My personal blog, my thoughts.
Vefa Mammadova, the wife of one of Azerbaijan’s leading opposition politicians, Ilgar Mammadov, spoke today at a Council of Europe assembly and asked those in attendance why Azerbaijan, after all these years, is still a member of the organization. You can read her and watch her address below.
Ilgar Mammadov was arrested in February of 2013 for alleged ‘hooliganism’ and ‘bribe giving’. The charges were later changed to the ‘organization of mass riots accompanied by riots and pogroms.’
Amnesty International is calling on the Azerbaijani authorities to ensure a prompt, independent and effective investigation into the deaths of Mahir Mustafayev and Mehman Galandarov.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on May 4 that the Azerbaijani government had violated the right to life of Mahir Mustafayev without protecting his life and without conducting an effective investigation into the circumstances of his death.
Mustafayev died of severe burns as a result of a mysterious fire in his cell in December 2006.
Read more “Amnesty International: Azerbaijan Must Investigate Recent Prison ‘Suicide’”
Russian national of Armenian descent Marat Ueldanov, who was convicted in Azerbaijan, fears that he is hindered from appealing the court judgment.
His sister, Mariana Mirzoyan, told Armenian News – NEWS.am that Marat called her on Wednesday and informed that he was moved to a terrible place at 12:00 pm on Friday.
Read more “Marat Ueldanov convicted in Baku fears he is hindered from appealing court judgment”
Leaked dispatch lays bare US diplomats’ less-than-flattering remarks about Mehriban Aliyeva
Read more “WikiLeaks cable sticks the knife into Azerbaijan’s first lady”
Found very good book by two excellent authors
I will not write anything from myself. Just watch this video. I survived at that time, but how many could not?
This documentary film was created within in the project “Ordinary Genocide” and is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the pogroms of Armenians in the capital of Azerbaijan. The film was based on interviews with refugees from Baku, which were conducted by the project team in the US. The main conceptual idea of the film is the inseparable connection of the events of the early 20th century in the Ottoman Turkey with what happened to the Armenians in Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh. The stories of the refugees also reveal the previously unknown details of the pogroms of Armenians in Baku.
President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan does a masterful political Jekyll and Hyde. A cable from the American ambassador to Baku released on WikiLeaks described him as a Michael Corleone-Sonny Corleone figure — referring, respectively, to the coolly calculating and the impetuously violent brothers of the “Godfather” mafia family. Mr. Aliyev is “pro-Western” in many of the ways the West admires: He is suave, well dressed and well spoken in English; he is ready to send his country’s ample supplies of oil and gas to Europe and to Israel; his Islam is moderate and modern; and he hosts lavish international events like the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 and the European Games to be held next June.