Azerbaijani police break up pro-democracy rally

Baku: Riot police staged a show of force in the capital of the ex-Soviet Azerbaijan on Saturday to stop an unauthorized demonstration pro-democracy demonstrators and seize who defied the ban.
Police armed with batons and rubber bullets to close a central place in the capital of the energy-rich, mainly Muslim state, preventing the militants holding the planned rally.
But more than 300 demonstrators managed to raise nearly Fountain Square and March in the city center, singing to the authorities to resign, as police in full body armor and helmets before the noisy crowd of demonstrators.
"We believe that the operation was successful," said Fuad Gahramanli, the Deputy Leader of Azerbaijan Popular Party opposition, the Front said, but was arrested immediately after giving this statement.
Several protesters, including a man holding a placard reading "We Want Freedom" have also been arrested while trying to rally the place before it is allowed by the police.
"The authorities must allow people to be free," one protester, Ibragim Alekperov, told AFP.
"They should look at what is happening in Libya and elsewhere."
But a senior ruling party lawmaker said the low turnout at the event showed that the opposition was unpopular and powerless.
"Today, again showed the failure of the radical opposition," the ruling party legislator Mubariz Gurbanli told reporters after the demonstrators were dispersed.
"We've always said that people do not support the radicals, he said.