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AZERBAIJAN MIFFED BY CRITICISM AHEAD OF EUROPEAN GAMES
EurasiaNet.org
March 25 2015
March 25, 2015 - 4:58am, by Giorgi Lomsadze
Azerbaijan Civil Rights
A daughter of jailed Azerbaijani dissidents, Dinara Yunus, is among
the growing choir of Azerbaijan's critics who are using the upcoming
"European Olympics" to draw attention to reported repressions in the
Caspian-Sea country.
"My parents dedicated 30 years of their lives to human rights. Now
they are in different cells in different prisons because they dared
to speak out," Yunus says in a recent YouTube video. Released by
the UK human rights group Amnesty International, the video mixes
her monologue with footage of the large-scale preparations in the
Azerbaijani capital, Baku, for the European Games this June.
"Mr. President [Ilham Aliyev], can you tell me why my mother is in
prison after she was critical of the upcoming European games?" Yunus
asks in the tape.
Dinara's mother, prominent human-rights activist Leyla Yunus, is
controversially jailed on charges that include tax evasion and spying
for the enemy state of Armenia. International democracy-watchdogs
scoff at these charges, and those against her husband Arif Yunus and
many other activists, as politically motivated.
Charging that Azerbaijan now has as much freedom of speech as can fit
inside a prison cell, international human rights groups and emigrant
Azerbaijani activists are banking on the June 12-28 European Games
to put an international spotlight on what they describe as the
government's authoritarian excesses.
They're also stepping up the prominence of their targets -- on March
17, several rights-organizations sent an appeal to the United Nations
Human Rights Council for Azerbaijan to stop "the systematic punishment
of leaders of civil society, and to immediately and unconditionally
release all human rights defenders, journalists and activists" in
prison and drop the charges against them.
In response to this and other criticism, President Ilham Aliyev, who,
as head of the national Olympics Committee, takes a lively interest
in the Games, claimed recently that "certain foreign circles" are
busy trying, once again, to smear Azerbaijan.
Memories of the tongue-lashing his government received in 2012 when
Baku hosted Eurovision apparently linger on.
"This campaign has never stopped; only on the eve of international
events it takes particularly ugly forms. We faced the same thing three
years ago, in 2012, on the eve of Eurovision," Aliyev said during
a public event last week in Baku. He called out international NGOs
(Transparency International, in particular) for allegedly failing to
react to abuses on their own turf, while picking on Azerbaijan.
"In other places, people are being strangled, shot, killed and nobody
is held accountable. Where are these non-governmental organizations
that are accusing us? . . . Why are international institutions not
passing resolutions?" Aliyev asked rhetorically. His answer? "[T]oday
world politics is guided not by international law, but hypocrisy,
double standards, discrimination, racism, islamophobia and xenophobia."
The president, though, can take a deep breath. So far, as with
Eurovision, the international criticism has brought no heavy cost to
Baku. Other than to its nerves, that is.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/72691
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
EurasiaNet.org
March 25 2015
March 25, 2015 - 4:58am, by Giorgi Lomsadze
Azerbaijan Civil Rights
A daughter of jailed Azerbaijani dissidents, Dinara Yunus, is among
the growing choir of Azerbaijan's critics who are using the upcoming
"European Olympics" to draw attention to reported repressions in the
Caspian-Sea country.
"My parents dedicated 30 years of their lives to human rights. Now
they are in different cells in different prisons because they dared
to speak out," Yunus says in a recent YouTube video. Released by
the UK human rights group Amnesty International, the video mixes
her monologue with footage of the large-scale preparations in the
Azerbaijani capital, Baku, for the European Games this June.
"Mr. President [Ilham Aliyev], can you tell me why my mother is in
prison after she was critical of the upcoming European games?" Yunus
asks in the tape.
Dinara's mother, prominent human-rights activist Leyla Yunus, is
controversially jailed on charges that include tax evasion and spying
for the enemy state of Armenia. International democracy-watchdogs
scoff at these charges, and those against her husband Arif Yunus and
many other activists, as politically motivated.
Charging that Azerbaijan now has as much freedom of speech as can fit
inside a prison cell, international human rights groups and emigrant
Azerbaijani activists are banking on the June 12-28 European Games
to put an international spotlight on what they describe as the
government's authoritarian excesses.
They're also stepping up the prominence of their targets -- on March
17, several rights-organizations sent an appeal to the United Nations
Human Rights Council for Azerbaijan to stop "the systematic punishment
of leaders of civil society, and to immediately and unconditionally
release all human rights defenders, journalists and activists" in
prison and drop the charges against them.
In response to this and other criticism, President Ilham Aliyev, who,
as head of the national Olympics Committee, takes a lively interest
in the Games, claimed recently that "certain foreign circles" are
busy trying, once again, to smear Azerbaijan.
Memories of the tongue-lashing his government received in 2012 when
Baku hosted Eurovision apparently linger on.
"This campaign has never stopped; only on the eve of international
events it takes particularly ugly forms. We faced the same thing three
years ago, in 2012, on the eve of Eurovision," Aliyev said during
a public event last week in Baku. He called out international NGOs
(Transparency International, in particular) for allegedly failing to
react to abuses on their own turf, while picking on Azerbaijan.
"In other places, people are being strangled, shot, killed and nobody
is held accountable. Where are these non-governmental organizations
that are accusing us? . . . Why are international institutions not
passing resolutions?" Aliyev asked rhetorically. His answer? "[T]oday
world politics is guided not by international law, but hypocrisy,
double standards, discrimination, racism, islamophobia and xenophobia."
The president, though, can take a deep breath. So far, as with
Eurovision, the international criticism has brought no heavy cost to
Baku. Other than to its nerves, that is.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/72691
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress