Between 1,200 and 10,000 protesters, according to different estimates, participated on Sunday in the first legally sanctioned opposition rally in Azerbaijan since 2005.
Police put the number of participants at the rally on the outskirts of the capital Baku at slightly above 1,000, while organizers said the turnout was ten times higher. No independent estimates were available.
Speakers at the event, organized by opposition movement The Public Chamber, demanded free parliamentary elections, release of political prisoners and resignation of the country’s leadership.
Demands also included a crackdown on corruption, better social benefits for all citizens and even compensations for bank deposits from Soviet times that were lost to monetary reforms following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
Azerbaijan ranked as a “non-free” country in the Freedom of the World 2012 survey by U.S.-based Freedom House rights watchdog. The country briefly allowed opposition rallies during the 2005 parliamentary elections, but denied all requests for such events after the vote.
In March, about 10,000 rallied in northern Azerbaijan in protest of alleged corruption of local authorities. Some of them clashed with police, who briefly detained 200 people; however, official Baku chose to meet protesters’ demands and mounted no crackdown on participants of the rallies, who presented no political demands.
