Political

The main reason why the questions occur is the methods such as the initiation of the action (suddenness), its holding (active resistance against police) and the illustration (the spread of this issue in the Islamic media).

Islamist forces have always held such kind of actions outside the Ministry of Education, but today’s action had its own peculiarities:

a) The organizers of the action achieved success because they kept it in a secret. It was the first time when the police executives and the journalists got news about the action when it has already been held.

b) The protesters have brought batons to the territory, where the action must be held, in advance.

c) It was the first time when the women wearing hijab haven’t been involved in the action

d) The open resistance against police and the beating of police executives was widely illustrated on the Islamist websites.

All the above mentioned factors prove the fact that the action was specially held in order to show resistance against police executives and demonstrate the power. The fact that the protesters came with batons, not involving the women wearing hijab to the action, open resistance against police executives, special desire to demonstrate violence against police and wide illustration of the action by the Islamist websites can only be explained as a plan developed in advance. The tactical aim is evident. The protesters made efforts to conceal this action. Observed picture gives us an opportunity to say that the action was specially developed in order to shown resistance against police executives.

But why the action was held this time? Such actions are usually held on September 15, and why now? Traditionally, the actions, protesting the prohibition of going to school wearing hijab, are held on the eve of September 15 – the Day of Knowledge. But such actions must be held on September 15 for the first time and in general, “hijab problem” has not been in the agenda of Azerbaijan for a long time. Recently, there was not news on applying prohibition to hijab, which will shake religious men. None has faced hijab ban during the start of new academic year.

It is clear that choosing Teachers Day or Friday aimed to create incorrect public opinion.

One thing is clear that the organizing works (demands, symbols, slogans) of today’s action lead to considerations about Iran being as a customer. It is wrong to claim that the action is related to “hijab problem”. Hijab has been the leitmotiv of actions of forces related to Iran and they always attempted to create artificial agenda from the issue on hijab. But with improving the Iran-Azerbaijan relations, “hijab problem” has removed. It will be clear soon that we can accept this message as “Iran: we restart”.

Why is Iran in need of such actions organization during the normalization of the relations with Azerbaijan? Sometimes ago, pleasant mutual messages (statements, the release of Azerbaijani poets arrested in Iran, reduction of penalty period of people accused of spying to Iran) of Iranian and Azerbaijani officials created imagine about withdrawing of existing problems between the two countries. But what did change in a short time? Nothing happened, which can seriously impact to the relations. But the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to visit Azerbaijan for participating in the summit of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Iranian press reports that Ahmadinejad will visit Baku on October 15. Holding such action on the eve of the visit can aim to show the real power of pro-Iranian in Azerbaijan (the power enables to injure police employees in the action).

One of versions of question “Why just now?” is to spot the work of the high-level event – the 2nd Baku International Humanitarian Forum held in Baku. Holding the protest action in front of the Ministry of Education can’t consider as an accident. This place is situated in near of the Heydar Aliyev Center, where the forum was held and the protestors can think to draw attention of the participants of the forum with such action.

In other words, this collision between police executives and protesters may possess the aim to decrease the respect attached to the religious values and the statements made during the discussions at the religious forum in Azerbaijan. Note that, such actions weren’t slackening when the same forum was held in Baku last year.

Another version of the events is the existence of the “third hand”. It also possible that such actions are being organized at Baku’s centre on the initiative of the forces (government, intelligence group, marginal groups) who are against the normalization of the relations between Azerbaijan and Iran and intend to escalate tensions between the states using such efforts. There isn’t serious evidence that can prove this version, but it’s evident that secret tensions may occur in the relations between Azerbaijan and Iran. But there many states who are interested in worsening of relations between the states. Even if it wasn’t their initiative, the act of force demonstrated by the police executives at the centre of Baku meets the interests of the above countries and other forces. That’s why we can’t exclude the version of the “third hand”.

Another version is a recent worsening of the relations between Turkey and Syria. The close strategic cooperation relations between Iran and Syria look like the same relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey. In other words, this version may be evaluated as a variant of exert of pressure on Azerbaijan by Iran as a respond to the acts committed by Turkey against Syria.

It’s possibly to enumerate lots of variants in the organization of the action linking them to the present situation in the world, but the reason is obvious. The main target of the action was to show that the Islamic organizations in Azerbaijan posses concrete power and to make the opinion that “we can hurt the police executives and show the world who possesses the power in our state”. The last events occurred in the inner policy of the state also had influence on the activity of the Islamic organizations. One of the main opportunities, “inspiriting” the Islamists, is the hope that “they can achieve somebody’s punishment” and to demonstrate their power.

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