Your trusted source

Yesterday, Azerbaijani MPs from the ruling party decided to respond to the U.S. State Department report on human rights, which sharply criticizes the human rights situation in the country, states the article of Rauf Mirkadirov published on the website of the Azerbaijani "Zerkalo" newspaper titled "Do we protect the interests of Assad, Saddam and Gaddafi?"

The author notes that the deputies spoke about the report of the State Department during the discussion of the report of the Azerbaijani Ombudsman Elmira Suleymanov on the human rights situation.

According to Siyavush Novruzov, the deputy chairman of the ruling party "Yeni Azerbaijan", during the reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan, drug traffic fell to 3% compared with the previous years. With the arrival of the Americans poppy cultivation has increased by 60 times, and the NATO troops are guarding the entire production chain, so that no stranger could encroach on heroin that is supplied to Europe, said S. Novruzov.

Another pro-government MP Zahid Oruc believes that a century-old rule of the Assad family in Syria was better than the current situation. "At Assad’s reign the Americans were talking about violation of citizens' rights, and today tens of thousands of people are killed, there is a civil war. In Libya, the U.S. found a violation of human rights and tens of billions of dollars in secret accounts of Gaddafi. Did this money reach the people? In Iraq and other countries where the U.S. troops entered they have a similar situation," he said.

In response, the Deputy Chairman of the Parliament of Azerbaijan Ziafet Askerov who is also from the "Yeni Azerbaijan" party told one of Krylov's fables, "The Wolf and the Lamb," where the lamb’s guilt was the fact that the wolf was hungry. According to him, the United States and other powerful countries will rob and plunder the governments within their interests, and these governments will rob their populations in their turn.

"Askerov didn’t say who he was talking about. But I am more than sure that he didn’t mean those whom you thought about. Yet from a purely humanitarian reasons I would like to warn Mr. Vice-Speaker, that in the future he was more circumspect in his statements on such topics," writes Mirkadyrov, hinting at the fact that Askarov’s words may be squealed "where needed."

"Well, in general, I want to share my thoughts on completely another topic. It turned out that such bastions of democracy as Syria, Libya, Iran, Central African Republic (CAR), and such bright Democrats as Assad, Gaddafi, Saddam and finally Bokasso, are very popular not only among our parliamentarians these days," writes the author of the article, pointing at the article written by Professor Rafik Aliyev, who had also made accusations against the West.

R. Mirkadyrov writes that the American’s actions in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq, have nothing to do with democracy and human rights. "In these regions, the Americans think only about their own national interests, just as the Russians do," the article reads.

According to the annual report of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor of the U.S. Department of State, the human rights in Azerbaijan continue to be violated due to impunity. The authors of the report noted the main violations of democracy and human rights in Azerbaijan last year, among them were included the restriction of freedom of speech, assembly and association, intimidation, arrests and violence against journalists and human rights defenders. According to the assessment of the NGO there are at least 12 journalists and bloggers in Azerbaijan that are detained. It was also stressed that the presidential elections in Azerbaijan in 2013 passed with severe violations.