Azeri TV criticizes US rights watchdog for including Karabakh in its
report

ANS TV, Baku
4 Apr 05

[Presenter] US-based Freedom House has made public its report. There
are noteworthy points in it.

[Correspondent, over video of scenes in USA, Baku, Freedom House web
site] US-based Freedom House has compiled its report on the basis
of reports prepared by different organizations during the year, its
director of studies, Christopher Walker, told ANS. Mr Walker also said
that another source of information for them was the Azerbaijani press.

The report was prepared on the basis of information covering a period
from 1 December 2003 to 30 November 2004. The organization described
Azerbaijan as an unfree country in the report. Azerbaijan was graded
six for political rights and five for human freedoms on the seven-scale
list. Here, one means the most free country and seven means the most
unfree country.

Armenia, which has occupied Azerbaijani lands and where human rights
abuses have been reported more than once, is shown as a partly free
country on Freedom House’s list. Georgia made a step forward towards
democracy as compared to the previous report, the organisation’s
studies showed. Tbilisi has got the status of a partly free country.
Azerbaijan’s another neighbour, Iran, is graded as unfree. Among the
CIS countries, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were also granted the status of unfree
countries. Interestingly, Azerbaijan is in the same boat with
Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, which are deprived of opposition.

[Christopher Walker, Freedom House director of studies, captioned,
over phone in English with Azeri voice-over] I think one thing to keep
in mind is that on our scale Azerbaijan performed somewhat better than
the countries you have mentioned. If we proceed from our position on
broadcast media, we can see that TV broadcasts in Azerbaijan have been
restricted a little. Television is under the control of the current
regime or forces close to it. As for newspapers, we can say that the
majority of opposition papers have limited circulation. In general,
the activities of the opposition and the authorities are not covered
equally on TV channels and in the press in Azerbaijan.

[Correspondent] Walker said that there are serious restrictions for
people from different political camps in Azerbaijan on expressing
their views. What is most interesting is that Freedom House considers
the so-called Nagornyy Karabakh republic, where the military police
regime reigns, to be a partly free territory on the list of disputed
territories. The separatist regime was graded five for its performance
in the area of both human freedoms and political rights. And this
is despite the fact that the US Department of State expressed concern
over drug production in Nagornyy Karabakh, which is out of Azerbaijan’s
control, in its 23 March report. But Walker is trying to justify his
report in all possible ways.

[Walker] I think that our methodology is the key here. I do not
think that the criteria you have mentioned could be included in our
methodology. We considered issues like civil society, freedom of
expression and human rights and rested on these principles.

[Passage omitted: other disputed territories’ grade and other grades]