Political scientist Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan said the riot in Azerbaijan has nothing to do with either economic or social problems, as “this is a national problem.”
“Azerbaijan will wait until it finds out who the riot organizers were, and then will punish those severely using methods we all know,” he said at a March 5 press conference.
He also noted that no major clashes will take place in Azerbaijan in the near future; however, tensions will emerge regularly since the political pressure of Azerbaijani authorities on indigenous population makes them revolt.
Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan touched upon the murder of two Azerbaijani officers as well saying this was done by Azerbaijanis themselves because one of the victims was a Lezgian and the other Avar by nationality. “Azerbaijan thus started to punish the locals for the incident. Local people went to streets in the town of Guba in Azerbaijan on March 1, most of them being Lezgians or Avar by nationality,” the expert said.
Riots came after Guba’s governor Rauf Habibov’s statement saying that Guba residents had sold out their motherland.
Though Habibov tried to apologize later, people were not satisfied. They started stoning the building of the local administration, and then set fire to Habibov’s house. After failure of the local police to calm down the unrest involving several hundreds of people (a few thousands, according to some estimates), security forces were called in.
Habibov was sacked on March 2.
Media reported about cases of injuries both among the law enforcement and civilians, the exact number of victims remaining unknown.
