APPEALS IN WASHINGTON TO IMPOSE SANCTIONS ON AZERBAIJANI AUTHORITIES FOR CRACKDOWNS ON CIVIL SOCIETY

10:43 23/03/2015 >> SOCIETY

Leading US analysts for Eurasia discussed the issues of repressions
against the civil society activists and media in Azerbaijan calling
on the West to impose sanctions on the government representatives who
violate human rights in the country, Azerbaijani information agency
Turan reports, citing its Washington correspondent.

According to the article, during the event called “Crackdown:
Independent Media and Civil Society in Azerbaijan and Turkey,” held
by the human rights organization Freedom House, National Endowment
for Democracy and Open Society Institute (OSI), Senior Policy Analyst
at OSI Jeff Goldstein said that it is time for the US and the West to
respond with significant actions to make it clear to the Azerbaijani
government that “the path they are on is not being ignored…”

As the article reads, Goldstein considers Azerbaijan to be a very
repressive country.

“The situation has particularly deteriorated over the last two years.

Today the country has probably more political prisoners than Russia
and Belarus combined,” he said.

As the article has it, Goldstein also drew attention to the mechanisms
that the Azerbaijani government exercised to silence civil society
and free media, and called them “something rather new.” He noted that
Baku had created a system where all the NGOs must register grants with
government agencies. He highlighted that as Azerbaijan “successfully”
continues cracking down against Western institutions and civil society,
their practice is being transferred to other regional authoritarian
regimes.

Referring to the reasons of the behavior of Baku, the expert said that
according to some analytics the Azerbaijani authorities have a feeling
that they are unfairly accused of human rights issues. Goldstein
also highlighted that the Azerbaijani government is “scared” of
the uprisings in the neighborhood, such as protests in Maidan, and
Istanbul’s Gezi Park.

“They see much going on and they do really appear to believe that there
is a program of creating color revolutions and they may be the next,”
the analyst stated.

According to the article, he said that the Azerbaijani authorities
think that the West is more concerned with the events in the other
countries of the region and that is why they will do everything
they want without fearing the response of the West. Regarding the
international reaction to the crackdowns in Azerbaijan, Goldstein
claimed that the Azerbaijani leadership “clearly cares” about its
international reputation, given Baku’s caviar diplomacy in the
Western capitals.

Arzu Geybullayeva, independent journalist and blogger from Istanbul, in
her speech pointed out particular cases of threatening, prosecutions,
arrests of civil society activists and journalists in Azerbaijan.

“I have friends in jail that haven’t seen their children because of
the regime,” she said.