Baku: Over 100 Arrests in Raid on LGBTQ+ Club

In Azerbaijan, more than 100 people were reportedly detained on Saturday at a queer club. Several media outlets, including OC Media, citing the LGBTQ Instagram page “Qiy Vaar!”, reported this. Those arrested said they had been subjected by police to physical abuse, harassment, and degrading treatment.

During the Saturday evening raid in the center of the capital, Baku, officers allegedly demanded bribes of 50 to 100 manat (roughly 25 to 50 euros) and uttered “degrading expressions and threats.” The money was reportedly demanded sometimes under threat or even through violence. One woman reportedly had her hair cut, and another person had a tooth knocked out, according to the Instagram page citing eyewitnesses. There were also reports of sexual violence against at least one person.

The detainees were taken to a police station, where they initially had to stand for a long time outside in the cold, according to “Qiy Vaar!”. The officers reportedly registered their data, fingerprints, and photos and threatened them with court summons. Relatives were also harassed later, with some parents told that their children had been taken from an “immoral gay club.”

Mass detentions of queer people by the police had occurred in Azerbaijan in 2019 and 2017 as well. The ILGA Europe organization expressed deep concern on Tuesday about the reports: “We stand in solidarity with the LGBTIQ community in Azerbaijan and support the demands of our member organization ‘Qiy Vaar!’ for an urgent investigation and a public statement by the authorities. The human rights and the dignity of all people in Azerbaijan must be safeguarded.”

Azerbaijan became familiar to Europeans mainly through the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012, for which the oil- and gas-rich country polished up its capital. Since then, however, the situation for human rights activists has deteriorated again, and for LGBTI people it has not improved under the authoritarian regime of President Ilham Aliyev. In 2014, a 20-year-old LGBTI activist hanged himself in Baku from a rainbow flag (TheColu.mn reported). In ILGA Europe’s Rainbow Map, the country sits near the bottom, between Turkey and Russia. (Note)