4 Feminist Movement and Anti-Femicide Protests
The role of civil society in Azerbaijan has weakened since the crackdown of 2014. Human rights organizations, including those defending women's rights, have been steadily and consistently weakened or closed down in the country. The attack that started with the introduction of amendments to the law on NGOs, followed with the suppression of independent NGOs and closing down of the offices of civil society organizations, and even threats and imprisonment of many human rights defenders. This undoubtedly had a chilling effect on the entire movement of human rights defense and particularly weakened the process of defense of women’s rights. As a result, the government's efforts to weaken civil society in Azerbaijan led to the failure of the institution to function as an active and sustainable system of defense of rights.
However, the trend has been changing in the past few years. People who have been more supportive and protecting individual women's rights tried to overcome the stagnation in the area. There is a progress regarding provision of psychosocial support for women that were subject to abuse. Some of the victims of abuse even agreed to show their faces, share their stories and take part in documentaries about domestic violence. However, outreach to women in rural areas remained a problem and attempts to investigate the violence they face or help the victims of abuse are comparatively weaker than in the urban areas.
Since 2018, civil society, as well as lawyers and feminists, have taken considerable steps to show vulnerability of women in the society. Rallies in support of the cause of domestic violence started to attract more people with every year. Facts of violence against women received more coverage in the media in the subsequent years. However, it is clear that not all of the cases get publicized: the actual number of cases of violence against women in the country is much higher than that provided by statistical data. But even this disproportionate number prompted public reaction and became a trigger for the movement of the feminist activists, who dare to raise the issue of the gender-based violence both in the media and through social networks, call for and organize protest actions and raise awareness about the degrading situation of women in Azerbaijan.
Following the initiative of young people, some organizations have now begun to reorganize their work and to run activities aimed at protecting women's rights and providing them with psychological support or helping women to build small businesses.
At the very forefront of the fight for women’s right is the so-called “feminist” movement. The feminist movement in the country opposes injustice against women and maintains the discourse of gender equality. In total, the group counts about 100 people organizing themselves through social networks. These individuals occasionally organize awareness-raising training on gender, feminism, and LGBTQ. The group also communicates through small private groups of 5-12 people, holding events and film screenings. In 2019, the feminist group held two street protests and carried out one in 2020. The events of this size are usually organized by a coordination group varying from 3 people (March 8, 2019) and up to 15 people (October 20, 2019). The one held in in 2020 for celebration of March 8 was organized by a group of 10 people and attracted about 150 rally participants.
Although, there is no separate anti-femicide movement in Azerbaijan, the feminist activists chose the topic as one of their priorities. Preventing femicide became one of the main goals of the emerging feminist movement. The feminist movement became active starting from 2018, with two high-profile cases of domestic violence. The first case concerned a well-known journalist Anar Garayli regularly and ruthlessly beating his wife, Parvana Gurbanli. The incident caused a public outcry, especially due to the fact that the personality of the abuser even before these reports did not generate respect, which, in turn, made it easy for the activists to protect the victim in social networks.
The second incident happened at the end of the year: the writer Karamat Boyukchol was exposed to public as a perpetrator of domestic violence against his wife Chinara Soltanova. In an audio recording released by the victim, Karamat Boyukchol acknowledged the fact of violence and stated that Azerbaijani women should be beaten regularly. This, of course, could not make the perpetrator very popular among general public. Feminists united in an initiative group, starting with helping Chinara Soltanova and later expanding their activities. The initiative group, consisting of six public activists, later became known as the White Stripe and established a fund to help women suffering from violence.
This fund provides advocacy services, temporary shelter for women and delivers aid to the victims of violence. The shelter hosted 4 women for about 3 months. The group is assisted by an online media initiative Microscope that runs statistics on femicides in Azerbaijan. However, the information is also sent personally to the leaders of the movement. These are the reports mostly from women who have been subjected to domestic violence by their fathers and brothers and are unable to contact the police because they live in the same household with them. There were also cases police inaction on the matter of battery and violence. Among the cases is even the police failing (or unwilling) to enforce the law on the husband who ignored the protection order.
The feminist group also received information about suspicions of murder in several cases reported to the press as incidents of suicide. The movement leader reports receiving two to four requests weekly in connection with the incidents of domestic violence. Requests mostly come from Facebook, and rarely from Instagram. Women mostly seek advice on partner blackmail and countermeasures or ask for help to leave the house due to psychological or physical violence they are subject to. Women also ask for temporary shelter, seeking advice about protection from the family abuse and strategies to deal with the police. Victims of violence also ask to be referred to a reliable psychologist or gynecologist, some try to fight against enforced marriages and even going as far as requesting for a fake marriage partner (mostly from an LGBT community member trying to push back the patriarchal family pressure on establishing a family).
The movement activists try to handle the issues on their own or provide references to the institutions or individuals who can help the victims. They are also referring applicants to the Ministry of Interior and the shelter run by one of the oldest NGOs on women’s rights “Clean World”. To date, the feminists managed to address all of the raised concerns, except for the request for a fake marriage.
However, the feminist group is more known for their public activities and organization of protest actions and events. The first mass protest of women in 2019 took place on the occasion of March 8- the International Women’s day. The rally was held under the slogan "8 March- march against violence!". It attracted about 60 participants, uniting around the topic of femicides and domestic violence. The protest action followed with the detention of five participants, who were subsequently released a few hours later.
The following months the topic did not emerge as actively, however, during the first weeks of October 2019, regular media reports of murders of women forced the feminist community and those indifferent to violence to unite. On October 20, a spontaneous rally was organized by the activists to protest femicides. This time the rally engaged about 100-150 people. The action participants even had a political demand of adopting Istanbul Convention, which could contribute to the prevention of violence against women.
The next protest was held to commemorate November 25 - the international day of fighting against violence against women. About 13 feminists posed for photos and shared them on social media, holding posters protesting violence in various parts of the city. These photos were placed in social media (Facebook Twitter) with the following hashtags: #25Noyabr; #Susma, #QadınlarÖlür and #ŞiddətəSon (meaning # 25November, #Silence,#WomenDie, # End Violence).
The 2019 protests and the exposure of Fuad Gahramanli, a high-profile case involving a former political prisoner and deputy chairman of an opposition party, led to the common denominator of feminism and feminist rhetoric in the country. "Feminists" were already seen and referred to as a force in social media and led the discussion around the topic.
One of the protests of 2020 was prompted by yet another femicide reported in the beginning of the year. On February 28, Tahira Ibadova was killed and her husband Vahid Ibahov and the 25-year old man living in the neighborhood were arrested as suspects on this case. The cause of the incident remained unknown but created a discussion and public outrage.
Right after the 8th of March rally of 2020, Zahra Kalandarli, one of the rally participants was subject to beatings by her uncle, who “punished” her for taking part in the demonstration. After disclosing this information to public, Zahra became a target of victim blaming and numerous attacks in social media. Some even found justification for a harsh behavior towards her, voiced even open calls for murder as she attended a demonstration despite wearing a headscarf. Moreover, her family, uncle and grandmother denounced her as it was announced by her in social media.
After March 8, 2020 protest, serious attacks began on the protesters and organizers. In addition to the cyber-attacks on the profiles, field officers were sent to the organizers' homes for questioning, and the parents (mostly fathers) of the protesters were summoned to the police units and interrogated. The interrogation was mainly general and aimed at intimidation of the feminist activists.