Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

[Eddo211]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

Eddo for that you'll have a better target: whatever this is
only if they haven't gone completely bankrupt by the time they get to it

And yes let them do it. Let them burn all of their unearned money while it lasts instead of putting them in things that could hurt us in 5 years once the oil runs out

I prefer military targets, or pride.....civilian life will be too much and not my thing.

[Hakob]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

He is mimicking UAE. LOL
Unlike UAE, azergeyjan is not about a small prosperous citizenry and happy foreigners earning high salaries. UAE citizenry is about 1.5mln, which emir has been taking care of very well with petrodollars. It is also a hub of international trade, banking and technologies.
baku's sultan, on the other hand, has around 7 mln poor citizens, of whom only a minute portion is benefiting from petrodollars. It has no other industry or any international banking or commodities traffic. It also has no viable tourism base like UAE does. You cannot compare the filthy, stinky waters and climate of caspian around baku to worm weather and coral bottomed water of arabian sea. It is not a playground for international wealth.
This project will only isolate influencial azery sector from the rest of country more and create a bigger break with and discontent in population.

[Mher]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

ya Eddo I don't think you have to worry about civilian life
If they ever do manage to build that all the way I doubt there will be anyone living in there
the north korea "The Worst Building in the History of Mankind" hotel is the future i foresee for aliyev tower

[Haykakan]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

Global Post
July 30 2014


Azerbaijan charges prominent rights activist with treason


Prominent Azerbaijani human rights activist Leyla Yunus was charged
Wednesday with treason, her lawyer Dzhavad Dzhavadov said.

The award-winning campaigner was also charged with tax evasion,
large-scale fraud and falsifying documents.

Her husband Arif, an independent political analyst, was also charged
with treason and fraud, Dzhavadov added.

Earlier in the day Yunus was bundled into a car in the courtyard of
her apartment building in Baku and taken away by three plain-clothes
men, family spokesman Yusif Agayev said.

A fierce critic of Azerbaijan's poor rights record, Yunus is head of
one of Azerbaijan's leading rights groups, the Institute for Peace and
Democracy in Baku.

She was detained and questioned for several hours in April.

Yunus has long worked with Armenian activists advocating the
reconciliation of the two countries, which have been locked in a
decades-long conflict over the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region.

She has won several foreign prizes and honours for her work.

Any display of dissent in Azerbaijan is usually met with a tough
government response.

Rights groups say the government has been clamping down on opponents
since President Ilham Aliyev's re-election last year.

Aliyev, 52, secured a third term in October polls -- seen as flawed by
international observers -- extending his family's decades-long grip on
power in the tightly controlled Caspian Sea nation.

He first took power in 2003 following a disputed election after the
death of his father Heydar Aliyev, a former KGB officer and
communist-era leader. (AFP)

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140730/azerbaijan-charges-prominent-rights-activist-treason

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

Azerbaijan: Call for EU Sanctions Raises Activist-Hopes
September 26, 2014 - 2:09pm, by Shahin Abbasov Azerbaijan EurasiaNet's Weekly Digest Azerbaijan-EU Relations Azerbaijani Politics Human Rights

The United States and European Union appear to be taking a stronger stance against Azerbaijan over Baku's poor rights record. Recent US and EU criticism is bolstering the resolve of local critics of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's administration, even though there are no immediate signs that Western leaders and institutions will follow up on their words with actions.

In a September 23 speech in New York City, President Obama included Azerbaijan in a list of the world’s worst human-rights violators, citing, in particular, “laws [that] make it incredibly difficult for NGO’s even to operate.”

The criticism was Obama’s first such public remark, and one that activists believe lends momentum to the European Parliament’s earlier call to the European Council, a priority-setting body that includes the 28 EU members’ heads of state, to apply “targeted sanctions against those responsible for human rights violations” in Azerbaijan if such abuses persist.

The September 18 resolution emphasizes the deterioration in Azerbaijan’s human-rights environment over the past five years, and notes recent intensified crackdowns against non-governmental organizations, civil society activists, journalists, and human rights defenders.

It demands that the Azerbaijani government correct its ways and “immediately and unconditionally” release all political prisoners; a list that, according to local human-rights activists, included 81 people as of June.

Aside from multiple arrests, law-enforcement agencies since the start of the year have frozen the bank accounts of more than 20 local and foreign non-governmental organizations.

Several prominent NGO figures, such as Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety Director Emin Huseynov, Women’s Crisis Center Director Matanat Azizova, International Media Support Manager Gulnara Akhundova, and Center for National and International Studies President Leyla Aliyeva, also have had to leave the country after facing the threat of arrest on criminal charges.

Nor do officials view outside scrutiny fondly. A mission from the United Nations Subcommittee on Human Rights on September 17 cut short its visit to Azerbaijan after failing to secure previously promised unrestricted access to “places of detention.”

That overall record, critics charge, contradicts Azerbaijan’s status as head of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the continent’s main human-rights body.

The European Council has not yet responded to the resolution, and could not be reached for comment.

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry, however, maintains that the resolution was intended to harm relations with the EU.

Targeting European concerns about the reliability of Russian gas supplies, a government statement issued on September 18 stressed the measure had been adopted on the eve of the groundbreaking ceremony for the Trans-Anadolu pipeline from Azerbaijan. The pipeline, which will be feted on September 20, “will make an essential contribution to EU’s energy security,” the statement read.

One leading opposition figure countered, though, that Azerbaijan’s energy potential only goes so far.

“The ruling regime has came to believe that Europe’s energy security is fully in Baku’s hands and, therefore, nobody will take actions about human-rights violations,” commented Natig Jafarly, executive secretary of the ReAl (Republican Alternative) movement, whose leader, Ilgar Mammadov, is in prison.

“But the EU needs 500 billion cubic meters of gas annually, while Azerbaijan only as of 2019 will be able to supply a maximum of 10 billion cubic meters,” he continued.

Activists emphasized that despite their large energy and security interests in Azerbaijan, the EU and US cannot ignore the country’s sharply deteriorating human- rights situation.

“The West is moving from words to actions,” stressed Samir Kazimly, a coordinator of the Political Freedoms Defense Alliance, a coalition of those local human-rights organizations still functioning.

“The threat of sanctions should become an alert for Baku,” Kazimly argued. “I do not exclude that concrete measures [against the government] could follow if the situation will not improve.”

Some look for actions against Baku’s upcoming 2015 European Games, a European-only Olympics that is the brainchild of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, as a potential first target.

While the European Parliament does not directly call for a boycott of the Games, it urges the European Council and EU members to press the International Olympic Committee “to call on the Azerbaijani authorities to stop the crackdown.”

The IOC, which also faced criticism over its pick of Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics, has not responded.

Its Coordination Commission, though, positively assessed Baku’s preparations for the Games earlier this month. At a press conference, the head of the Commission, Spiros Kapralos, did not mention Azerbaijan’s human-rights problems.

Nor are other sports organizations shying away from Azerbaijan. The Union of European Football Associations last week named Baku among 13 European cities that will host Euro-2020, the continent’s 16th soccer championship.

Meanwhile, the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party is getting on with business.

It intends to present to parliament draft amendments that will require registration of a passport number to post comments on Facebook and other social media from within Azerbaijan, and impose tighter controls on political-party donations and the registration of foreign NGOs.

Outside critics likely will face the response delivered by Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov to the European Parliament’s resolution.

Azerbaijan is an “independent state and can determine its fate by itself,” Ahmadov, deputy chairperson of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party, wrote on the party’s website.

Editor's note: Shahin Abbasov is a freelance reporter based in Baku.

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/70181

according to aliyev, azerbaijan is a free, democratic country but now if you want to post a facebook comment you need to post your passport number

It intends to present to parliament draft amendments that will require registration of a passport number to post comments on Facebook and other social media from within Azerbaijan, and impose tighter controls on political-party donations and the registration of foreign NGOs.

[Haykakan]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

MASS PROTEST DEMANDING ILHAM ALIYEV'S RESIGNATION IS HELD IN AZERBAIJAN

20:04 10/11/2014 >> POLITICS

In Azerbaijan, the oppositional National Council of Democratic
Forces held a meeting on November 9. It was aimed at releasing civil
activists, the Azerbaijani service of Radio "Liberty" reports.

According to the article in the course of the meeting the chairman
of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan Ali Kerimli stated that the
Azerbaijani authorities will not be able to destroy the civil society
and opposition parties in the country.

"Despite the massive repressions people have come out to the stadium
and are now protesting against them.

The authorities wanted to intimidate the people and all of you with
the repressions, and to silence the Azerbaijani society. But it
didn't succeed. They failed, despite the arrests of the activists,
journalists and bloggers," said Kerimli.

According to the Azerbaijani news agency "Turan", in its turn, the
chairman of the National Council Jamil Hasanli, claiming about more
than 100 political prisoners in Azerbaijan; he stated that even
in absolute monarchies there are no such big numbers of detained
government critics.

Regarding social issues, Hasanli noted that the pensioners' pensions
are not enough to purchase drugs. Treatment Azerbaijanis forced to
travel to neighboring Iran. Despite the potential of agriculture the
farmers drag out a miserable existence.

Hasanli stated that there is a need for electoral reforms and
changes in composition of election commissions in order to ensure
the confidence of people towards the elections.

According to "Caucasian Knot", the Azerbaijani opposition rally
ended with the adoption of a resolution that demanded the release of
political prisoners, the electoral reform, solving social problems,
European integration of Azerbaijan.

The article notes that in the course of the rally the speakers speeches
were being interrupted by slogans like "Resign!" which probably meant
the resignation of the President Ilham Aliyev. Almost in the middle
of the rally the sound amplifiers were disconnected just in a few
minutes after the last slogans were chanted. The organizers explained
this by deliberate power outage. However, this outraged the protesters
even more, and they started to chant the slogans more intensively.

At the same time, as noted in the article, a group of believers had
attended the meeting. They were holding the placards of the arrested
leader of the Islamic Party Movsum Samedov, theologians Abgyulya
Suleymanli and Taleh Bagirzadeh.

Member of the rally Committee, deputy chairman of the Popular Front
Party of Azerbaijan Fuad Gahramanli said that there were about seven
thousand people attending the rally.

On October 12 in Baku another rally demanding the release of the
political prisoners was held by the opposition parties.

Source: Panorama.am

[Eddo211]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

If Aliyev thinks he could loose power , in a eminent position.......he will restart the war to stay in power.

[Artashes]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

If Aliyev thinks he could loose power , in a eminent position.......he will restart the war to stay in power.

If that scenario plays out as your above post, we shall finally have a direct route to Russia.
And the Talish & Udis will be free at last.
I sincerely hope war does not break out, but if it does, Tatar simi automous region of Armenia will come into existence & the general Tatar population will also be set free from the jerkiev thief & finally get a fair share of the oil revenues.

[Mher]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

Azerbaijan Is To Spend 8 Billion Dollars On Inaugural European Games


24.11.2014

250 days left until Baku kicks off the official opening of the World’s First European Olympic Games to be held in Azerbaijan in June 2015.

The main organizing body behind the event (also known as Baku 2015) is Baku European Games Operations Committee (BEGOC). Although the authorities do not reveal the total budget allocated for the event, UK based publication Business New Europe (BNE.eu) recently revealed the event is costing Azerbaijan some $8bn while promising to be “the most spectacular show in Azerbaijan’s history”.

Azerbaijan has earned a reputation of being the big spender on such events. In 2012, the country hosted the Eurovision song contest, putting on the most expensive show in the history of Eurovision. In total, $75.7million was allocated for the organizing of the contest. The real costs varied between $277mn and $721mn. Surely Azerbaijan had to put on a best show, better than the $44million Eurovision contest held in Moscow in 2009. But even the 700 million seem dismal when comparing the upcoming games says BEGOC’s Chief Operating Officer Simon Clegg. “This is going to be the most fantastic show ever staged in Azerbaijan, one that will make the Eurovision song contest seem like a small, local event”.

European Games are first of its kind. Azerbaijan was awarded the right to host the games in December 2012 at the 41st EPC General Assembly in Rome. BEGOC’s Chief Executive Officer is Azad Rahimov, Azerbaijan’s Minister currently in charge of the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

According to most recent data by the country’s State Statistical Committee as of October 1, 2014, the average salary in Azerbaijan is 441.1AZN.

http://www.azadliq.org/content/article/26707738.html

__________________________________________________ __________
lol just for comparison, the actual 2012 Olympic games in London had a final cost 10 billion dollars
and one small problem, since the 2015 World Swimming Champion and the IAAF (track) World Champion, amongst others, take place at the same time, only junior athletes will participate in those events. Instead they will have gems like 3 on 3 half court basketball. And there is still not a single press coverage of this event online from a non-Azerbaijani source. Keep on keeping on mr sultan.

[Mher]

Re: Azerbaijan - Internal Political Affairs

Baku in the USSR? Azerbaijan could be set to abandon West and head East

The arrest of an Azeri journalist last week is a warning to Israel that its strategic alliance with the oil-rich state may be on shaky ground.

By Anshel Pfeffer
Dec. 12, 2014 | 5:29 PM



Azerbaijan isn’t a friendly country for journalists who ask too many questions. Dozens have been arrested in recent years, and 20 are currently in prison. Others have been forced underground or into exile. Last year, when I visited investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova at her Radio Azadliq workplace in Baku, I was surprised to see how openly the journalist – the biggest thorn in the side of the regime – operates. “We are part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the U.S. State Department,” one of her colleagues explained. “It gives Khadija a level of immunity that other journalists don’t enjoy.”

Ismayilova spoke with anger of how the authorities had hounded her following a series of investigations revealing how the family of President Ilham Aliyev had amassed massive wealth through the embezzlement of Azerbaijan’s oil and natural gas sales.

She was particularly bitter at what she saw as the way Western governments ignored the human rights situation in her country. “Aliyev’s police planted hidden cameras in my apartment and filmed me having sex with my boyfriend. When I didn’t give into their threats, they posted the video online. We may be a secular society, but this is still a conservative Muslim country. You can imagine what that did to my family,” she said.

Ismayilova was arrested last week. She is to be charged with pressuring her ex-boyfriend and driving him to suicide, and is facing a seven-year prison term. However, no one is under any illusion that she is being prosecuted for anything other than her journalism and politics.

In addition to her investigations, in recent years she has become the main contact between civil society organizations in Azerbaijan and human rights groups abroad supporting the pro-democracy movement. It seems that Ismayilova’s U.S. immunity has run out.

Aliyev is not content with Azerbaijan’s commercial ties with a West eager for oil and gas – he wants respectability, too. That’s why he’s spent millions on lobbying and public relations, including sponsorship of Spanish soccer side Atletico Madrid (last season’s Champions League finalist). Western leaders are happy to trade with him, but less keen to be seen with him in public.

Three months ago, President Barack Obama criticized Azerbaijan’s human rights record in a public speech. Aliyev seems to feel that, after years courting the West and even entertaining the idea that Azerbaijan could join the European Union, it’s time to turn back toward Russia (his father, the previous president, was secretary general of the Azerbaijani Communist Party until the Soviet Union disintegrated and the country achieved independence).

Ismayilova’s arrest is seen by many in Baku as a breaking point in Aliyev’s attempts to align Azerbaijan with the West. In an interview he gave two weeks ago to a Russian news channel, he accused the West of having encouraged the emergence of the Islamic State with its “policies in the Middle East over the last decade.”

His words echoed the Kremlin’s position that the United States and European Union are responsible for the rise of ISIS (also known as ISIL) by supporting the rebels fighting the Bashar Assad regime in Syria.

Until very recently, Azerbaijan saw President Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a hostile force trying to undermine its pro-Western policy and supporting neighboring Armenia in the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Now, Aliyev is praising Moscow and saying that “Azerbaijan and Russia are two neighboring friendly countries which are developing together and are ready to face world challenges.”

Energy field

One country that should be concerned by Azerbaijan’s seeming disenchantment with the West is Israel, which has built a strategic alliance in recent years with Aliyev’s regime, few details of which have been published.

According to foreign reports, Israel has conducted intelligence operations against Iran from neighboring Azerbaijan, and sold it weapons systems, including drones and radar. Israel doesn’t disclose details of its arms deals with Azerbaijan, or if the military and electronic equipment it supplies is used only for defense purposes against Iran and Armenian separatists or is used to suppress the regime’s internal opposition as well.

Another strategic dimension to the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship is in energy. Most of the oil used in Israel is purchased from Azerbaijan, pumped to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, and from there in tankers across the eastern Mediterranean.

The Azerbaijanis have close ties to Turkey and are interested in building a new pipeline, along with the two countries. However, this project has yet to materialize due to the prolonged diplomatic crisis between Jerusalem and Ankara.

Azerbaijan had a long period of tension with its Iranian neighbor, despite the fact that millions of Azeris live in Iran (even Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is half-Azeri).

There is an intense rivalry between the Islamic Republic and the former Soviet Republic, and competition for oil markets. In recent years, both countries have accused each other of aggression.

Azerbaijan claimed that Iranian cells were planning to carry out terror attacks against Israeli targets in its territory. And last August, Iran claimed to have shot down an Israeli drone launched in Azerbaijan (though the footage the Iranians showed was old and filmed in Lebanon).

A low point in the relationship was in 2012, when Azerbaijan hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku and Iran accused it of holding an “immoral” and “unIslamic” event, even recalling its ambassador for a few months. (Ironically, Azerbaijan had won the 2011 event with a song called “Running Scared.”)

Recently though, there’s been a thaw between the two countries. Iranian President Hassan Rohani visited Baku last month, and has now met Aliyev four times this year. The assumption in Jerusalem is that the rivalry between the two countries isn’t over and the Azerbaijanis will still prefer the strategic alliance with Israel.

Ismayilova, a staunch atheist, believes – like many Azerbaijanis – that Iran is financing and supporting Islamists in her country. In her interview with Haaretz last year, she warned the West and Israel from relying on the Aliyev regime to maintain a secular Azerbaijan and block the Islamists. “Don’t think you’re more clever than the Iranians. In the end, we will also have Iran here and everyone will lose.”

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/.premium-1.631459