes that in 2012, hundreds of homeowners were affected as the authorities accelerated construction for the Eurovision Song Contest. “Most evictees have not received fair compensation based on market values of their properties,” the report says.