Your trusted source

U.S. and British governments are threatening their own military and economic interests in Azerbaijan by supporting Aliyev, the Azerbaijani blogger former "prisoner of conscience" Emin Milli told in an interview with Radio Liberty.

U.S. and British governments so far have supported the Aliyev regime because Aliyev provided oil and gas and invested a lot in these countries. The international community’s civil-society institutions have not only underfunded democratic civil society in Azerbaijan, they have also funded so-called "gongos," pro-Aliyev nongovernmental organizations. USAID, for instance, recently gave $1.5 million to an NGO whose head also chairs the Azerbaijani parliament’s legal committee, which initiated the law to fine people participating in peaceful protests.

“Everything Azerbaijan’s democratic movement is doing now and all the changes that will happen this year will take place not thanks to Western support, but despite Western support to Aliyev’s regime. All we want from the international community at this stage is for the international media to pay more attention to what is happening in Azerbaijan and for the U.S. and British governments to realize that they are threatening their own military and economic interests in Azerbaijan by supporting Aliyev,” the blogger added.

Milli says, Aliyev has always presented himself as a guarantor of stability in Azerbaijan. Now, he is becoming a guarantor of increasing instability.

“His father kept some space open for the opposition -- there were always five or six members of the opposition in parliament and he would meet opposition newspaper editors. He pretended there was a dialogue. Things are very different now. There has not been a single opposition member in parliament since 2010, new laws have been adopted to fine people for participating in peaceful but unsanctioned rallies, the financing of nongovernmental originations has been made almost impossible,” he said.

Another issue is the situation in the army, he said and added that every year, about 100 soldiers die in the Azerbaijani Army, but only about 15 of those die on the conflict line with Armenian armed forces. The others die because of corruption and mismanagement in the army.

“People became so tired and so frustrated. You cannot trust courts, you cannot trust the law, and everything has become more expensive. People don’t have jobs in the regions. That’s why people started taking to the streets,” the blogger said.

Azerbaijani bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade were arrested in July 2009. They were charged for hooliganism and sentenced to 2.5 and 2 years imprisonment. Experts believe that the arrest of bloggers has been associated with their social activities and, in particular, with the movie about corruption in Azerbaijan, which they placed on the Internet.

International human rights organization Amnesty International recognized Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizadeh "prisoners of conscience", and many international human rights organizations, as well as the OSCE and the Council of Europe joined to request to release bloggers from jail. Despite the threat of arrest, Millie returned from London to Azerbaijan.