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10 weeks remain until the opening of the European Games, the prestigious project of the ruling regime in Azerbaijan which violates the human rights. In this regard, the criticism of the European Olympic Committee increases, well-known German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes.
It is noted in the article that 10 weeks before the opening of the European Games in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on 12 June, the international organization Human Rights Watch highlighted the serious human rights violations by the President Ilham Aliyev’s regime during a meeting with the representatives of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB).
“The Games did not bring about changes in the policy in Azerbaijan. On the contrary, the situation in Azerbaijan is much worse than it used to be a year ago,” Director of the Human Rights Watch at Europe and Central Asia, Hugh Williamson, told the newspaper. He also criticized the attitude of the Games’ organizers – the European Olympic Committee (EOC). The Europeans set an ill example for Baku and undermine the reform movement of the International Olympic Committee.
Moreover, as the article has it, it is very frustrating that other National Olympic Committees (NOC) still do not respond to the human rights violations in Azerbaijan. According to the article, the spokesperson for the Netherlands Olympic Committee said that the Olympic values are the ‘inseparable part’ of the European Games, and the hosting country carries the responsibility to observe those values. The representative of the Olympic Committee of Norway explained that the sportsmen’s participation in the Games “highlights the human rights violations in Baku.”
According to the article, Christian Klaue, the DOSB representative, was the only one to express concern regarding the events in Azerbaijan and promised to raise the issue in Baku.
The newspaper writes that the former Soviet Republic is ruled by the Aliyev clan since the late 60s. Famous journalists and human rights defenders, including Leyla and Arif Yunuses, Khadija Ismayilova, were arrested in Azerbaijan in 2014. Amnesty International recently published a video where the arrested human rights defenders’ daughter, Dinara Yunus, asks the President Aliyev, “Mr President, can you explain me why my mother was arrested after she criticized the European Games?”
It is highlighted in the article that Azerbaijan was ranked 162nd (among 180 states) in the Press Freedom Index of the organization Reporters Without Borders, and CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) said on Friday that Azerbaijan is ranked 9th in the list of the countries having most arrested journalists.
Aliyev, also being the President of the National Olympic Committee, uses the Games to promote the sport policy ambitions of his country. Last week Aliyev said that “a campaign against his country has been on for many years,” and the criticism of the NGOs is its part, the article reads.
Aliyev “is guided by hypocrisy, double standards, discrimination, racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia, rather than by the international law,” the newspaper cites Die Weltpolitik.