The Guardian: From political prisoners to media bans: Baku's European Games in numbers
By Meve Shearlaw and Charlie Jones
The European Games in Azerbaijan have been shrouded in controversy from the start, amid questions about whether a country with such a poor human rights record should host an international sporting event.
The run-up to the Games saw President Ilham Aliyev’s government crack down on dissenting voices, locking up journalists and activists on a scale unparalleled in the post-Soviet era, according to Human Rights Watch.
Amnesty International was blocked from visiting, and a number of media outlets,including the Guardian, were refused permission to report on the Games.
Writing after his visa was denied, the Guardian’s chief sports correspondent Owen Gibson pointed to the irony inherent in the government’s heavy handed efforts to prevent negative coverage of the event.
As the athletes make their way home after Sunday’s closing ceremony, we look at the legacy of the Games - from the millions spent to cover athletes’ expenses to the dozens who remain behind bars because of their political activities.
£6.5bn bill
Baku was the only bidder for the first ever European Games. The inaugural event, reputed to have cost £6.5bn, saw 6,000 athletes from 5o European countries take part in 20 sporting events.
The Guardian revealed in February that Azerbaijan would foot the bill for the travel and accommodation of all of the competing athletes.
Azeri-based news organisation Medyan TV later highlighted the stark contrast between the Games budget and that of a family of five living in the shadow of construction, who struggle to get by on 300 Azerbaijani manats ($175) a month.
‘$2m’ for Lady Gaga
The glitzy opening ceremony took place in Baku’s 68,000-seater stadium, which took workers 20.5 million hours to build, according to the official Baku 2015 website.
Lady Gaga was reported to have been paid $2m to perform one song – Imagine by John Lennon. “She can now add an appearance at the historic first European Games to that glittering CV,” said the organisers.
Another 2,000 performers joined Lady Gaga on the opening night in a production that used 2,000 lighting fixtures, 12,000 earpieces for the staff and performers and 800 speakers. According to the Azeri sports minister Azad Rahimov, it cost $95m to stage. In contrast, London’s 2012 Olympic opening ceremony.
Few European leaders attended the ceremony, but there were several long-serving heads of state. Together Russia’s Vladimir Putin; Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan; Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko; Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev and Tajikistan’s Emomali Rahmon, all in attendance, have ruled for a combined 71 years, wrote Buzzfeed’s Max Seddon.
Of the 35 heads of state attended the opening ceremony only four represented the European Union: Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Monaco and San Marino.
President Ilham Aliyev, also in attendance that night, has ruled Azerbaijan for the past 12 years, securing an 84% landslide on his third presidential election in 2013. Aliyev succeeded his father Heydar in 2003, who had been at the helm formost of the previous three decades.
More than 100 political prisoners
There are currently about 100 political detainees, at least 20 of whom areidentified as “prisoners of conscience” by Amnesty International.
Human Rights Watch points to 35 incidents in 2014 alone of human rights defenders, political activists and journalists being detained, prosecuted or imprisoned.
There are 161 places in the world where it is better to be a journalist than Azerbaijan, according to the 2015 World Press Freedom Index.
Reporters Without Borders points out that Azerbaijan has no independent TV stations, and that two of the four independent media outlets were shut down in 2015 – with the remaining ones being “throttled economically”. The leading opposition newspaper, Azadliq, has been fined more than €1.4m in the past five years.
One delegation raises human rights
There were 253 medal events at the Games, held in 18 competition venues and six temporary arenas. Russia topped the medal table with 164 gold, silver and bronze medal wins, followed by Germany with 66 and Azerbaijan in third with 56.
Baku 2015 laid on 7,351 beds in the athletes village and, while most came and went quietly, a group of German athletes spoke to the newspaper Frankfurt Allgemeine to demand the release of the political prisoners.
150,000 people say #HelloBaku in hashtag war
An official campaign asking people to say #HelloBaku on social media to win tickets to the opening ceremony was derailed in April by rights campaignerssharing government attempts to clamp down on freedoms.
In run up to the games hashtags including #HelloBaku, #Baku2015, #EuropeanGames and #RealBaku became a battlefield, reported the BBC, as those loyal to the government orchestrated a campaign to get the conversation back to sport.
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