Nafas LGBTI Azerbaijan Alliance: Advocacy campaign

Nafas LGBTI Azerbaijan Alliance presented the program of the advocacy campaign.

Nafas LGBTI Azerbaijan Alliance plans advocacy campaign for 2021. Focusing on LGBTI + and women's * rights this year, LGBTI+ rights organisation has developed an advocacy program on the 2017 "LGBTI+ hunt" and the expected decision of the European Court of Human Rights. We present the program and what Nafas LGBTI Azerbaijan Alliance said to Minority Azerbaijan as it is.

Nafas LGBTI Azerbaijan Alliance has been advocating for the protection of LGBTI+ rights and social inclusion in Azerbaijan since 2012. Nafas is an LGBTI+ human rights organisation that works with and for the community and sustains its activities in the country.

In 2017, police in Azerbaijan have conducted a violent campaign, arresting and torturing men presumed to be gay or bisexual, as well as trans* women. The campaign is known amongst the community as “LGBTI+ hunt”, as it was the first ever largest hunt of its kind carried out by officials in recent years.

In mid-September of 2017 the police have detained dozens of LGBTI+s on dubious charges, beating and using electric shocks on some of them to coerce bribes and information about other gay men and trans* women. “Government officials have not denied the crackdown, and have instead attempted to justify it on spurious morality and public health grounds,” Human Rights Watch says.

As Nafas LGBTI Azerbaijan Alliance we have sought to compile the relevant facts related to the September events. In order to support the strategic litigation team, Nafas gathered statements from applicants and the observation of lawyers. According to the statements made by applicants, they all allegedly suffered from ill-treatment. In the course of their detention, they claim that police officers willfully resorted to degrading language directed to their identity by uttering phrases such as “lady [deadnaming the applicant]”, “do not do make-up,” and “go ahead, girl.” Allegedly they were ‘forced to insert their fingers into anal holes’ and play them around the hole. According to the statements, the survivors were told to do so due to security measures. While doing it, police officers asked the applicants, with a smile on their faces, whether or not they received joy from doing it to themselves. The applicants were allegedly forced to have sexual contact with each other or have oral sex with police officers, which police officers called ‘oral joy.’

Allegedly, the survivors who provided Nafas LGBTI with statements, were compelled to sign incriminating statements. Those who refused to sign were beaten until they did so. One of the applicants was subjected to electric shock. Furthermore, police officers forced non-LGBTI+ detainees in the facility to shave off the hair of LGBTI+ detainees. According to applicants, while supervising the process, police officers used the expressions, such as “you are not a woman, you are a man.” According to the lawyers, when brought to hearings, the heads of most trans* women were shaved; they looked ‘miserable and sad’ because of their appearance.

According to the lawyers, in all cases, the Appeal Court judges dismissed the motion requesting the investigation into the allegations of torture and other ill-treatment by police officers without providing any reasoning. The hearings fell short of 10 minutes on average. Lawyers also said that the judges were using stereotypical and derogatory language towards detainee LGBTI+s, targeting their sexual orientation and gender identity. There were questions like, “are you a real man?” or “do you have other desires?” asked by the judges.

The events have drawn considerable local and also international attention. It was decried by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe, and UN Special Rapporteurs. Representatives of the U.S. Embassy and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Baku also attended the Appeal Court hearings.

Azerbaijan decriminalised same-sex sexual acts between two men in 2000 as the pre-condition for the membership of Council of Europe. However there are no officially registered LGBTI+ groups, and no protection of queer community provided by legislation. According to HRW, the government also has a long record of using bogus charges to jail or fine government critics, whom police in some cases physically abuse in custody.

As there were no measures taken by the government since then the LGBTI+ community in Azerbaijan still suffers from ill-treatment by the society and institutions, and the level of the discrimination is epidemically high. Only this year, during May and June alone, Nafas LGBTI recorded at least 10 attacks on the LGBTI+ community. International human rights organisations ILGA-Europe, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Civil Rights Defenders (CRD) and RFSL issued a statement calling on the government to conduct a fair investigation into those attacks.

We believe that government should take the necessary steps to protect LGBTI+s from discrimination, instead of justifying the attacks and detentions. As Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein - the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said during a high level event at the United Nations: “If public opinion is hostile towards LGBTI people that makes it more urgent for governments to act to protect them.”