{"id":1740,"date":"2015-09-25T19:23:08","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T19:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1740"},"modified":"2015-09-26T08:41:50","modified_gmt":"2015-09-26T08:41:50","slug":"no-this-is-the-truth-about-azerbaijans-repression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1740","title":{"rendered":"No, this is the truth about Azerbaijan\u2019s repression"},"content":{"rendered":"

By EDITORIAL BOARD
\nThe Washington Post<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Cash<\/a>
Cash investigation’s Elise Lucet (left), Mehriban Aliyeva<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first lady of Azerbaijan, Mehriban Aliyeva, recently was in Paris, where she opened a photo exhibition<\/a> titled \u201cAzerbaijan, Land of Tolerance.\u201d An inquiring reporter asked if Azerbaijan is really such a place, noting that its jails are full of political prisoners. \u201cHow can you say that?\u201d Ms. Aliyeva responded tartly. \u201cIt\u2019s not true.\u201d She urged the reporter to \u201cget correct information.\u201d The reporter then asked her to comment on the imprisonment of human rights advocate Leyla Yunus and journalist Khadija Ismayilova. No answer; the first lady turned her back while security guards pushed the journalist away.<\/p>\n

If she wants \u201ccorrect information,\u201d perhaps Ms. Aliyeva and her husband, President Ilham Aliyev, should read the resolution<\/a> on Azerbaijan approved Sept. 10 by the European Parliament. It declares that the human rights situation in Azerbaijan has \u201cdeteriorated continuously over the last few years,\u201d with \u201cgrowing intimidation and repression\u201d of rights defenders, journalists and others in civil society. \u201cPeaceful protesters have been effectively banned from demonstrating in central Baku since 2006,\u201d the resolution states, and journalists are subject to \u201ccontinuous intimidation and harassment,\u201d among them Emin Milli<\/a>, founder of the online broadcast news outlet Meydan TV, who has received death threats.<\/p>\n

Need more \u201ccorrect information\u201d? Azerbaijan recently forced the closure of the offices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Baku<\/a>, silencing another important channel for monitoring democracy and human rights. According to the European Parliament, \u201cAzerbaijan has suffered the greatest decline in democratic governance in all of Eurasia over the past ten years.\u201d And the European Union\u2019s dialogue with Azerbaijan on human rights has \u201cnot made any substantial progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day after this indictment of Azerbaijan\u2019s record was approved, the government in Baku canceled<\/a> a planned European Commission delegation visit that was supposed to discuss a proposed strategic partnership agreement with Azerbaijan. A few days later, Mr. Aliyev met with some schoolchildren in Baku. He declared<\/a> that vague external enemies \u201cwant to subjugate Azerbaijan itself, force us to live according to their instructions.\u201d Mr. Aliyev added, \u201cToday Azerbaijan is in good hands, no one can put pressure on us, affect our policy.\u201d Noting the refugee crisis in Europe, the Azeri strongman asked of the Europeans, \u201cWhere is your tolerance and kindness, generosity, where are your values?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Aliyev has long believed he could repress dissent at home while fending off criticism from abroad. He has lavished millions of dollars on overseas goodwill efforts. More millions were spent to host the European Games this year in Baku<\/a>, at which the athletes blithely ignored<\/a> the human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Aliyev cannot sustain this forever. The horrid treatment of Ms. Yunus and her husband, Arif, and that of Ms. Ismayilova, have gained widespread attention around the world and won\u2019t be papered over by trendy photo exhibits in Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By EDITORIAL BOARD The Washington Post The first lady of Azerbaijan, Mehriban Aliyeva, recently was in Paris, where she opened a photo exhibition titled \u201cAzerbaijan, [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1740","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\/1740","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=1740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1742,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions\/1742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}