{"id":1239,"date":"2015-01-29T14:17:17","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T14:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1239"},"modified":"2015-01-29T14:17:17","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T14:17:17","slug":"karabakh-still-freer-than-azerbaijan-says-u-s-watchdog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1239","title":{"rendered":"Karabakh Still Freer Than Azerbaijan, Says U.S. Watchdog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Azatutyun.am RFE\/RL<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Nagorno-Karabakh remains a \u201cpartly free\u201d territory governed by a less repressive administration than Azerbaijan, the U.S. human rights group Freedom House said in an <a title=\"Freedom House 2015 World Report \" href=\"https:\/\/freedomhouse.org\/report\/freedom-world\/freedom-world-2015#.VMpAhSx_bTo\" target=\"_blank\">annual survey<\/a> released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Freedom House evaluated \u201cpolitical rights\u201d and \u201ccivil liberties\u201d in 195 countries and 13 disputed territories, including Karabakh, on a 7-point scale, with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least free. It again rated both Karabakh and Armenia \u201cpartly free\u201d and kept Azerbaijan in the \u201cnot free\u201d category of nations surveyed.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1240\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1240\" style=\"width: 369px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin-info.hhd.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Stepanakert-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1240\" src=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin-info.hhd.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Stepanakert-1.jpg\" alt=\"Nagorno-Karabakh - A general view of Stepanakert, 8Jul2011.\" width=\"369\" height=\"208\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Stepanakert-1.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Stepanakert-1-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 369px) 100vw, 369px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1240\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nagorno-Karabakh &#8211; A general view of Stepanakert, 8Jul2011.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">What is more, the \u201cFreedom in the World\u201d survey further downgraded Azerbaijan\u2019s rating, giving the authorities in Baku a median score of 6. \u201cAzerbaijan received a downward trend arrow due to an intensified crackdown on dissent, including the imprisonment and abuse of human rights advocates and journalists,\u201d explained Freedom House.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Karabakh\u2019s freedom score remained unchanged at 5.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Freedom House upgraded the status of the Armenian-populated territory, which broke away from Azerbaijani rule in the early 1990s, from \u201cnot free\u201d to \u201cpartly free\u201d in 2013. The watchdog attributed that to Karabakh\u2019s \u201ccompetitive\u201d July 2012 presidential election which it said featured a \u201cgenuine opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Azerbaijani government did not immediately react to the latest Freedom House survey. It strongly condemned Freedom Houses previous evaluations of Azerbaijan and Karabakh in January 2014, accusing the watchdog of pro-Armenian bias.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Like other Western human rights groups, Freedom House has decried violent attacks on and growing arrests of Azerbaijani government critics over the past year. In August, it urged the United States and the European Union to consider imposing sanctions on Azerbaijani officials involved in human rights abuses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Azatutyun.am RFE\/RL Nagorno-Karabakh remains a \u201cpartly free\u201d territory governed by a less repressive administration than Azerbaijan, the U.S. human rights group Freedom House said in <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1239\" title=\"Karabakh Still Freer Than Azerbaijan, Says U.S. Watchdog\">[more &gt;&gt;&gt;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azerbaijan","category-azerbaijan-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1241,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions\/1241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}