Your trusted source

British journalist, author and political commentator Nick Cohen writes about the death of Azerbaijani writer Rafiq Tagi, stressing that his murder “reveals the west's cowardice in the face of religious extremism.”

According to the author, the "international community" showed no grief about the assassination of Rafiq Tagi.

“An unknown coward stabbed him in the back, then ran away. He "was very nervous and did not say a word," Tagi said before his injuries overwhelmed him.

“Index on Censorship tried to sound an alarm. But as Tagi's murderer was in all likelihood a supporter of religious rather than political tyranny, the death of the 61-year-old Azerbaijani journalist and literary critic passed almost without comment,” says the author.

“Tagi was an enemy of oppression in all its forms. He opposed Azerbaijan's secular dictatorship, whose oil and gas reserves make it popular with governments the world over. The Aliyev family has made the country its property.”

The author notes that Emin Milli, a liberal Azerbaijani writer, told him that Tagi appeared to be recovering from his injuries in a state hospital and then took a turn for the worse. He wondered how that could be.

The article also touches upon the arrest of Azerbaijani bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade.

“Milli and his friend Adnan Hajizade found that the regime had paid €42,000 for a donkey from Germany. Suspecting it was hiding yet another corrupt transaction in the small print of the accounts, they dramatised the absurdity of life in the dictatorship by dressing an actor up in a pantomime donkey costume. The donkey demonstrated why he was worth so much taxpayers' money by answering reporters' questions and leaping up to perform a virtuoso violin solo. The video of the stunt went viral. Police thugs beat up Milli and Hajizade. The courts charged them with starting the fight and sent them down for two years. The world did not stand by and say that Azerbaijan was none of its business. Barack Obama, the EU, the media and human rights groups took up the donkey bloggers' cause and persuaded the regime to free them.”

According to the author, Milli is now studying in London and cannot understand why those who shouted with such passion about his conviction ignored Tagi's murder.

“I tried to explain that Europe was not the brave continent that Tagi imagined. It would defend the victims of political oppression but not of religious oppression,” says the author.