Federal Lezghi
National and Cultural Autonomy

The deceived people of Kuzun

Anar Gasimli tells about the deceived people

 

At the end of December 2012 there was an opening ceremony of Shahdag ski resort in the North of Azerbaijan, Kusar district. Responses of the first visitors were very positive.

However later it became clear that opening of the ski resort in the region was not such a happy event for the local population. The local people were not recruited by the resort managers, the building of the resort was harmful for the ecology, and the rights of the local population were violated. We talked about that with Anar Gasimli, lawyer from Baku.

Mr.Gasimli, please, tell us about your clients, whose rights you defend from the arbitrariness of the authorities.

My clients are Lezgins living in the village Kuzun of Kusar district who used the fields for agricultural purposes. And without any arrangement on these fields there were built ski resort Shahdag.

The local people were suggested that they should sell these fields for 200 manats per acre. While the real price for these fields are 10 times more expensive – 2000 manats per acre.

Are these fields in private property or municipal?

These fields belonged to 82 citizens of Azerbaijan living in the village of Kuzun and now they cannot use their fields because of the ski resort built on these fields.

 

 

Mr Gasilmli, what’s your idea of how this situation will be resolved?

We only rely on the European Court, we cannot count on the municipal or republic courts. They will not act against the authorities.

It is not for the first time that such kind of problems take place in our country. Even in the city of Baku the authorities manage to take away property for scanty compensating.

That is why we will have to appeal to the European Courts, but according to the official procedure this is only the third level of judicial proceedings. Before appealing to the European Court we have to appeal to National Courts. We have already filed our documents to the Appellate Court, further we will file the documents to the European Court. On the whole we have been involved in the appealing process for more than two years.

Many human rights activists called the citizens for boycotting the ski resort. We asked judicial experts to estimate the real cost of the taken-away fields, but they refused to do it.

The villagers of that region cannot keep cattle, as trees are planted everywhere and the villagers are not allowed to let out cattle to be grazed. There is a high unemployment in the village and now they have no opportunity even to be engaged in agricultural works. They have no fields suitable for agricultural works any more.

 

Interviewed by Abdulla Magomedov

 

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