A week before Azerbaijan is set to host the Eurovision song contest, an Azeri rock musician who says he was tortured by police after performing at an opposition rally has fled to Germany over concerns for his safety.
Jamal Ali, a 24-year-old rapper, fled his home country on Wednesday, he said in an interview via Skype from Berlin.
"I knew if I don't leave, my life would be fucked," he said.
Ali claims that police tortured him for two days, placing a bag on his head and beating him with a truncheon, after he and his bassist were detained after a performance at an anti-government rally in March.
He was sentenced to 15 days in prison for "hooliganism", but released early. "It was only [because of] Eurovision that they released me in 10 days," he said.
As thousands of foreign musicians and fans head to the former Soviet country for the Eurovision song contest next Saturday, the country has been keen to deflect attention from its disastrous human rights record. Yet dozens of democracy activists, journalists and bloggers remain in jail despite pressure from international human rights groups and local activists.
Ilham Aliyev, the country's autocratic president, has presented Eurovision as a showcase for the country's European aspirations. The event will highlight the country's "values, culture and tolerance", Ali Hasanov, an aide to Aliyev, told the Guardian. He accused "outside forces" of orchestrating the criticism against Azerbaijan, pointing to Armenia, the country's neighbour and longtime foe, with which it is still in a state of war.
Aliyev has poured millions of dollars into transforming Baku into a capital dripping in marble and neon. The cobblestone roads are freshly paved and nightly light shows are beamed from newly built skyscrapers. But many Azeris live in poverty and human rights activists say their every move is followed by secret police.
The government destroyed thousands of homes before Eurovision to put up new buildings in the capital, a sparkling showcase of the country's booming oil wealth.
Aliyev, who succeeded his father as president in 2003, tolerates no dissent. Protest rallies are regularly broken up. Several independent journalists, including the country's leading investigative reporter, Khadija Ismayilova, have been blackmailed with sex tapes.
At the protest rally in March, Ali and his bassist, Natig Kamilov, performed a song against Aliyev. A scuffle broke out, which activists say was a state-designed provocation prompting their arrest.
Ali said police had urged him to leave the country in between beatings. "They said: 'Fuck off if you don't like it. We'll do our best to make you leave the country." Police in a black Hyundai had been stationed outside his house around the clock since his release from jail, he said.
"I left because I would be arrested for a longer time," Ali said, saying he had been threatened with two to five years in jail for insulting the president. Many activists fear a harsh crackdown after the international spotlight on Azerbaijan fades once the Eurovision song contest is over.
Ali says he does not know if, or when, he will return to Azerbaijan. "I don't make any plans now," he said. "It's just safe here [in Berlin]."
Ali uploaded the latest video of his band, Bulistan, to YouTube hours before catching a flight to Berlin via Istanbul. It shows a bearded Ali walking past the ruins of demolished buildings and performing in an abandoned space, his bandmates wearing bags over their heads in reference to the torture he experienced after his arrest.
"I was beaten for what I said," he sings. "Shoved into a police car."
"My house has been demolished, I am homeless. No roof over my head – is Eurovision what I need now?"
Opposition activists are hoping Eurovision, due to be hosted in the brand new Crystal Hall on the banks of the Caspian Sea, will help spotlight the country's many ills.
Ali said he had a message for the global TV audience who would be watching: "I would congratulate another shitty song winning on the stage – a stage which is built on kindergartens, houses, and thousands of homeless," he said. "It's the same as ancient Egypt, but with a Crystal Hall, not pyramids."
