{"id":1701,"date":"2015-09-11T14:53:01","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T14:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1701"},"modified":"2015-09-11T14:53:01","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T14:53:01","slug":"azerbaijans-ties-with-west-fray-amid-human-rights-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1701","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijan\u2019s Ties With West Fray Amid Human Rights Crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

By MARIA SAVEL*
\nWorld Politics Review<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ilham Aliyev<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week, Azerbaijan sentenced Khadija Ismayilova<\/a>, an investigative journalist and anti-corruption campaigner, to seven-and-a-half years in prison for illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion. Her conviction comes three weeks after prominent human rights defenders Leyla and Arif Yunus were sentenced to eight-and-a-half and seven years, respectively, for fraud, tax evasion and treason<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The United Nations, the European Union, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, among others, have all condemned the arrest, trial and sentencing of these and other human rights advocates and anti-corruption campaigners in Azerbaijan. The U.S. State Department released a statement<\/a> saying it \u201cis deeply troubled\u201d by Ismayilova\u2019s conviction and that the \u201ccase is another example in a broad pattern of increasing restrictions on human rights in Azerbaijan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crackdown on human rights activists in Azerbaijan began in 2013, when President Ilham Aliyev was elected to a third term in office, after a successful referendum in 2009 to amend the constitution to lift the two-term presidential limit. \u201cThis was a sign that Azerbaijan was no longer going to be a pretend democracy,\u201d explains Thomas de Waal, a nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the election, which was widely criticized by observers inside and out of Azerbaijan, Aliyev began going after some of the most vocal critics of the government, kicking out many who were involved in the election observations. He also ordered the raiding and closure of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe. \u201cThe government expected a better response from outside observers,\u201d says Richard Kauzlarich, co-director of the Center for Energy Science and Policy at George Mason University, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan from 1994 to 1997. When that didn\u2019t happen, it began to ratchet up its campaign against political activists and human rights advocates.<\/p>\n

The human rights crackdown has affected the ability of Azerbaijanis to speak out, prompting many advocates to leave the country. \u201cThe combination of arrests and government action against family members of those arrested and those in exile has had a dramatic impact on the ability of anyone inside the country to raise a critical voice,\u201d explains Kauzlarich.<\/p>\n

While Azerbaijan pursues a harsh policy of silencing dissent at home, Aliyev\u2019s government has worked to cultivate its influence in the West. In 2014, Baku and its proxies spent over $4 million<\/a> on their lobbying efforts in the U.S., in order to counter the strong Armenia lobby and ward off growing calls for sanctions on key Azerbaijani officials for their involvement with human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

However, Azerbaijan\u2019s lobbying in Washington \u201cmay have reached a high point,\u201d says de Waal. There are rumors the Azerbaijan America Alliance, the largest and most notorious pro-Azerbaijan lobbying firm, run by the son of the transportation minister, is shutting down<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan\u2019s efforts to influence policymakers in Europe have arguably been more successful. Baku\u2019s so-called caviar diplomacy\u2014the luxury trips and fancy dinners it lavishes on foreign officials\u2014has been effective at winning over the Council of Europe, a regional human rights organization. The Council of Europe has stayed largely silent<\/a> as Azerbaijan\u2019s crackdown on human rights has expanded, much to the frustration of other human rights organizations.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean everyone in Europe is turning a blind eye to the situation in Azerbaijan. Last week a French national television station aired a program, \u201cCash Investigation,\u201d in which a reporter approached Azerbaijan\u2019s first lady<\/a>, Mehriban Aliyeva, and asked her about Azerbaijan\u2019s \u201cmany political prisoners.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Baku announced that it intends to file a lawsuit<\/a> against the television station for slander.<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan has also accused the U.S. ambassador in Baku of \u201cgross interference,\u201d claimed former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt is an American spy, wrote a report accusing the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency of organizing a coup against Aliyev and called human rights activists a \u201cfifth column\u201d of the U.S.<\/a><\/p>\n

These accusations come as Washington grows less dependent on Baku. The U.S. relationship with Azerbaijan was based on security cooperation. \u201cAs the situation in Afghanistan continues to draw down, the significance of Azerbaijan and the northern supply route will decrease,\u201d says Kauzlarich. \u201cSo what is left?\u201d<\/p>\n

On the European side, energy has been the foundation of ties with Azerbaijan, but the importance of oil and gas is also declining . \u201cMaybe in 2020 Azerbaijan will provide 2 to 3 percent of European gas supplies,\u201d explains de Waal. With the changes to the global energy market in the past 10 years, including plunging oil prices and advances in shale gas and tight oil in the United States and elsewhere, Caspian energy resources are not as important to Europe\u2019s future as once believed.<\/p>\n

With security and energy ties becoming less relevant, what recourse does the West have to pressure Azerbaijan to stop its crackdown on human rights? \u201cDiplomacy hasn\u2019t had an impact,\u201d says Kauzlarich, who made the argument for sanctions<\/a> last October. The European Parliament has also called for targeted sanctions<\/a> against officials responsible for human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

Still, it is unlikely sanctions will be approved in the near future. \u201cI don\u2019t have a sense of what the U.S. or European Union will do beyond making noise,\u201d says Kauzlarich. And with the massive anti-American campaign being waged in Baku, any criticism from Washington will only add fuel to the fire.<\/p>\n

Moreover, according to de Waal, \u201cthe U.S. doesn\u2019t want to drive Baku toward Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Baku increasing its anti-Western rhetoric while continuing to crack down on human rights, it is unlikely that its ties with the U.S. or the EU will improve anytime soon. As Kauzlarich explains, \u201cAzerbaijan is acting in a way that shows no regard for having positive strategic relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

*Maria Savel is an associate editor at World Politics Review.<\/em><\/p>\n

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By MARIA SAVEL* World Politics Review Last week, Azerbaijan sentenced Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist and anti-corruption campaigner, to seven-and-a-half years in prison for illegal [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1701","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\/1701","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=1701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1703,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions\/1703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}