Once again, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Azerbaijan. RFE/RL reports that the Court (commonly referred to as “the Strasbourg Court”) has ruled that the Azerbaijani government illegally annulled the election victory of pop singer Flora Karimova after the 2005 parliamentary elections. The court ruling (which is available here) addressed decisions of officers of the Azerbaijani Central Election Commission (CEC), and asserted that “the authorities’ inadequate approach had brought about a situation where the election process in the entire electoral constituency had been single-handedly sabotaged by two electoral officials who had abused their position by making changes to a number of election protocols.”
The ruling is the second major defeat handed down by the Strasbourg Court for Azerbaijan this year. In April, the Court directed the government to release imprisoned journalist Eynullah Fatullayev, a decision that that Azerbaijani authorities have publicly repudiated.
Karimova ran under the opposition Azadliq (Liberty) banner, and on election night, she was declared the winner in her district, handily defeating the candidate from the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party. However, that was before the CEC intervened and threw out the results.
The Court ordered the Azerbaijani government to pay Karimova a little over 59,000 euros in various damages.
The singer told RFE that the case “will not be my last appeal to the European Court of Human Rights,” although, oddly, she appeared on an RFE/RL radio program during which she praised Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, who presides over the very system that stripped Karimova of her rights in the first place.
More than one Azeri source has told me that Karimova’s strategy is apparently to hedge her bets, since pushing too hard in Azerbaijan can lead to unpleasant consequences. Just ask Eynullah Fatullayev…