My personal blog, my thoughts.
Two French journalists accused by Azerbaijan’s government of defamation for calling the country a “dictatorship” appeared for a hearing at a French court Tuesday, in an unusual case that activists call an effort to export censorship, AP reported.
Read more “French journalists in court accused of defaming Azerbaijan”
TO CELEBRATE “National Press Day” in Azerbaijan on July 22, President Ilham Aliyev announced the award of 255 apartments to journalists. Four years ago, he inaugurated an apartment building for journalists and gave away 155 flats. Both times, Mr. Aliyev used the same words. “Freedom of speech” is “ensured” in Azerbaijan, he declared.
Read more “In Azerbaijan, some journalists get free apartments. Others get jail cells.”
Azerbaijan’s ruling elite operated a secret $2.9bn (£2.2bn) scheme to pay prominent Europeans, buy luxury goods and launder money through a network of opaque British companies, an investigation by the Guardian reveals.
Read more “UK at centre of secret $3bn Azerbaijani money laundering and lobbying scheme”
Armenian-Americans knew they had scored a major victory for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide when Texas became the 46th state to recognize it. What Armenian-Americans did not realize is that the recognition by Texas had a devastating impact on the Turkish community’s lobbying efforts in the state.
Read more “Turkish Activist Admits Major Blow When Texas Recognized Armenian Genocide”
Last month, I wrote about Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva’s revelations that Azerbaijan’s state-run Silk Way Airlines had shipped 350 planeloads of heavy weapons and ammunition to terrorist groups in Syria and many other countries in the last three years, under diplomatic cover.
On Aug. 24, Dilyana tweeted: “I just got fired for telling the truth about weapons supplies for terrorists in Syria on diplomatic flights.”
Read more “Azerbaijan Forces Bulgaria to Fire Reporter Who Exposed Arms Shipments to Terrorists”
TEL AVIV (A.W.)—The Israeli Ministry of Defense has frozen some Aeronautics Defense Systems licenses, preventing the firm from exporting its military drones to Azerbaijan.
Read more “Israel Freezes Drone-Maker’s License Amid Complaints That It Attacked Armenian Positions”
WASHINGTON—A grand jury in the U.S. capital issued indictments against 19 people, including 15 members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security detail, for their brutal attack against peaceful protesters gathered in front of the Turkish Ambassador’s residence in Washington, D.C., on May 16, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
Read more “Nineteen People Indicted for Turkish Attack on Peaceful Protesters in Washington”
Baku / 12.08.17 / Turan: The Monitoring Center for Political Prisoners strongly condemned the criminal investigation against the Turan News Agency on charges of tax evasion.
The human rights organization regards this as a prejudiced and politically motivated step.
Read more “Criminal Investigation against Turan Politically Motivated – Human Rights Activist”
Azerbaijani political prisoner Abbas Huseynov has been tortured in a prison (popularly known as the Gobustan prison), in which he is held and which belongs to the Azerbaijani Justice Ministry’s Penitentiary Service. Abbas Huseynov is a deputy to the leader of the Muslim Unity movement, Taleh Baghirzadeh. The torture was carried out by the prison governor, a deputy prison chief and several guards, Huseynov told his defence lawyer Yalchin Imanov. The lawyer told us about what happened in the notorious high-security prison for especially dangerous criminals, which is located 70 kilometres outside Baku.
Read more “How political prisoners are tortured in Azerbaijan”
On 8 August, Azerbaijani tax authorities launched an investigation of Turan News Agency. Local civil society activists and international human rights organizations believe this investigation is aimed at the termination of the activities of the last independent media outlet in the country. On 24 August Mehman Aliyev, the director of the news agency and a well-known journalist was sentenced to three months pretrial detention on charges of tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship and abuse of power. As a result, Turan announced that it planned to suspend its operations as of September.
Read more “Shrinking space for Azerbaijan’s last independent voices”