Azerbaijanis living in Derbent complain of harassment

NGO International Centre for Diaspora distributed an appeal of a large group of ethnic Azerbaijanis - residents of Dagestan town Derbernt.  People who signed a message complain about discrimination on ethnic grounds by the city authorities.  Azerbaijanis are forcibly evicted  from office of the municipal and federal level, while the Azerbaijanis, as indigenous people of Derbent, make up a significant part of the population.

The process of repression and harassment has been going on for over 20 years. The peak of this discrimination reached in 2010, when the city was headed by Imam Yaraliev, when staffing issues were resolved with an open violation of the principle of proportionality of the ethnic composition of the staff. So, when Imam Yaraliev was in office  Azerbaijanis were fired from a dozen positions in the Assembly of Deputies of the city. Then Azerbaijanis  lost their leadership positions in the municipalities, the courts, the police, the tax office and the prosecutor's office.

With coming of the new mayor - Baglieva, the situation has not improved, but on the contrary, has become worse. Dismissal of Azerbaijanis continued. At the same time, in their place demonstratively  were nominated Lezgins not of Derbent,  what creates ethnic tensions and exacerbate inter-ethnic relations.

"These unfortunate events caused  despair of the  Azerbaijani population of despair, and with each generation gets worse, so there will not be chances for  a decent living to future generations of Azerbaijanis in Derbent,"  reads the appeal  signed by more than 170 people. -02D-