Posted on 06/19/2005 9:46:11 AM PDT by Lukasz
BAKU, Azerbaijan -- Thousands of demonstrators chanting "Freedom" and carrying portraits of President Bush marched across Azerbaijan's capital Saturday, demanding the resignation of the government and free parliamentary elections -- in the biggest protest in years.
The protest of about 20,000 marchers, the second such rally in as many weeks, was organized by three leading opposition parties that formed the Azadlig (Freedom) bloc to run for parliamentary elections set for November.
About 200 police in full riot gear stood guard around a central square where protesters gathered. Brief clashes erupted when demonstrators tried to push police away from the square and officers in riot gear fought back with truncheons. Last month, police beat back protesters who tried to hold a banned rally in Baku and detained dozens.
Tensions have been building steadily in this oil-rich Caspian Sea nation in the run-up to the elections, leading some observers to predict that Azerbaijan could see a massive uprising similar to those that toppled unpopular regimes in other ex-Soviet nations of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan during the past 18 months.
Supporters of the Musavat party, the People's Front of Azerbaijan and the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan chanted "Freedom" and "Free Elections" and carried pictures of President Bush, seen as inspiration for the earlier democratic revolutions in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine.
Bush visited Georgia's capital of Tbilisi last month and told a cheering crowd of tens of thousands of people that Georgia is proving to the world that determined people can rise up and claim their freedom from oppressive rulers.
Azerbaijan's opposition bloc has chosen orange as its campaign color -- the color that was also used by the Ukrainian opposition during mass protests dubbed the "Orange Revolution" that helped pave the way for the victory of a Western-backed candidate over a Russia-backed rival.
Many participants in Saturday's rally wore orange T-shirts and baseball caps and carried orange flags.
The opposition demands election law reforms and access to state-controlled television. They also have accused authorities of rigging the October 2003 presidential election when President Ilham Aliev succeeded his late father, Geidar Aliev.
Love to see a rally in Teheran with those Bush signs!
I wonder how the left will spin this..."Will America rush to war in Azerbaijan, too?"
Uh Oh!!!! I smell Leftist Liberal panic in the air. GW is right, the ME does want freedom and democracy.
Michael Moore must be planning his next documentary right now, detailing how we've contaminated these poor souls with aspirations alien to their culture.
BTTT
The ME the East the North and South.
Deepdown it is in everymans heart
The protest of about 20,000 marchers, the second such rally in as many weeks, was organized by three leading opposition parties that formed the Azadlig (Freedom) bloc to run for parliamentary elections set for November.
God forbid the MSM would report the truth.
I see Howard Dean and the Moveon crappheads couldn't get visas......
What a wonderful thing to see. The effeminite euros may not like him, but the people who live under oppression sure do appreciate our president.
Thanks for the ping!
Hell, I'd settle for one in DC!
You'll see'em in Teheran first.
They were never spotted, but heard about in Iran. A poll in Iran found more supporters of the Iraq Liberation War in Iran than in Boston. Interesting, eh?
Democrats like to talk about the Soviet Gulag because today's American Democrat Congress is more like the Soviet Politburo than any governmental body outside of Europe.
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