Focus on Statue of Heydar Aliyev, Mexico City and explore the Reception.
By November 2011, after researching Aliyev further, the CRC withdrew their endorsement and requested that the government of the city reconsider the installation of the statue. According to Denise Dresser, Mexican writer and former member of the CRC, "[after requesting them to reconsider it,] they thought we were making a mountain out of a molehill [...] They were clueless and they were ignorant, and we alerted them to the fact that they were clueless and ignorant."Controversy started by early September 2012. On 27 September, Chapultepec neighbors protested the installation, calling the statue "disrespectful and insensitive". The National Human Rights Commission recommended its removal. Elnur Majidli, organizer of the 2011 Azerbaijani protests, criticized the installation, saying that corruption was involved "necessarily" in the project. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, working as Mexico City's international affairs coordinator, said that "The statue of Mr. Aliyev does not honor Mexico City, and Mexico City does not have any reason to honor him".In October, Eduard Nalbandyan, then-Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, complained to Patricia Espinosa, then-Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, about the statue of Aliyev and the classification of the Khojaly massacre as "genocide" against the position taken by the OSCE Minsk Group. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in a geopolitical conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh since the 1917 October Revolution and they have no diplomatic relations.Mukhtarov said the information concerning Aliyev was "erroneous and manipulated by the Armenian opposition", as Aliyev "abolished capital punishment and promoted policies that improved Azerbaijan's economy". On 27 November 2012, 30 Azeri protestors based in Mexico requested the statue to be kept.
2011 Azerbaijani protests Nagorno-Karabakh October Revolution Khojaly massacre Chapultepec Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Denise Dresser Foreign Affairs Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico Eduard Nalbandyan capital punishment Azerbaijani Elnur Majidli diplomatic relations Khojaly National Human Rights Commission OSCE Minsk Group Mexico City Patricia Espinosa