American expert: Western leaders should be cautious in their business dealings with Ilham Aliyev
Azerbaijan hosted the World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, during which the president Aliyev claimed that all the fundamental freedoms are provided in Azerbaijan. While the country’s leading opposition journalists languish in Azerbaijani prisons, President Aliyev claims the country enjoys political freedom, freedoms of media, free Internet, freedom of religion, writes Jonathan Bach, a junior in the University of Oregon-UNESCO Crossings Institute and Forum participant, on The Register-Guard.
The Azerbaijani government has made headlines for its rabid crusade against free speech. The Committee to Protect Journalists just rated it the world’s fifth-most-censored country, behind Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Eritrea, Bach writes.
The president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, kicked off the opening ceremony of the World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue in the auditorium of the Heydar Aliyev Center — named after the president’s autocratic father and predecessor. “Indeed, Azerbaijan’s hosting the summit meeting was a gracious gesture. Despite the potential worth of the forum, though, Aliyev — who won the last election by 84.6 percent of the vote — lied when he told us about political and press freedom in Azerbaijan. If Aliyev cared for dialogue, he would have by now freed Azerbaijan’s many jailed news reporters, like Khadija Ismayilova, winner of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write award,” Bach writes noting that the investigative journalist was imprisoned after she made a habit of throwing light on the Aliyev clan’s alleged business dealings.
According to the article, the clan has a stake in a productive gold field near the Armenian border, which they held through a spider web of façade companies, according to an article Ismayilova produced — or their profiting from the construction of a multi-million-dollar venue for the Europe-wide Eurovision singing competition in Baku, according to another of her dispatches.
Bach further writes that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported on the country’s egregious political transgressions during its last presidential election. The group unveiled that an inordinate amount of media coverage went to the incumbent President Aliyev’s campaign during the race. “Detentions, criminal prosecutions, and testimony of physical attacks and other forms of pressure on journalists negatively impacted the media environment,” reads the report.
Jonathan Bach cites Milana Knezevic, from the freedom of expression periodical Index on Censorship, as writing, “While this attempt to paint Azerbaijan as a harmonious and modern hot-spot might work for some, juxtaposed against the actual goings-on in the country, Baku magazine also manages to highlight the vast gulf between the life the regime and its elite circles lead, and the struggle of those fighting for democracy.”
As Bach calls on, “let’s implore our leaders to not only be cautious in their business dealings with President Aliyev, but also insist that he host fair elections and release the choke-hold on his country’s press. Nations should embrace partnership on our small planet — yet there’s no room for timidity when it comes to advocating common human rights.”
Related:
Azerbaijan – in Committee to Protect Journalists’ list of 10 most censored countries in world
The Hill: According to Ilham Aliyev’s tweets he lives in ‘Utopia’
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