"You're as slow as a snail!" said Leyla to the village postman. And it was true that he was not as young as he used to be. It was also true that he liked to stop for tea now and then on his rounds. And it was further true that if, by chance, he met an old acquaintance, they might exchange a few words as he delivered the day's bills, letters and other pieces of mail. But he was not as slow as a snail!
And because the village postman read the new laws from time to time, he found something quite useful in them. Being called as slow as a snail not only hurt his feelings, it insulted all of the country's letter carriers. To think that they might hire someone as slow as a snail! And it causedmoral damage to the postal service's professional reputation. Letters were delivered by proud government officials, not by snails. If people did not have faith in the post office, who knew what might happen next? They might complain about taxes. They might insult the police. Anarchy mightbe just around the corner.
The postman knew the country's laws, and obviously Leyla did not. So he took her to court. More accurately, and better still from his point of view, the entire Ministry took her to court. The Ministry's lawyers said that, in making these statements, she "groundlessly" insulted the Ministryand that her comparison of the country's postal service to snails was "not confirmed by official sources" and had caused moral damage to the "professional reputation" of the postal service. Leylawas quickly brought to trial, and everyone awaited the verdict.
A fable from Aesop? A tale of Soviet absurdity? A satire by Heinrich Boell?
None of these, but very nearly the story of Leyla Yunus, a human rights activist in Azerbaijan, whose trial starts on January 23, 2009 in Baku. And instead of saying the village postman was as slow as a snail, she compared the country's police force to those in Mexico and Nigeria. For voicingthat opinion in an interview published on a web site, she has been brought to court by Azerbaijan's Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Ministry of Internal Affairs alleges that Yunus' comparison had exactly the same effects as the fictional comparison of the postman and the snail. She stands accused, with the weight of the state against her. If judgement is brought against her, everyone in Azerbaijan will have to be careful what they say about the postman.
Available at: http://georgien.boell-net.de/download_de/Leyla_Yunus.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment