Holiday of Flowers: 10 May saga

On 30 April a shooter entered State Oil Academy and gunned down 12 people and wounded 13 before killing himself. Never a university in Azerbaijan saw such a tragedy. However, the authorities refused to declare a single National Mourning Day.

For the government was preparing a grand festival to celebrate 86th birthday of its former president (and the father of current one) with a splendid open-air concert and 18,5-million-dollar-worth Holiday of Flowers - just ten days after a deadly rampage at State Oil Academy and in 100 meters from the CRIME SCENE.

Not only the government refused to mourn the victims of the Oil Academy rampage, but hindered the youth to mourn their colleagues. All the flowers brought to the Oil Academy were taken away immediately, memorial graffiti erased from the facade of the building, and area guarded against possible flash mobs.

Therefore, students and youth decided to boycott and protest the Holiday of Flowers - which is the birthday of late Heydar Aliyev and is observed in Azerbaijan as sacred as the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic countries.

For detailed account of the protests, you can read this entry on Flying Carpets and Broken Pipelines, a blog by an Azeri political analyst.

But I am going to tell you another saga - of our peaceful and civil protest on 10th of May and its aftermath.

We were around 20-30 youth, most have seen each other first time, and were sitting in front of the National Conservatoire - opposite the Heydar Aliyev Park where the Holiday of Flowers was held. We had two read carnations in our hands (symbols of mourning in Azerbaijan) and were just observing Sodom and Gomorrah across the road and were depressed by the sight of thousands visiting the Holiday - for these law-abiding families, teachers with their students seemed to have no pity to those killed at the Oil Academy rampage.

I think it was this depression that made us to stand up and leave the scene for State Oil Academy to lay our carnations in front of the building in memory of those killed 11 days ago. However, we didn't make just two steps and got immediately detained. Here is the video prepared by some creative youth about our protest and detention with English subtitles of mine:



I was freed after being detained for four hours in a police station with other 21 people, among them - guess! - country director of National Democratic Institute for Azerbaijan (detained unintentionally and released early).

Here is me speaking after being released:



While hundreds were protesting and around 100 students and youth were detained throughout the city, NO REPORTS of this were seen in any of seven local TV channels, and when we were freed only one media was present there - RFE/RL.

With this I wish I could finish our saga, but alas...

On 12th May I have received a call from from JEK, which looks after public apartments, elevators and litter. As if "for census". One friend of mine jokingly asked when heard this: Do they have a new responsibility to look after bloggers or bloggers got filed under "litter"?

Next day came police watchdog of the neighborhood (someone like Sheriff) with three suspicious personalities to check "pasport regime" in whole building (as if our building is flooded with illegal immigrants). However, a paper in his hand betrayed the list of 10 May protesters :)

Today, my father received a call from Crime Investigation Department of our district's police - they were opening a file for me. And now we are waiting for representatives of the Head of the Executive Power of the district, according to Facebook and blogging activities of other protesters, they have the next to come...

Such a wonderful country, eh? Can you have such a fun somewhere else for walking with a flower in your hand in the Holiday of Flowers? Lol! They've got a little list!

And for a dessert, watch this video (thanks M.B. for the idea!)