Your trusted source

The head of the election observation mission of the OSCE / ODIHR Tana de Zulueta and media analyst of this structure Elmo Sehalich during the interview with the Azerbaijani service of Radio "Liberty" commented on the incident that took place at a press conference of the observation mission in Baku.

Azerbaijani news portal "Haqqin.az" notes that pro-governmental journalists gave rise to an unprecedented scandal at the press conference, where the monitoring report on Azerbaijani elections was made public. They attacked and insulted the OSCE representatives and Western diplomats. Only the intervention of representatives of the OSCE security service stopped the pro-governmental journalists who attacked the diplomats with their fists. "Euronews" and other Western TV channels showed this shameful video footage to the whole world.

"We wanted to answer questions of the reporters at our press conference. However, the journalists disrupted our performance with applauses and loud whistles. I have never come across to such a thing. I remember that it was only in Zimbabwe that our press conference was disrupted in such a way," Tana de Zulueta said.

On October 10, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE held a press-conference in Baku, stating that the presidential elections in Azerbaijan held on October 9 lacked freedom of speech and assembly. The statement also stated that serious violations were observed at all stages of the electoral process and investigation is required to be carried out.

On October 9 Azerbaijan held presidential elections where Ilham ALiyev took a victory with 84,58% votes. According to the preliminary data, Jamil Hasanli a single candidate from the oppositionist National Council of Democratic Forces is on the second place. He scored 5,54% of votes. The leaders of the "Musavat" party Isa Gambar, the head of the Popular Front Party Ali Kerimli, the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan Sardar Jalaloglu and leader of the movement “EL” Eldar Namazov have declared about "total violations" and frauds during the presidential elections. The candidate of the National Council Jamil Hasanli has also noted the mass election frauds and announced incumbent President Ilham Aliyev responsible that. Jamil Hasanli’s headquarter has regularly issued releases describing election violations in details - ballot stuffing, "carousels", pressure on observes, etc.