Mass protest demanding Ilham Aliyev’s resignation is held in Azerbaijan
In Azerbaijan, the oppositional National Council of Democratic Forces held a meeting on November 9. It was aimed at releasing civil activists, the Azerbaijani service of Radio "Liberty" reports.
According to the article in the course of the meeting the chairman of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan Ali Kerimli stated that the Azerbaijani authorities will not be able to destroy the civil society and opposition parties in the country.
"Despite the massive repressions people have come out to the stadium and are now protesting against them.
The authorities wanted to intimidate the people and all of you with the repressions, and to silence the Azerbaijani society. But it didn’t succeed. They failed, despite the arrests of the activists, journalists and bloggers," said Kerimli.
According to the Azerbaijani news agency "Turan", in its turn, the chairman of the National Council Jamil Hasanli, claiming about more than 100 political prisoners in Azerbaijan; he stated that even in absolute monarchies there are no such big numbers of detained government critics.
Regarding social issues, Hasanli noted that the pensioners’ pensions are not enough to purchase drugs. Treatment Azerbaijanis forced to travel to neighboring Iran. Despite the potential of agriculture the farmers drag out a miserable existence.
Hasanli stated that there is a need for electoral reforms and changes in composition of election commissions in order to ensure the confidence of people towards the elections.
According to "Caucasian Knot", the Azerbaijani opposition rally ended with the adoption of a resolution that demanded the release of political prisoners, the electoral reform, solving social problems, European integration of Azerbaijan.
The article notes that in the course of the rally the speakers speeches were being interrupted by slogans like "Resign!" which probably meant the resignation of the President Ilham Aliyev. Almost in the middle of the rally the sound amplifiers were disconnected just in a few minutes after the last slogans were chanted. The organizers explained this by deliberate power outage. However, this outraged the protesters even more, and they started to chant the slogans more intensively.
At the same time, as noted in the article, a group of believers had attended the meeting. They were holding the placards of the arrested leader of the Islamic Party Movsum Samedov, theologians Abgyulya Suleymanli and Taleh Bagirzadeh.
Member of the rally Committee, deputy chairman of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan Fuad Gahramanli said that there were about seven thousand people attending the rally.
On October 12 in Baku another rally demanding the release of the political prisoners was held by the opposition parties.