[August 12, 2011] Offices Of Azerbaijani Human Rights NGO Demolished Tweet Aug 12, 2011 (Radio Free Europe Documents and Publications/ContentWorks via COMTEX) -- News / From Our Bureaus Offices Of Azerbaijani Human Rights NGO Demolished August 12, 2011 BAKU -- The Baku offices of the NGO Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD) have been demolished under police supervision as part of an urban renewal project, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service reports. Local residents and workers screamed and cursed at the demolition crew as they tore down the building on August 11. Azad Isazadeh, who works for the Women's Crisis Center that had offices in the same building as the IDP, told RFE/RL about the demolition. "[Officials] told me to leave the office for a while [and] I believed them and left. It's good that I didn't go home," Isazadeh said. "When I saw an excavator approaching the office to demolish it, I returned to the office. The excavator stopped and they ordered [workers] to break down the bars of the windows. Yusif Qambarov [the official supervising the demolition] ordered that the doors and bars be broken." A Baku City Council official in attendance refused to speak to RFE/RL. City officials have said all buildings on Shamsi Badalbayli Street in central Baku are being demolished to make way for the construction of a large city park. The project is under the supervision of first lady Mehriban Aliyeva. Some residents of homes to be demolished have refused to vacate, however, as the IPD staff did initially before being forced to leave before a crane demolished the building. Residents complain that the compensation they have been offered by city officials for their property is inadequate to buy apartments elsewhere in the city center. Some said it was only about 25 percent of what their property is worth on the real estate market. On June 13, Human Rights Watch called on Azerbaijani authorities to immediately halt illegal expropriations of land, forcible evictions, and the demolition of private homes and other property in Baku in the name of "beautifying" the city. Azeri text, photos, and demolition video here Copyright (c) 2011. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]