Azernews.Az

fBAKU – Human Rights Watch has said the Azerbaijani authorities should immediately halt alleged illegal expropriations, forcible evictions, and home demolitions in the capital, Baku, in the name of "beautification".

The U.S.-based group said in a statement Tuesday that the government should compensate people already forced out of their homes.

On Monday police reportedly surrounded a building slated for demolition that is occupied by human rights groups after activists tried to publicly protest against the destruction campaign.

In a letter sent to President Ilham Aliyev and the Baku mayor’s office last Friday, HRW called on the president to intervene to suspend the Baku mayor’s alleged effort to expropriate and demolish hundreds of private homes and businesses in the city center. The two-year demolition campaign has cost hundreds – and possibly thousands – of homeowners and residents their homes and resulted in widespread violations of private property rights, HRW said.

"With its so-called ‘beautification’ project, the Azerbaijani government isn’t just destroying homes in Baku, it’s destroying people’s lives," claimed Jane Buchanan, Europe and Central Asia researcher at HRW.

According to the rights group, the Baku mayor’s office began "the expropriation campaign" in 2009 to build a "garden-park complex" among other construction projects, as part of a reconstruction program. HRW interviewed numerous property owners whose properties in Baku have been expropriated and demolished or soon will be.

Monday’s incident began after the owners and tenants of a building slated for demolition painted a message on the exterior walls: "This is private property and the destruction of this house violates the Constitution, and the European Convention on Human Rights." The police demanded that they stop writing on the walls and dispersed only after several representatives of diplomatic missions came to the aid of the tenants.

The building is owned by human rights defender Leyla Yunus and her husband. Among the groups with offices there are Yunus’ Institute for Peace and Democracy, the Azerbaijani Campaign to Ban Landmines, and the only women’s crisis center in Baku.

In numerous cases in various sections of the city center, residents said that the authorities have begun to tear down apartment buildings while property owners who refused to agree to the government’s compensation or resettlement offers remained in their apartments. In some of these cases, court cases challenging the demolitions and expropriations were pending.

The rights group maintained that compensation in many cases is far below market value for property in central Baku. The price paid for all properties is based on the authorities’ designated single price of 1,500 manat ($1,900) per square meter, irrespective of a property’s use, age, condition, or any other factors. Independent appraisals have valued properties in central Baku at 4,000 manat ($5,000) per square meter or in some cases even more.

Seeing how those who have refused compensation or resettlement have been forcibly evicted and left homeless in many cases, other property owners have felt compelled to accept the authorities’ largely inadequate offers, HRW claimed.