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 Enviado - 20 noviembre 2006 : 21:28:30
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Azerbaiján: firmado el acuerdo de vecindad con la Unión Europea
Felice Di Leo
El acuerdo refrendado el 14 de noviembre entre Unión europea y Azerbaiján abre el camino a una mayor cooperación entre las instituciones europeas y Baku. Además permite al país caucásico el acceso al mercado único a cambio de reformas políticas y económicas. El acuerdo alcanzado no puede ser considerado automáticamente como un primer paso para la eventual entrada del país en la Unión. Sin embargo esta garantiza en todo caso numerosos beneficios, no sólo económicos, a Azerbaiján. Baku, con la firma del acuerdo ha alcanzado el objetivo de no perjudicar sus relaciones con Rusia, garantizando al mismo tiempo buenas relaciones también con la UE. Un resultado conseguido acogiéndose principalmente a sus recursos energéticos. El acuerdo en efecto se ha firmado pocos días después la firma de un memorándum sobre la energía entre el gobierno azerbaijano y Bruselas, concebido para aumentar el número de proveedores de hidrocarburos de la Unión Europea. Actualmente, en efecto, Baku transporta gas y petróleo en Europa a través de Rusia y Georgia, pero Aliyev más allá de los encuentros de Bruselas ha deseado la construcción de un gasoducto que pase a través de Ucrania y Polonia. El presidente azerbaijano ha querido, en cambio, precisar que su país no se ve cómo una posible alternativa a Moscú y que el acuerdo no pone en contraste a los intereses de los dos países. Las incógnitas sobre el futuro de las relaciones entre Baku y UE son, sin embargo, muchas. La situación política interna está, en efecto, muy lejos de los estándares europeos, a pesar de las declaraciones de estos días. Otro obstáculo es luego el conflicto no solucionado en Nagorno Karabah. A pesar de las aberturas en campo energético, difícilmente Azerbaijan se pondrá en desacuerdo con las políticas energéticas avaladas por Moscú. Por la misma razón durante los encuentros con las cumbres europeas Aliyev en efecto no ha hablado del eventual tránsito de los recursos energéticos de su país a través de Turquía. Rusia queda por lo tanto el punto de paso fundamental para abastecer a Europa.
Weekly Analysis, 34/2006
Equilibri.net (20 noviembre 2006)
http://www.equilibri.net/showObject.php?objlang=es_ES&objID=5356 |
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Enviado - 25 noviembre 2006 : 00:15:12
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AZERBAIJAN TIPTOES TOWARDS NATO
Baku's cautious policy seemingly designed to avoid spoiling relations with Iran and Russia
By Jasur Mamedov in Baku
Although Azerbaijan is moving closer towards NATO, it remains shy of talking about full membership of the alliance, apparently out of concern about the geopolitical implications of such a commitment.
On November 8, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliev visited NATO headquarters in Brussels before flying to Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin. The two stops on his trip illustrated the delicate foreign policy Baku is pursuing with both NATO and Russia.
"Today probably marks the start of a new stage in this relationship," said Aliev in Brussels. "We think it's very important for our country, which is young but already has growing potential, to be a true and reliable partner for NATO."
Azerbaijan's chief foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Tagizade told IWPR that his government believed in gradual cooperation, "We don't claim that we'll become a NATO member-state tomorrow, or in a year. But we believe that the current framework of our partnership gives enough scope for us to make moves in this direction. Azerbaijan is now well aware that integration with Europe and Euro-Atlantic structures will bring stability to the region."
Some analysts see Azerbaijan's deliberately cautious policy as designed to avoid spoiling relations with its big neighbours Iran and Russia.
"Over the last 10 to 15 years, integration with the West has been a strategic priority for Azerbaijan," said political analyst Leila Alieva. "But the authorities are now saying that good relationships should be built with Russia and Iran in order for the country to have a normal existence.
"There's a contradiction here: Azerbaijan can move closer to the West only through democracy, through political and economic reforms. But what draws us closer to Russia and Iran is being an authoritarian regime."
Another analyst, Elkhan Mehtiev, said Azerbaijan wanted to escape the kind of Russian hostility Georgia has evinced by making its NATO ambitions so plain.
"It's no secret that all Georgia's troubles started after it announced its intention to join NATO and took radical steps in that direction," said Mehtiev. "No one wants to have a conflict with Russia over this. Azerbaijan's leaders understand that if they act like Georgia, the troubles that await them will be even worse. NATO places a high value on cooperation with Azerbaijan, but it isn't going to be a question of full membership."
Some opposition figures argue that Azerbaijan is being too cautious and should instead move full-speed towards NATO membership.
Sulhaddin Akber, president of the Azerbaijani-Atlantic Cooperation Association and a leading member of the opposition Musavat party, said, "It's true that there are some internal and external problems hampering Azerbaijani integration with NATO. But if Azerbaijan acted in concert with Georgia, Tbilisi would not be left to cope with the pressure from Moscow alone."
Azerbaijan joined NATO's Partnership for Peace programme in 1994 and is now implementing an Individual Partnership Action Plan, IPAP, with the alliance.
Baku has been reforming its armed forces since 1997 to bring them into line with NATO requirements. The country's military education system has undergone the most noticeable changes: with Turkish military assistance, young officers are now being trained in accordance with NATO standards.
Under its IPAP, Azerbaijan has been putting up new radar stations with United States assistance in the southern region of Astara and the coastal region of Khyzy.
"The primary aim of this is to allow Azerbaijan to control and guard its borders," said Jonathan Henick, public affairs officer of the US embassy in Baku. "We believe that there is a threat from the trafficking of weapons, drugs and people via the Caspian Sea. We think that it's in the interests of both the USA and Azerbaijan to have these negative phenomena under control."
Some Azerbaijani experts say the radar stations are primarily intended to watch out for illegal traffic between Russia and Iran, but Henick denied this, saying, "It's not the USA's aim to keep an especially close watch on some particular route. Its aim is to develop Azerbaijan's controlling capacities."
Despite the partnership plan, a number of experts say they see little evidence that the Azerbaijani military is willing to undergo reform.
Alekber Mamedov, director of the Centre for Civil Control over Armed Forces, said that the only areas where Azerbaijan was able to cooperate with NATO effectively involved protecting the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and counter-terrorism activities.
"I would like NATO to put pressure on the Baku authorities to undertake military reforms in Azerbaijan. If it does not do so, any cooperation with such corrupt officials will harm the reputation of a world-class organisation like NATO," he said.
Yildirim Mamedov, formerly a brigade commander and now a colonel in the reserve, said that military reform in Azerbaijan was a mirage.
"Currently we can see no changes either in the minds of our military leaders or in the technical and physical condition of the army," he said. "It's pure pretence."
Mamedov said there were big obstacles standing in the way of Azerbaijan meeting NATO standards, but the alliance had at least helped the army conduct professional exercises.
Uzeir Jafarov, a lieutenant-colonel in the reserve, said, "Over the next five to 10 years, Azerbaijan won't be able to fulfill its commitments to NATO. Personally I don't believe that under the command of the corrupt generals in the defence ministry, any effort will be made to aspire to NATO standards."
Unlike in Georgia, NATO is not a subject of passionate debate in Azerbaijan.
Taxi driver Ehtiram Tagiev, 40, only remembers that NATO once confronted the Soviet Union. "I can't say whether NATO membership will be beneficial for Azerbaijan or not, since the organisations Azerbaijan has joined up till now have done nothing good for our country and haven't brought a resolution to the Karabakh conflict any closer," he said.
Schoolteacher Azad Orujev, 30, said cooperation with NATO could only benefit the country. He said soldiers should have higher wages and their conditions of service should improve.
"But politically, membership in NATO cannot change anything in Azerbaijan," he said. "As long as we have oil, democracy will be something we can only dream about."
Jasur Mamedov is a journalist with Zerkalo newspaper in Baku.
(From CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, London, www.iwpr.net - IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 367, November 23, 2006.)
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 30 noviembre 2006 : 21:00:11
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BROADCASTER SHUT-DOWN, OFFICE EVICTIONS STIR FREE-SPEECH CONCERNS IN AZERBAIJAN
Rovshan Ismayilov: 11/27/06
An Azerbaijani state commission’s November 24 decision to suspend broadcasts by independent television and radio station ANS, followed within hours by the court-ordered eviction of pro-opposition media outlets and an opposition party from their offices in Baku, has raised concerns of freedom of speech in Azerbaijan. While the government has not yet commented on recent developments, Western embassies and international organizations have strongly condemned the moves.
The decisions bring to a head two long-standing tussles between the government and independent media outlets. The first, with ANS, Azerbaijan’s first privately owned broadcaster, focused on the company’s right to rebroadcast foreign-produced news items. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The second involves a long-standing fight between the State Property Committee and several pro-opposition tenants of a building in downtown Baku, including the opposition Azadliq (Freedom) newspaper, the pro-opposition news agency Turan and the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, the country’s largest opposition party, over their right to occupy a downtown building free of charge. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].
The ruling on ANS came first. The National Radio and Television Council (NRTC) decided not to prolong ANS TV and ANS CM radio’s broadcast licenses. An NRTC press release cited “systematic violations by ANS of the requirements of the law on broadcasting and not paying fines” as the reason for the decision to suspend the company’s broadcast license.
Despite their ongoing dispute with the NRTC, ANS executives say that the decision was unexpected. The council did not issue an official warning to ANS executives that it was considering suspending the stations’ broadcast licenses. Both ANS television and radio continued to broadcast until 3:20 pm on November 24, when all satellite and regular broadcast frequencies were cut off. The decision to stop ANS’ broadcasting was taken two days before the company’s 15th anniversary as Azerbaijan’s first independent television and radio broadcaster.
Several hours after the decision, law enforcement agency and Ministry of Communications representatives appeared at ANS offices and began to dismantle the company’s transmitters and antennas. Access to ANS’ satellite broadcasting equipment was also blocked, while policemen surrounded the company’s headquarters.
In response to the NRTC’s decision, ANS argued that the failure of a court to rule on the broadcast suspension makes the NRTC’s license suspension illegal. “Such actions by the NRTC cause damage to Azerbaijan's international image as a democratic state,” a statement issued by the media company read. The company said that it intends to use “all means” to restore its broadcasts, and expressed hope that President Ilham Aliyev would intervene on ANS’ behalf to find “a fair solution.”
“ANS was never involved in politics and I believe that the people who took this decision will change it,” commented Vahid Mustafayev, president of the ANS Group of Companies, at a press conference on the evening of November 24. “We will appeal to President Ilham Aliyev and I hope he will be able to restore justice.” A source within ANS, who asked to remain anonymous, told EurasiaNet that the company had turned down an offer from opposition parties to hold joint demonstrations against the license suspension.
Other media organizations that have voiced criticism of the government are now under pressure, too. A few hours after ANS was silenced, the Azerbaijani Economic Court ordered the immediate eviction of all tenants from the building involved in the Azadlig newspaper’s dispute with the State Property Committee. While representatives from Western embassies and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) looked on, more than 50 policemen, led by Baku Deputy Police Chief Yashar Aliyev, blocked the building until November 25, when trucks from the State Property Committee arrived to remove the organizations’ property to office space on the outskirts of Baku designated by the State Property Committee. The building is now empty, sealed up and guarded by police.
The decisions, however, are unlikely to put either dispute to rest.
Already, the NRTC has announced plans to accept bids from other interested parties for ownership of ANS’ television and radio broadcast frequencies. “Next week we [the NRTC] will announce a new contest for the ANS TV and ANS CM frequencies,” the council’s chairman, Nushiravan Maharramov, told the APA news agency on November 25. “Even if ANS applies for these frequencies again, the preference will be given to other candidates. The NRTC has the authority to do this.”
The international community responded immediately to the NRTC’s decision. Ambassador Maurizio Pavesi, head of the OSCE’s mission in Baku, said in a statement that he was “perplexed as to why the decision, which was issued in the absence of any definitive reasoning, should come into force immediately.” The independent television and radio company “has always been considered by international observers as the most objective in the country,” he added.
The United States embassy, calling for reconsideration of the decision, termed the closure of ANS a “serious blow to . . . freedom of the media” that has placed “Azerbaijan’s commitments on democratic development and freedom of speech under . . . question.” The German Embassy, speaking on behalf of the European Union, described the EU as “very concerned,” noting that it is “actively seeking an explanation from the [Azerbaijani] government.”
Azerbaijani media and analysts have reacted more strongly, with some arguing that the decision to shut down ANS and evict the Azadliq building occupants was made at the highest levels of the government.
“I am shocked by this news. I have no words to explain what is going on in this country,” commented Elchin Shikhlinsky, chairman of Azerbaijan’s Journalists Union and editor-in-chief of the Russian-language daily Zerkalo (Mirror), about the ANS decision. “I did not hear a competent and reasoned explanation for this action. I have more and more pessimism about the future of freedom of speech in Azerbaijan.”
One observer of the Azadlig building eviction process, which did not involve the use of force, commented that intervention by a United States Embassy official was required before police would allow the pro-opposition Turan news agency to remove their property from the State Property Committee-designated office space on the outskirts of Baku to downtown offices already rented by Turan.
“We expected the court’s decision and had already rented another office in downtown. So, we were going to move our property there. But the police did not allow it,” said Turan reporter Farid Gahramanov. “They did not allow us to move it until the US embassy representative called the police. Only after that we were able to rent new trucks and return our staff back downtown.”
Both ANS and parties involved in the Azadlig building dispute have said that they plan to fight the decisions. A hunger strike conducted by protestors at the Azadlig building since November 9 resulted in the hospitalisation of Azadlig Editor Ganimat Zahidov on November 24.
Government officials have not issued statements on either decision as yet. Speaking with a group of editors from the independent and opposition press (Zerkalo, Echo, Yeni Musavat, Baki Khabar, Novoe Vremya, Gun Seher, Azadlig and Turan news agency) on November 24 before the ANS license suspension, US Ambassador Anne E. Derse stated that she had discussed freedom of the press issues with President Aliyev on November 23, and had urged a dialogue between the government and independent media to resolve existing differences. While editors at the meeting reportedly expressed interest in the idea, the government has not responded.
Meanwhile, in the absence of official explanations for the November 24 decisions, observers are struggling to explain the authorities’ hasty actions.
Some conjecture that the measures taken against ANS and the Azadlig building occupants may be designed to strengthen the government’s position for taking a potentially unpopular position during the expected November 28 meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Robert Kocharian on the sidelines of a Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Minsk. The two leaders have agreed to discuss proposals for a resolution to their dispute over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]
“Maybe they [the government] are getting ready to sign any agreement with Armenia on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution,” suggested journalists’ union chief Elchin Shikhlinsky. “And we know that ANS, which was the most popular television in the country, always was strongly against any defeatist peace with Armenia.”
Ilgar Mammadov, a Baku-based political analyst, shares this point of view. “There is no logical justification for these actions [of the authorities]. The only explanation is an upcoming possible breakthrough on the Karabakh peace process,” he said. Another analyst, Eldar Namazov, a former opposition movement leader and former advisor to the late President Heidar Aliyev, holds a different view, however. “I do not expect the signing of any peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” he said. “What happened with ANS and the Azadlig building is just the reinforcement of authoritarianism in Azerbaijan.”
Instead of Karabakh, Namazov points to a recently floated proposal that the constitution be amended to extend the president’s term from five to seven years. [For background, see the Eurasia Insight archive]. “And the November 24 events are another attempt by the ruling elite to secure power for a longer period.”
Editor’s Note: Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance reporter based in Baku
(From EURASIANET.ORG - http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav112706_pr.shtml) |
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Enviado - 02 diciembre 2006 : 00:36:23
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Azerbaijan, la democrazia del petrolio
Da Oslo, scrive Maddalena Parolin
29.11.2006
Aperture da parte della UE, avvicinamento della NATO. Secondo alcuni analisti azeri il motivo è chiaro: i giacimenti di petrolio e gas. Mentre le preoccupazioni rispetto a democrazia e diritti umani passano in secondo piano
L’Unione Europea e l’Azerbaijan
La settimana scorsa l’Unione Europea ha firmato il piano d’azione per la Politica Europea di Vicinato con i tre paesi del Caucaso meridionale: Armenia, Georgia e Azerbaijan. L’accordo prevede azioni su due livelli: economico e politico. Offre ai paesi aiuti economici con l’apertura al mercato interno dell’EU e sostegno nelle riforme in ambiti quali giustizia, energia, istruzione, sanità in cambio dell’impegno verso miglioramenti e quindi idealmente verso una maggiore stabilità regionale.
I tre paesi erano stati inseriti nella Politica Europea di Vicinato nel giugno 2004, una decisione che mostra come la regione stia divenendo chiaramente un’area importante dal punto di vista politico e strategico per l’Europa, un progetto però, nel quale le questioni dell’approvvigionamento energetico e del controllo delle risorse naturali giocano un ruolo centrale.
Al di là dei rapporti crescenti con l’Europa, l’Azerbaijan sta tentando di muoversi con molta cautela, cercando un avvicinamento alla NATO senza rovinare le relazioni con la Russia e due grandi altri vicini: Iran e Turchia. Per diversi analisti politici azeri, come riporta IWPR, non è un segreto che una delle principali cause della tensione nei rapporti tra Russia e Georgia sia l’intenzione di quest’ultima di aderire all’Alleanza Atlantica, e chiaramente l’Azerbaijan vorrebbe evitare questo tipo di problemi.
Secondo Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “l’Azerbaijan deve molto del rispetto che sta guadagnando presso l’Unione Europea ai suoi vasti depositi di petrolio e di gas”. Bruxelles ha più volte lodato l’impressionante crescita economica dell’Azerbaijan, mentre le preoccupazioni rispetto ai parametri democratici passano in secondo piano o vengono giustificate considerando la fase di “transizione” in una democrazia ancora giovane.
Recentemente il giornale Economist ha pubblicato il “Democracy Index 2007” classificando il livello di democrazia in 167 paesi, in categorie come processo elettorale, libertà civili, funzionamento del governo, partecipazione e cultura politica. In testa alla classifica sta la Svezia, all’ultimo posto la Corea del Nord. L’Azerbaijan viene classificato nel livello più basso, come “regime autoritario” assieme a vari stati dell’Asia Centrale come Kazakistan, Tagikistan, Turkmenistan, e Uzbekistan. La stessa Russia è considerata ad un livello di guardia, col rischio di passare presto da “regime ibrido” a “regime autoritario” in fondo alla classifica, in una categoria nella quale secondo l’Economist ricadrebbero 55 paesi. L’Italia, è nel secondo gruppo, “democrazia imperfetta”.
Democrazia sotto attacco
Seguendo le notizie che provengono dallo stato caucasico, che conta una popolazione di circa otto milioni di cittadini nel paese, con altri trenta milioni di persone etnicamente azere in Iran (in una regione che a volte viene definita come Azerbaijan iraniano), non è difficile intuire le ragioni per le quali l’Economist, così come Freedom House esprimono un giudizio molto severo verso il governo azero ed il processo democratico nel paese.
Il presidente Ilham Aliyev, eletto nel 2003, ed il partito presidenziale predominante stanno conducendo una dura battaglia verso l’opposizione colpendo partiti politici, associazioni giovanili, giornali e mezzi radiotelevisivi, scrittori e qualunque voce che tenti di mettere in discussione il potere. Se il clima è meno violento rispetto alle azioni di un anno fa, quando le elezioni giudicate gravemente irregolari dagli osservatori dell’Osce avevano portato migliaia di manifestanti in piazza, scontri, sgomberi forzati e arresti, la soppressione dell’opposizione continua però su molti livelli, nei tribunali e con strumenti amministrativi e burocratici.
Gli uffici di Azadliq (libertà) e del Fronte Popolare, il principale giornale e il maggior partito dell’opposizione, sono stati sgomberati sabato scorso dalla polizia, intervenuta per liberare l’edificio, dopo settimane di tensione, proteste, scioperi della fame. L’ordine di sfratto dal palazzo fa seguito ad una sentenza a favore del Comitato per le Proprietà Statali. Nello stabile erano ospitate anche l’agenzia stampa Turan, il quotidiano Bizim Yol, ed alcune organizzazioni non governative.
Nelle stesse giornate è stata chiusa anche la radio indipendente ANS, togliendole il segnale radio, dopo che le autorità nazionali radiotelevisive avevano rifiutato di prolungare la licenza a trasmettere. L‘emittente trasmetteva programmi della BBC, Radio Liberty e Voice of America, soprattutto in lingua azera, ed era la seconda più ascoltata nel paese.
Una gruppo di dimostranti, che nei giorni precedenti lo sfratto e la chiusura della radio ANS erano scesi in piazza contro le azioni del governo, sono stati arrestati e condannati con multe e alcuni giorni di prigione.
Il 4 ottobre scorso Sakit Zahidov, giornalista di Azadliq, fratello del caporedattore del quotidiano, è stato condannato a tre anni di detenzione per possesso di stupefacenti, dopo un processo che aveva suscitato preoccupazione e critiche da parte dell’OSCE, del Committee to Protect Journalists e di Reporter Senza Frontiere. Il giornalista era noto per i suoi articoli e poesie satirici nei quali criticava il presidente, la corruzione governativa e delle autorità. Il suo caso è solo l’ultimo di una serie di azioni legali contro giornalisti indipendenti nel paese.
Petrolio e diritti umani
Processi, persecuzioni burocratiche, ispezioni finanziarie, elezioni irregolari, espulsioni dalle università, chiusura di mezzi di informazione, repressione delle manifestazioni, migliaia di rifugiati ed un conflitto congelato, quello con l’Armenia per il territorio del Nagorno-Karabach, rispetto al quale sembrano non esserci reali soluzioni in vista, nonostante i colloqui che si trascinano da anni. E l’oro nero, il petrolio.
Lo sfruttamento dei giacimenti di petrolio del paese si basa soprattutto sulle esportazioni verso ovest: grazie all’oleodotto Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC), inaugurato l’estate scorsa, per il trasporto del petrolio dal Caspio al Mediterraneo e controllata in maggioranza da British Petroleum. Simboli del boom del petrolio, che è all’origine dell’impressionante tasso di crescita economica del paese (oltre il 26 per cento), sono le ville e i palazzi fastosi che sorgono alla periferia della capitale. Impressionanti sono però anche l’inquinamento e i danni ambientali causati da uno sfruttamento decennale. Il governo ha deciso di creare, su modello della Norvegia, un fondo per i proventi del petrolio, ma a differenza di questa, l’Azerbaijan è considerato una delle nazioni con i più alti livelli di corruzione secondo Transparency International, mente il potere è praticamente in mano ad una sola famiglia. Lo scenario è purtroppo molto più vicino a stati quali Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Arabia Saudita, nei quali i diritti umani e le ricchezze del petrolio sembrano essere incompatibili.
I problemi di libertà di espressione e democrazia del paese, si collegano a più ampie questioni strutturali. Le disparità sociali ed economiche tra la capitale Baku, arricchita dagli investimenti e dai proventi del petrolio, e le regioni rurali più agricole, rischiano di far crescere il dissenso. Secondo una stima del ministero dello sviluppo economico, nel 2005 il 40 per cento della popolazione viveva sotto il livello di povertà. Problemi come corruzione, disoccupazione, inquinamento, accompagnano la crescita economica e la “transizione democratica”.
Le sfide che si affacciano nel futuro dello stato caucasico sono impegnative, ma la strada che il governo sta percorrendo minaccia sempre più la debole democrazia. Come potrà il paese far sì che la ricchezza di risorse naturali diventi un vantaggio per tutti i suoi cittadini?
E quale dovrà essere la strategia di vicinato europea, con un paese che affronta tutte queste sfide e difficoltà? Anche l’Europa sarà accusata - come gli USA un anno fa dai manifestanti che contestavano le elezioni irregolari - di “barattare il petrolio con la democrazia”?
(Da OSSERVATORIO SUI BALCANI, Newsletter settimanale, n°47/2006.) |
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Enviado - 22 diciembre 2006 : 18:18:38
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SMALL AZERBAIJANI NEWSPAPER SPARKS INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FUROR
Mina Muradova and Khazri Bakinsky
EURASIANET.org
December 4, 2006
An article recently published by an Azerbaijani bimonthly newspaper that disparaged Islam has sparked a religious furor both in Azerbaijan and neighboring Iran. An Iranian cleric exacerbated the controversy by issuing a fatwa, or religious order, for faithful Muslims to kill the two men behind the offending article’s publication.
The article, published in the Sanat newspaper in early November, featured a comparison of European and Islamic traditions, and went on to claim that Islam had hindered the development of Azerbaijan and other Muslim states. President Ilham Aliyev’s administration took quick action to contain the outrage that the article’s publication produced among devout Muslims in Azerbaijan. Both the author of the story, Rafiq Tagi, and the newspaper’s editor, Samir Sadagatoglu, found themselves facing criminal charges of inciting national, racial and religious enmity, and an Azerbaijani court ruled on November 15 that the pair could be held in pre-trial detention for up to two months.
The official response didn’t satisfy conservative Muslims, especially in Nadaran, a town north of Baku that is considered a bastion of religious orthodoxy in Azerbaijan. Nadaran residents staged a November 17 protest, during which death threats were reportedly made against Tagi, Sadagatoglu and their respective families. The protesters complained officials were being too lenient, and called for a life sentence against the two, arguing that such a harsh sentence was needed to deter others from insulting Islam. The death threats prompted the Azerbaijani National Security and Interior ministries to take measures to protect the two journalists’ families.
Within days, protests had spread to Azerbaijan’s southern neighbor Iran. Groups of Iranian young people staged protests outside the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran demanding that the “provocateurs” be punished, the Turan news agency reported. Meanwhile, Iranian television reported that the protesters chanted slogans like, "Go and Ask Ilham to Protect Islam," and "Azerbaijan government: shame on you.” The vehemence of the Iranian demonstrations appeared to take Azerbaijani officials by surprise. Hoping to prevent the Sanat controversy from creating bilateral friction, top government officials stressed that the Sanat article in no way reflected the thinking of Aliyev’s administration.
“Relations between Azerbaijan and Iran are built on the basis of friendship,” Ali Hassanov, head of the Social and Political Department of the presidential administration, was quoted as saying by the Trend news agency. “Media outlets in both countries [Azerbaijan and Iran] from time to time write this or that. … However, state policy is not built on the mass media.”
The controversy continued to build in late November, as one of Iran’s most influential clerics, Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani, issued a fatwa calling for the deaths of Tagi and Sadagatoglu. According to Iranian media outlets, the grand ayatollah was said to have acted after receiving complaints about the Sanat article from his followers inside Azerbaijan.
The protests of devout Muslims, in turn, have sparked a secular response, with some Azerbaijani citizens rallying under the freedom-of-speech banner. On November 20, free-speech advocates announced an initiative in support of Tagi’s right to air his views. One participant in the initiative, Gan Turali, maintained that conservative Muslims in Azerbaijan were improperly trying to impose their will on others. "We are not religious, we are a secular country, and we condemn attempts to make all people in the country believers," Turali said.
The initiative has been strongly condemned by the chairman of the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan, Haji Hajiaga Nuri. “This is a betrayal of our nation, faith and state,” Nuri said, referring to the free-speech initiative.
The Sanat controversy has started attracting the attention of international rights monitors. On December 3, the group Reporters without Borders issued a statement deploring Grand Ayatollah Lankarani’s fatwa. “It is deeply shocking and completely unacceptable that religious fundamentalists should call for the murder of two people who just expressed their opinions,” the statement read.
Editor’s Note: Mina Muradova and Khazri Bakinsky are freelance reporters based in Baku.
(Source: EURASIANET.org. - http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav120406_pr.shtml) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 20 enero 2007 : 01:59:12
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AZERBAIJAN STUNNED BY PRICE HIKES
Government says unpopular move puts Azerbaijan into step with the world economy
By Zarema Velikhanova in Baku
January 8 - the first working day of the year - is already being referred to as "Black Monday" by some Azerbaijanis, who were horrified at a steep overnight rise in utility prices.
"I nearly went out of my mind, when I heard about the new electricity rates," said pensioner Salima Balakishieva, 65. "I'm already been spending half of my pension on utilities, all I can do now is turn up my toes and die!"
The poor are not the only ones affected. Elton Mamedov, 43, who heads a branch of a local computer-selling firm, said he could no longer afford to buy a kilo of meat and fresh fruit every week. "And I am far from being the poorest man in Azerbaijan," he said.
The prices were raised by the Tariff Council, a government body authorised to fix the cost of all state-owned products and services. The price of electricity has tripled to 0.06 manats (around seven US cents) per kilowatt. Water rates and transport rates have gone up and the council also ruled that the price of standard AI-95 petrol should rise from around 46 to 68 cents per litre, making it more expensive than the same quality fuel in America.
The changes reverberated through the entire consumer market, causing the prices of almost all other products to rise sharply. The price of bread in Azerbaijan's two biggest cities, Baku and Ganje, rose by 50 per cent. The Trade Unions Confederation announced that the cost of the national basket of goods had risen by 64 per cent and that the escalation was set to continue.
Currently, the cost of the minimum basket of goods in Azerbaijan is estimated at 64 manats (73.5 dollars), while the minimum salary is worth 40 manats (46 dollars).
The government has defended the increase on the grounds that they will bring the economy into line with world standards. Oktai Hagverdiev, chief of the economic department of the government, told IWPR that in a market economy domestic prices should correspond to world levels.
"I think salary levels will soon be revised upwards," he added by way of reassurance. "This is being planned and will definitely happen."
Salim Muslimov, chairman of the state social security fund, told a press conference that the minimum wage would soon be increased by 25 per cent to 50 manats a month, and next year it will grow to 60 manats.
So far, there have been no organised protests against the price rises, with the two leading opposition groups, Azadlyg (Freedom) and the Musavat party, saying they are scheduling rallies only for the end of January.
In the meantime, around 400 drivers from the Star private taxi firm staged a walkout on January 11 in protest against their bosses' decision to increase the volume of their work. The company management called in police units, which tried unsuccessfully to break up the protest. After that, the management backed down and the drivers ended the strike.
"We buy petrol at a high price, but we cannot claim a higher fare, as people have stopped using taxis," said taxi-driver Ragim Mustafayev. "Sometimes, we agree to drive for a price lower than that we asked for last year, just to earn something. They should reduce the plan for us, instead of increasing it."
In another protest, signatures were gathered under a letter posted on the website www.susmayaq.biz (meaning "let's not keep silent" in Azeri), registered in Holland. By January 13, around 500 people had signed the letter, asking the president to annul the Tariff Council's decision. However, on January 13, the creator of the site Bakhtiyar Hajiev was arrested, and all providers in the country blocked access to the site. Hajiev was released the following day, but the site is still inaccessible in Azerbaijan.
The prices were raised, when President Ilham Aliev was on holiday in Switzerland and many citizens hope that he will abolish the decision once he gets home. Rovshan Ahmedli, first deputy chairman of the unregistered Islamic Party of Azerbaijan, said, "We demand that the head of state expresses his view about this injustice. He must revoke this inhuman decision. If this does not happen, we will start protest actions within the bounds of law."
Ali Kerimli, head of the Popular Front Party, described the increase of prices as an "offence to the people" and called on the government to resign.
Government officials have been reserved, saying that economic issues should not be politicised.
Economic Development Minister Heidar Babayev told the APA news agency that Azerbaijan had been late in raising the prices on goods that consume energy and that the move would earn over 200 million manats (around 230 million dollars) for the country's 2007 state budget. "We are implementing reforms," he said. "And reforms are something that no country accepts universally."
Economic experts differ, with most seeing the price rises as a necessary step while others criticise the way it has been carried out.
Economist Talat Abdullayev argued, "If we want to be a part of the world and enjoy normal trade-and-economic relations with other countries, we cannot have prices that differ considerably from the world average," he said. "We do want a salary like that in the USA or Europe, and to ensure it we should have appropriate prices. All of this is a single mechanism."
But economist Vahid Ahmedov, who is also a deputy in parliament, was doubtful about this. "The proposed measures to increase the pension and minimum salary are not a way out of the situation, but a trigger for a rise in inflation," he said.
With Azerbaijan due to hold presidential elections in 2008, experts agree that any further delays in price rises would have been politically damaging for the authorities. "The government may try to restrain inflation, but that will impoverish an even greater part of the population. All countries building a market economy have to go through this shock sooner or later," said Abdullayev.
Meanwhile, the population is experiencing the pain of the new measures. Salima Balakishieva and other poor Azerbaijanis are waiting impatiently for President Aliev to come back home, hoping he will cancel his government's decision.
Zarema Velikhanova is a freelance journalist and regular IWPR contributor in Baku.
(IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 374, January 18, 2007.)
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 27 enero 2007 : 14:43:19
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Azerbaijan: Court Torture Ruling Could Prompt Change
by Rovshan Ismayilov
EurasiaNet
25 January 2007
Europe's human-rights tribunal fines the Azeri government for judicial violence against an opposition politician
A recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in a torture case brought by an opposition leader against the Azeri government could have significant implications for the country’s police practices and judicial system, local observers and human-rights activists believe.
On 11 January, the Strasbourg-based court fined the Azeri government 10,000 euros for the police torture of Sardar Jalaloglu, a deputy chairman of the opposition Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, who, along with scores of other opposition activists, was arrested in October 2003 following demonstrations in Baku against the election of President Ilham Aliev. The government has three months in which to pay the fine.
In his suit, Jalaloglu argued that police had badly beaten him, threatened him with rape, and had smashed up his apartment; he also claimed that he had been the target of political discrimination in rulings by local courts. The court found that the "violence" committed against Jalaloglu "should be qualified as torture."
At a 15 January press conference in Baku, Jalaloglu called the court’s decision "a victory for all Azerbaijani democratic forces." The political activist, who was released from prison in 2005 under a presidential pardon, said that he is eager to use the case to eliminate the "system of torture" which, he claims, has become "the standard practice for the country’s law-enforcement agencies."
Jalaloglu said he will push for the criminal prosecution of Interior Minister Ramil Usubov, Deputy Interior Minister Vilayat Eyvazov (a former head of the ministry’s Anti-Organized Crime and Terrorism Department), Prosecutor General Zakir Garalov, and several judges as well as Interior Ministry investigators and officials in connection with his case. The opposition leader’s lawyer, Fuad Agaev, has pledged to push for the annulment of all local court rulings on Jalaloglu’s detention.
The Azeri government has not yet responded to the court ruling or to the charges made by Jalaloglu.
That silence may prove increasingly difficult to maintain, however. Jalaloglu’s case is the second recent judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against the government of Azerbaijan. On 16 November 2006, the court ruled that the government should pay 5,500 euros to Fahmin Hajiev, a Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan activist who served as chief of the Interior Ministry’s special forces in 1992–1993 under former president Abulfaz Elchibey. After the collapse of Elchibey’s government, Hajiev was arrested in August 1995 and sentenced to a 15-year prison term for murder and other crimes. The ECHR found that Azerbaijan’s Court of Appeals had violated Hajiev’s rights by failing for two years to rule on an appeal of his sentence.
However, some observers in Baku say that the court’s ruling on Jalaloglu differs sharply from the Hajiev case. "It is the first time when a European court has recognized the fact of torture in prisons in Azerbaijan and imposed a penalty on the government," commented Alesker Mammadli, a well-known lawyer and member of the Azerbaijani Bar Association. "[T]he ECHR in fact officially confirmed that Azerbaijani courts are working on the basis of political orders."
The ruling establishes a negative precedent for the government, Mammadli continued. "It is not often when the European Court of Human Rights mentions torture in its judgments. Usually, they call it ‘mistreatment of prisoners.’ "
International human-rights watchdogs have been outspoken in their condemnation of the reported use of torture by Azeri law-enforcement agencies, particularly following the 2003 election demonstrations. The Interior Ministry’s Anti-Organized Crime and Terrorism Department has been singled out as the most unscrupulous and brutal of Azerbaijan’s law-enforcement agencies in the reported use of torture against opposition activists arrested after the October 2003 protests.
One opposition activist’s alleged experience with the department echoes these claims. In an interview with EurasiaNet, Natik Jabiev, an activist from the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan who was arrested on the same day as Sardar Jalaloglu, claimed that he had been severely beaten by the chief of the department's anti-gangster division, Vagif Mammadov, and threatened with rape if he did not provide testimony that Jalaloglu and Democratic Party of Azerbaijan chairman Rasul Guliev had staged riots in Baku on 15–16 October 2003 to overthrow the government. A visit by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross alone put a halt to the violence, Jabiev claimed. The activist was eventually charged with "rowdy behavior" and "disobeying the police" and sentenced to 15 days in prison.
Representatives of Azerbaijan’s law-enforcement agencies have rejected such reports about the terror-fighting department in the past. In a May 2004 interview with independent television station ANS, Farhad Suleymanov, chief of the department's investigation section, called the claims "wicked calumny" and maintained that force was only used by law-enforcement agents against those resisting arrest.
In an interview with ANS that same year, a senior official from the Azeri prosecutor’s office stated that a special investigation had failed to substantiate activist Jabiev’s claims of mistreatment.
To date, the government has not prosecuted any law-enforcement officials on the charges of torture brought by human-rights and opposition activists. In 2005, terror-fighting department chief Eyvazov, a colonel, was made a general and promoted to become a deputy interior minister.
Human-rights activists and opposition members hope that the court ruling will force that record to change. Hajimurad Sadaddinov, the president of the Baku-based Democracy and Human Rights Promotion Foundation who helped Jalaloglu bring his case to the ECHR in 2004, believes the ruling showed Azeris that they should be more active in using European courts to defend their rights.
Rena Safaralieva, executive director of Transparency Azerbaijan, the local affiliate of the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, seconds that belief. The judgment on Jalaloglu’s case will lead to a larger number of appeals to the ECHR from Azerbaijan, she said. "People whose rights are violated in Azerbaijan will understand that they can seek justice in Strasbourg," Safaralieva said, adding, though, that at the same time, "no doubt, the number of groundless appeals will increase as well."
According to Sadaddinov, the quality of the cases before the court could also play a role in rulings on other claims of human-rights abuses from Azerbaijan. The activist argued that most of the roughly 1,000 complaints recently sent to the court from Azerbaijan "have no chance to be upheld because these cases were incorrectly put together and do not meet the [court’s] standards." Forensic evidence from medical examinations that indicated that Jalaloglu had been severely beaten considerably strengthened the politician’s case, he added.
The court already has received several high-profile cases brought against the Azeri government for civil-rights violations; plaintiffs include exiled Democratic Party of Azerbaijan chairman Guliev, ex-Economic Development Minister Farhad Aliev and his brother, Rafik, the former president of the state-run Azpetrol company, and popular singer Flora Kerimova.
Local observers, however, also look for the human-rights court's ruling to bring changes to court practices within Azerbaijan itself. One-third of the complaints Transparency Azerbaijan receives are about corruption in the courts and difficulties with implementation of court rulings, Safaralieva stated. "Of course, I do not expect revolutionary improvements," she said. "However, if we will have more such judgments on Azerbaijan from the European Court of Human Rights in the future, it would make our law-enforcement agencies and judges more careful and compliant with the law."
Traditional Azeri ally Turkey could also serve as an example in this regard, Sadaddinov argued. Fifteen to 20 years ago, a similar situation existed in Turkey’s police stations, he noted. "However, after a number of judgments by the ECHR on such cases [of torture], the government of Turkey understood it has a negative impact on the country’s image," Sadaddinov said. "Serious measures were taken and now the situation in Turkish prisons and police stations is much better."
Reports by the international community have noted considerable improvements in Azerbaijan’s treatment of prisoners over the past few years. Monitoring, nonetheless, continues. Most recently, in late November 2006, a delegation from the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture visited the country to assess what steps had been taken in the past four years to improve law-enforcement agencies’ performance record. The committee’s findings have not yet been made public.
Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance journalist based in Baku. This is a partner post from EurasiaNet.
(Source: Tranitions Online. - http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/printf.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=202&NrSection=1&NrArticle=18204&ST1=
ad&ST_T1=job&ST_AS1=1&ST2=body&ST_T2=letter&ST_AS2=1&ST3=text&ST_T3=aatol&ST_AS3=1&ST_max=3) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 24 febrero 2007 : 00:57:09
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AZERBAIJAN: FATE OF INDEPENDENT BROADCASTER STILL IN LIMBO
Rovshan Ismayilov
12.02.2007
The fate of ANS Television and Radio, Azerbaijan’s sole independent broadcaster, is again hanging in the balance, following the decision to postpone a tender for its broadcast frequencies. The announcement comes amid growing concerns by international organizations and human rights watchdogs about media rights in the country.
After months of controversy and the company’s closure and subsequent reopening, the National Television and Radio Council (NTRC) was expected to rule on February 5 about whether to renew ANS’s frequency license. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. On February 9, state-run news agency AzerTag, however, announced that a second tender for the license would be held between February 20 and March 20 since no bidders other than ANS had taken part in the earlier tender for a frequency license.
In an interview with EurasiaNet on February 5, the day slotted for a decision on ANS’ bid, NTRC Chairman Nushiravan Maharramov argued that the council had delayed its decision, since the law and NTRC’s own regulations do not allow a bid for a license "if there are no alternative applicants."
Rashid Hajili, director of the Baku-based Media Rights Institute, a media freedom watchdog, strongly disagrees. "I perfectly know the law on TV and radio broadcasting and NTRC’s regulations. None of it has any restriction on holding a bid for a license without alternatives," Hajili said.
The fact that NTRC granted licenses in the fall of 2006 to two new regional television companies (in Alibayramli and Yevlakh) which were also the only bidders for their broadcast frequencies further undermines the NTRC’s position, Hajili argued. Instead, the decision to postpone the tender is the "political decision of the authorities and their desire to keep ANS in limbo," he contended.
Maharramov, however, rejects that idea that the council acts from any hidden political motive. "The National Television and Radio Council operates within the framework of the law. And it is up to us to hold the bid or to postpone it."
ANS broadcasting was first stopped on November 24, 2006, and then, amidst considerable domestic and international outcry, restored on December 12, 2006. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The NTRC has announced that the broadcaster is free to continue its radio and TV programs until the second tender for its frequencies is completed in late March.
Nonetheless, Maharramov had indicated that certain viewer concerns about ANS television reports and programs will be taken into consideration when reviewing the station’s request for a license renewal. The display of dead bodies during a crime news program, occasional "erotic" scenes in television series broadcast by ANS, and "religious segregation" in the broadcast of a traditional Azeri song contest (in which a song about Shi’ism was performed) are among the complaints, he said.
The Media Rights Institute’s Hajili shrugs off such complaints, saying that other Azerbaijani television channels broadcast similar content and that the law provides no definition of eroticism, or limitations on broadcasting shots of dead bodies.
Another feature of ANS’ work may prove more troubling for media watchdogs and local journalists, alike, however. A source within ANS television verified for EurasiaNet’s earlier media reports that the government has appointed an individual to act as an unofficial censor for ANS news and political programs. "Indeed, we have a censor now. We have a new employee now," said the source, who asked not to be named. "Without his permission, we cannot broadcast any news."
International organizations and human rights monitors have routinely issued statements expressing their concerns about the state of freedom of speech in Azerbaijan. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. "Anyone daring to voice criticism of the authorities or to expose Azerbaijan’s enduring corruption problem faces an uncertain future, despite President Ilham Aliyev’s assurances that attacks on journalists are unacceptable," charged Laurence Broers, Azerbaijan expert for Amnesty International, in a January 24 press release. "Journalists are only free to express opinions that fall in line with government directives."
In a recent commentary on the numerous such statements published since the end of 2006, Ali Hasanov, head of the political department of the Azerbaijani presidential administration, said that the information does "not reflect reality."
"Media in Azerbaijan is free and all newspapers published in the country can write what they want and express the[ir] position on any problem. Thousands of crimes happen in every country, some of them may be connected with the journalists. It does not mean the government [has] pressure on [the] media," Hasanov said, APA news agency reported on January 24.
Aside from the ongoing ANS scuffle, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe, Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others have focused on recent imprisonments of and attacks against journalists.
Acts of violence have cast a particular shadow over local reporters’ work. The 2005 murder of editor Elmar Huseynov, perhaps the most sensational of Azerbaijan’s recent crimes against media, remains unsolved. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In late December 2006, Nijat Huseynov, a correspondent from the opposition Azadliq newspaper, was hospitalized with a knife wound after being attacked by four strangers near a bus station in a Baku suburb and badly beaten. He had recently published an article examining government corruption. The editor of the opposition Bizim Yol newspaper suffered a similar attack in the summer of 2006. Police have so far failed to find the perpetrators.
Meanwhile, several prison cases involving journalists linger on, as well. On January 30, a Baku court sentenced Faramaz Novruzoglu, a reporter from the pro-opposition, weekly Nota Bene newspaper, to two years in prison for allegedly slandering Azerbaijani Interior Minister Ramil Usubov and State Committee for Diaspora Affairs Chairman Nazim Ibrahimov. Novruzoglu had published two critical articles about the men. The newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Sardar Alibeyli, received a suspended one-and-a-half year sentence.
In January, a court prolonged the detention of Samir Sadagatoglu, editor of the Sanat newspaper, and Sanat reporter Rafik Tagi, for another two months. The two were put in prison in November 2006 after the publication of an article that allegedly criticized Islam. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Meanwhile, the satirical poet Mirza Sakit, who published his poetry in the pro-opposition Azadlig, remains in prison on a three-year sentence for heroin possession. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Evictions also enter into the tally of media and opposition complaints against the government. On February 2, the Azerbaijani Economic Court #1 rejected an appeal against the November 2006 eviction of opposition Azadlig and Bizim Yol newspapers, Turan news agency and the opposition Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan from their office space in downtown Baku. (For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive.)
"[T]he year 2006 was not good [for media]," Robin Seaword, the acting head of the OSCE office in Baku, commented on December 29 about violence against Azerbaijani media, Turan reported. "Journalists were exposed to continued and very strong pressure. I hope these problems will find a solution in 2007."
Editor’s Note: Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance journalist based in Baku.
(Posted February 12, 2007 © Eurasianet. - http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav021207a.shtml)
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 13 marzo 2007 : 00:28:15
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Oil fuels more independent Azerbaijan
A railroad deal will soon link the ex-Soviet outpost to European markets
By Daria Vaisman
Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 6, 2007 edition
TBILISI, GEORGIA - Only recently, Azerbaijan was just another former-Soviet outpost with a Russia-sized chip on its shoulder. Today, it's aglow with the self-confidence that only an oil windfall can bring.
The recently completed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline – stretching to Turkey via Georgia – has turned this country on the Caspian Sea, which gained independence in 1991, into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world with a GDP that leapt 32.5 percent last year.
And with oil revenues expected to top $100 billion in the next 10 years, Azerbaijan has been giving itself a makeover. As demands swell for space and resources, the national overhaul will include nine new bridges, a beltway that will loop around its capital, Baku, and a multimillion dollar water pipeline.
But the windfall has had another effect – it has given Azerbaijan unprecedented independence in dictating its own affairs, spearheading the kinds of linkage projects the West has promoted and funded in the Caucasus for a decade.
"Azerbaijan has been able to play a more independent role because of its oil wealth and, quite frankly, a very able political leadership," says Stephen Blank, professor of national security studies at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. "That gives Azerbaijan a certain amount of leverage."
Others are concerned that Azerbaijan's newfound confidence will only exacerbate the country's dire record on corruption and human rights. "Many people think that the international community has turned a blind eye to Azerbaijan's worsening democratic practices because of commercial interests and its strategic advantage," says Baku-based International Crisis Group analyst Vugar Gojayev.
The presidents of Azerbaijan and Georgia met with Turkey's prime minister on Feb. 7 in Tbilisi to inaugurate an ambitious new project – a 160 mile, $420 million railroad linking the three countries and providing the shortest distance for commercial traffic between Europe and Central Asia. Construction should be complete by the end of 2008.
At the signing, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili called the railroad "a project that signals a geopolitical transformation in our region," using language that echoed that of the US in the early 1990s, when it first pushed the Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline to develop an energy corridor that bypassed Russia.
This time around, though, the US refused to finance the railroad unless neighboring Armenia, which has been in a 15-year standstill with Azerbaijan following a brutal war over contested territory, was allowed to take part.
Local officials said they didn't need international aid. Instead, Azerbaijan offered to pick up Georgia's $220 million tab, to be repaid over 25 years at an annual interest rate of 1 percent.
And while the railroad will bring modest gains to Georgia, it is Azerbaijan that stands to benefit most. A link to Turkey will allow it to ship up to 20 million tons of goods each year straight to its prime target: Europe.
"Azerbaijan wants to be as close to Europe as possible," says Khazar Ibrahim, spokesman for Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "We think that this railroad will be another step."
Europe wants closer ties to Azerbaijan, as well, at least according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the EU presidency this year. Following a recent meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Germany, she announced a "serious interest in expanding our mutual economic links."
The surest sign of Azerbaijan's growing clout came this December, when Russia announced that it had doubled Georgia's gas prices – an increasingly used pressure point for former Soviet countries on the outs with Russia. Georgian and Russian relations reached an all-time low this past year.
Azerbaijan intervened, promising to supply Georgia with low-priced gas. "Azerbaijan made a very strategic decision to help Georgia out, despite pressures from the Kremlin," says Baku-based political analyst Fariz Ismailzade. "They're securing a stable Georgia and, with it, a stable transit zone for their own exports."
Afterward, Russia announced that gas prices for long-time ally Azerbaijan would be doubled, too, despite previously solid relations and a 2004 deal that promised stable prices until 2009. While some argued that Russia raised prices to meet its own increasing gas demands, Azerbaijani politicians saw the increase as Russia's attempt to stop it from exporting to Georgia.
In a Jan. 19 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov wrote that Russia had given "more than a market message" that it is "unacceptable for Azerbaijan" to help Georgia. President Aliyev told a Moscow radio station that Azerbaijan would not be "subject to commercial blackmail."
Instead, Azerbaijan shut off oil exports to Russia, while debating whether to also pull Russian networks off the air in retaliation.
"If they didn't have the margin for maneuver they now have, they probably wouldn't have taken the chance. They knew they could stand up to Russia and not get hurt," says Mr. Blank of the US Army War College.
(http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0306/p07s02-wosc.html?s=hns) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 17 marzo 2007 : 13:11:24
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ARMY ABUSE CLAIMS IN AZERBAIJAN
Questions asked about whether bullying in the Azerbaijani army prompted three soldiers to cross the front line
By Jasur Mamedov in Baku
The strange case of an army sergeant who allegedly gave himself up to Armenian forces has sparked a row about discipline and abuses inside Azerbaijan's army, with a rise in recorded cases of bullying and suicide.
Twenty-year-old Samir Mamedov was taken prisoner by Armenian forces on December 24 last year on the border between Gazakh district in north-western Azerbaijan and Ijevan in Armenia.
Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers face each other on stretches of their common frontier, as well as along the long ceasefire line that surrounds the disputed territory of Nagorny Karabakh.
In January, the head of the working group of Armenia's state commission for captives, hostages and missing-in-action, Armen Kaprielian announced that Mamedov did not wish to return to Azerbaijan.
"Samir Mamedov deliberately crossed the state frontier and surrendered voluntarily," Kaprielian told local media. "He was not taken prisoner, as Azerbaijani sources have claimed."
Armenian defence ministry spokesman Seiran Shakhsuvarian said that Mamedov had complained he was being beaten and humiliated by army officers. Armenian media reported that the soldier wanted to move to a third country, perhaps Norway.
Azerbaijan's defence ministry has strongly rejected these allegations.
Spokesman Ilgar Verdiev told IWPR that they were complete invention, "In all our experience, we have not encountered any case where Azerbaijani soldiers have voluntarily surrendered and ended up in Armenian captivity."
However, this is not the only case in the last three months in which Azerbaijani soldiers have ended up in Armenian captivity in disputed circumstances. On December 7, Vusal Garajayev was taken prisoner by Karabakh Armenian forces in the Aghdam region. The Karabakh Armenians later said that he had crossed the line of his own accord after being beaten up by fellow-soldiers.
On December 31, another soldier, Eldeniz Nuriev, was taken prisoner on the Gazakh-Ijevan border.
Both men later returned home after mediation by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
At first, the Azerbaijani defence ministry said that Garajayev and Nuriev had both got lost in foggy conditions. But they have been arrested, and are facing charges of treason and abandoning their post.
During the criminal investigation into the case, it emerged that Garajayev had been beaten up in his unit.
Military expert Lieutenant-Colonel Uzeir Jafarov said it was illogical to accuse soldiers of treason if they had in fact been taken prisoner.
"The commanders of the defence ministry are just being arrogant and they thought up these accusations to shirk their own responsibilities," he told IWPR. "In the first place, what does the defence ministry think it's doing if soldiers are wandering freely around a mined battlefield and end up on the Armenian side?... Accusing captive soldiers of treason is an insult not just to the military but to the whole Azerbaijani nation."
At the same time, Jafarov said cases of abuse in the armed forces were common.
"Why are commanders who subject their soldiers to violence not brought to account? There have been about 200 cases in the military in the last year alone, most of them relating to corruption or violence against soldiers," he said.
Jafarov said the arrest of the two men was probably a major reason why Mamedov did not want to return to Azerbaijan.
According to data collected by Doktrina, a centre for journalistic investigations, in previous years 60-70 per cent of casualties in the army had direct military causes, such as shooting across the frontline and mine explosions, but in the last year 75 per cent of casualties were caused by non-battlefield incidents. The centre says this shows a rise in the number of suicides and cases of bullying.
The centre noted that 30 Azerbaijani officers, including several colonels, have been arrested on corruption charges in the last three months.
In another high-profile case, two high-ranking Azerbaijani officers have gone on hunger strike after whistle-blowing. Lieutenant-Colonel Azer Gasymov began his protest after he complained about wrongdoing in the defence ministry, and was was transferred from his unit in Baku to distant Nakhichevan, demoted and had his pay cut in half.
Another lieutenant-colonel, Rasim Muradov, who had been deputy commander of Azerbaijan's peacekeeping forces, began his hunger strike after he too was transferred to Nakhichevan when he complained about corruption among Azerbaijani peacekeepers in Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
The spate of allegations about abuses in the army prompted Azerbaijan's human rights ombudsman Elmira Suleimanova to file a letter of enquiry to the defence ministry.
"We appealed to the defence minister in connection with the imprisonment and persecution of soldiers," Suleimanova told IWPR. "In the letter, we expressed our wish to look into the incidents that have occurred and pay increased attention to discipline in military units."
Experts say that the heightened attention to issues of abuse and corruption in the Azerbaijani army is linked to Azerbaijan's efforts to implement its Individual Partnership Action Plan or IPAP with NATO in 2007. As a result, the military prosecutor's office and the national security minister are now investigating the army more closely.
Samir Mamedov's family hopes that he will return home soon. They are in regular contact with the Red Cross, which has met him 12 times and delivered three letters from him to his loved ones.
In a letter home, Mamedov wrote, "Forget about me and don't worry. It seems this is just how my fate has turned out."
But his family insist this letter must have been written under pressure. The captive soldier's uncle Vidali Mamedov said, "My nephew loves his homeland very much. It's quite possible that they put psychological pressure on Samir."
Azerbaijan's state committee for prisoners and missing-in-action told IWPR that it would be possible to find out whether Mamedov had been put under undue pressure only when he returned home. The Red Cross said it could not comment on the matter as it was acting as an impartial mediator.
Jasur Mamedov is a military commentator with Aina-Zerkalo newspaper in Baku.
(IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 382, March 8, 2007. - Institute for War & Peace Reporting [editor@iwpr.net].)
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 26 marzo 2007 : 23:17:50
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Pursuing NATO Integration
by Khazri Bakinsky and Mina Muradova
20 March 2007
Azeri officials affirm their commitment to the alliance, although a professional, civilian-administered military is still a long way off.
From EurasiaNet.
Azerbaijan is pressing ahead with plans to overhaul the country’s armed forces in order to bring them up to North Atlantic Treaty Organization standards. The pace of reforms will be gradual, according to senior government officials, who are quick to point out that Azerbaijan remains locked in an unresolved conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory.
The deputy speaker of the Azeri parliament, Ziafarat Asgarov, indicated that the legislature would adopt a new strategic doctrine by mid-2007, the Ayna newspaper reported. A draft of the doctrine is on the agenda for parliament’s spring session, he added. In the meantime, Baku has agreed to increase the number of Azeri troops serving with NATO in Afghanistan, according to Robert Simmons, the special representative of the NATO Secretary General for the South Caucasus and Central Asia. As of 2005, Azerbaijan had 22 troops in Afghanistan, according to NATO figures.
President Ilham Aliev has named NATO integration as a top foreign policy priority for Azerbaijan. The country’s participation in the alliance’s Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), a set of requirements that must be met by alliance candidate-members, is scheduled to end in 2007. Azeri officials, who have already started work on plans for the next two-year slot of Azerbaijan’s IPAP, have indicated that they want to continue with the program.
A second IPAP, running from 2007 to 2009, is expected to be signed with Azerbaijan soon, said Simmons, who held consultations in Baku on 15 March with Defense Minister Safar Abiev. Azerbaijan began its IPAP program in 2005. An evaluation of the program’s initial two years was made in February. Simmons expressed satisfaction with Azerbaijan’s military reform process. Azerbaijan is a reliable NATO partner and its cooperation with the alliance is developing successfully, the APA news agency quoted Simmons as saying.
Turkey, a NATO member with strong cultural ties to Azerbaijan, is ready to act as an expediter of Baku’s reform process. A high-level military commission is expected to be set up to coordinate bilateral military cooperation, the Anatolia news agency reported on 1 March. Particular emphasis will be put on training, an area that General Ergin Saygun, deputy chief of the Turkish general staff, has described as the most important part of the cooperation between the two states. Turkey also plans to help Azerbaijan establish an army company that meets NATO standards, the general said during a trip to Azerbaijan in late February.
Several Turkish generals are planning to travel to Azerbaijan in late April on an inspection tour, after which they will make initial recommendations on Azeri structural reforms, the News of Azerbaijan news agency quoted Selami Chinbat, the Turkish embassy’s military attaché in Baku, as saying.
An independent military expert, Ismet Abbasova, expressed hope that the Aliev administration’s desire to develop closer ties with NATO could stimulate broad reforms in Azerbaijan. "I hope there will be development in the education system because the lack of skilled military staff indicates that the Azeri army is not up to modern standards," she said.
If all goes according to the government’s plan, the country’s armed forces would meet NATO standards by 2015. The changeover, however, will not come easily, cautioned Zahid Oruj, a pro-administration member of parliament who holds an influential position on the legislature’s Defense and Security Committee. "[T]aking into account that military reforms are more complicated than economic and political [reforms], and many officers have a Soviet education, it will take time," he noted.
The "frozen conflict" with Armenia over the disputed breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh could also hamper plans to create a purely professional army, commented Lieutenant General Vahid Aliev, a military aide to President Aliev. "Since Azerbaijan is at war right now, it would not be right to transform the entire army into a professional one," General Aliev told the APA news agency in late 2006.
Oruj said the government is currently "seriously" working on plans to promote civilian leadership of the Defense Ministry. At the same time, he downplayed media speculation that a civilian would be named as defense minister any time soon. "We did not undertake a commitment on this because the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan has not ended yet," he said. A Defense Ministry spokesperson said that he has no information about which ministry posts might be assigned to civilians.
Despite probable delays in establishing a professional, civilian-administered military, Oruj affirms that Baku’s commitment to NATO stands firm. "We do all this work because our national interests demand it, and it is our own choice to transition to NATO standards."
Other top government officials are more cautious. During a February interview with the German television channel Deutsche Welle, President Aliev hinted that Azerbaijan's eventual membership in NATO should not be considered a foregone conclusion. "What will be the result of this partnership, time alone will show," the Azeri president said.
Mina Muradova and Khazri Bakinsky are freelance reporters in Baku. This is a partner post from EurasiaNet.
(Transitions Online. -
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article_single.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=210&NrSection=1&NrArticle=18403&ST1=
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 22 abril 2007 : 14:35:06
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Azerbaiyán: entre el tirón de orejas y el reconocimiento internacional
El Consejo de Europa discute entre el 16 y el 20 de abril sobre el cumplimiento de los compromisos
adquiridos por Azerbaiyán en el ámbito de los Derechos Humanos y la Democracia
Ana Soriano Escudero, Sevilla
CAFE'BABEL
17.4.2007
El Consejo de Europa no ha sido la única institución que dirige su objetivo hacia la república caucásica. La sesión del Consejo de Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos celebrada en Ginebra el pasado mes de marzo también debatió sobre la población desplazada en el interior del territorio azerí a causa del conflicto con Armenia en torno a Nagorno-Karabakh, una región poblada de armenios que declaró su independencia de Azerbaiyán en 1991, pero que ningún Estado del mundo ha reconocido como independiente. A principios de 2007, Amnistía Internacional alertaba en un explícito informe de la falta de libertad de expresión y las amenazas que sufren los informadores locales en Azerbaiyán.
El protagonismo que está adquiriendo la ex república soviética en los últimos meses no es casual. Tras el “apagón informativo” que siguió a los turbulentos comicios legislativos celebrados en noviembre de 2005, la sociedad azerí se despereza y se prepara para afrontar lo que algunos ven como un auténtico “reto político”. Es decir, las elecciones presidenciales de 2008, en las que el gobierno tendrá que demostrar que los “pequeños gestos” que ha llevado a cabo en los últimos meses el ejecutivo de Ilham Aliyev –indultos a presos políticos, remodelación de algunas carteras del gobierno, apertura al exterior- no han sido un mero lavado de imagen para evitar las críticas de la comunidad internacional, sino un paso convencido y convincente hacia la madurez democrática definitiva.
Una oportunidad de oro para la oposición
La cita electoral será una auténtica oportunidad de oro para la oposición. Las anteriores presidenciales de 2003 y las legislativas de 2005, cuando la oposición unió sus fuerzas en una única plataforma opositora contra la “fantasmada electoral” planteada por el gobierno de Aliyev, fueron un campo de entrenamiento perfecto para unos comicios: los de 2008, en los que la pérdida de fuelle de la unión de los partidos de la oposición –que aún no ha decidido en qué términos concurrirá a la cita electoral- puede equilibrarse con una convocatoria que respete los estándares internacionales de limpieza y transparencia.
Para Razi Nurullayev, activista azerí y fundador del movimiento juvenil “Yox”, el principal reto de la oposición ahora es conseguir “movilizar e implicar a la sociedad”, en especial al sector más joven. “La juventud está envuelta sobre todo en su rutina y sus problemas para salir adelante”, explica Nurullayev, quien ahora trabaja en la consolidación de la “Coalición de la Sociedad Civil”, una red de organizaciones no gubernamentales locales e internacionales, asociaciones civiles y personas influyentes, creada para favorecer el debate social y tender puentes entre la vida política y la sociedad. “La pasividad ciudadana es la base para unas malas elecciones”, sentencia, convencido de que la democracia plena no llegará a Azerbaiyán hasta que los azeríes no se impliquen del todo en el discurrir político del país.
Una pieza fundamental en el tablero euroasiático
Por el momento, el gobierno azerí ha accedido a poner en marcha algunas de las recomendaciones de la Comisión Venecia del Consejo de Europa y por organismos como la OSCE (Organización para la Seguridad y la Cooperación en Europa) en cuanto a la introducción de enmiendas en la Ley Electoral. Ahora, por ejemplo, los miembros que integran los Comités Electorales representarán de forma equitativa al gobierno y a la oposición. No obstante, el Consejo de Europa exigirá con toda probabilidad a Azerbaiyán en su sesión de abril un cambio de rumbo en otros campos como la reforma del sistema judicial, la lucha contra la corrupción y el crimen organizado, la situación de las ONG que defienden los Derechos Humanos en el país, y la libertad de expresión o de reunión. Unas premisas que, según el gobierno azerí, el Consejo de Europa debería de hacer extensibles a muchos otros países de los que conforman la institución.
A nadie se le escapa que Azerbaiyán es una pieza fundamental en el tablero euroasiático. Tiene frontera con Irán -donde el 35% de la población es azerí: 30 millones frente a los 9 millones que residen en Azerbaiyán-, y está en el centro de la creciente importancia del Caúcaso en la situación geopolítica internacional debido a sus ricos recursos energéticos. Azerbaiyán, sin embargo, mira a Europa sabedor de que su credibilidad exterior depende en gran medida de los avances democráticos que sea capaz de imprimir a su ritmo político en los próximos meses.
(http://cafebabel.com/es/article.asp?T=A&Id=2457) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 25 mayo 2007 : 23:09:50
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AZERBAIJAN TOPS THE CHARTS FOR NUMBER OF IMPRISONED JOURNALISTS
Rovshan Ismayilov
EURASIANET
22.05.2007
The number of Azerbaijani journalists in prison has reached a record high over the past month, even while one senior government official maintains that the country’s leadership is doing everything possible to respect press freedom.
Azerbaijan currently has the highest number of arrested journalists among all of the 56 member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Miklos Haraszti, the organization’s special representative for media freedoms, told Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in April. As if to underscore that status, the Paris-based media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders recently included the Azerbaijani leader on its list of so-called "Media Predators."
Since then, the number of imprisoned journalists has risen from five to seven. Most recently, on May 16, opposition newspaper Muhalifat editor Rovshan Kebirli and correspondent Yashar Agazade were sentenced to two years and six months in prison for allegedly slandering the president’s uncle, Jalal Aliyev. The correspondent had described Jalal Aliyev as "the most corrupt person in Azerbaijan" with control of the country’s largest trading center, AMAY. Aliyev demanded evidence for the charges, which the newspaper did not provide.
International human rights and media watchdog organizations, the United States, and the European Union have repeatedly urged the Azerbaijani government to release all imprisoned journalists and to adopt legislation that would ban the criminal prosecution of media representatives.
Government officials assert that criticism of their stance on media rights is off-target. In remarks to journalists on May 3, Ali Hasanov, head of the presidential administration’s political department, asserted that "[a]fter Ilham Aliyev took office [in 2003], he solved all problems with media freedom."
"A few facts related to some journalists cannot be equated with the situation in the country as a whole," Hasanov added. Imprisoned journalists, however, were excluded from a May 8 parliament amnesty for prisoners granted at the suggestion of the president’s wife, parliamentarian Mehriban Aliyeva.
Reporters Without Borders appears to be in the presidential administration’s firing line. Hasanov claimed that the organization "is working under the Armenian lobby’s influence," and has been "fighting against [Azerbaijani ally] Turkey for a long time." Given this perceived bias, officials in Baku tend to disregard the group’s assessments.
The criticism of international organizations is unlikely to die down soon. Late on May 20, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, citing violation of fire safety standards, moved to shut down the offices of Realniy Azerbaijan and Gundelik Azerbaijan, two newspapers often critical of the Aliyev administration. The papers’ publisher and editor-in-chief, Eynulla Fatullayev, was recently sentenced to two-plus years in prison for slander. Intervention by local journalists, human rights activists and American and British diplomats stopped the closure, the pro-opposition news agency Turan reported
A rally by local journalists has been tentatively scheduled for June 14 in Baku to protest the recent imprisonments of reporters.
Perhaps the highest profile instance of press repression involves Fatullayev, who was arrested on April 20 on charges of slandering internally displaced persons from Khojali, a town in Nagorno-Karabakh. The suit was filed by Tatiana Chaladze, chairwoman of the Committee for Protection of Refugees, a Baku-based non-governmental organization. In an article entitled "Karabakh Diary," Fatullayev published a statement by an Armenian army officer who said that Armenian forces had kept open an exit corridor for civilians during a bloodbath in 1992, remembered in Azerbaijan as the Khojali massacre. The article also reported that escapees from Khojali confirmed the existence of such a corridor. Chaladze demanded evidence that the town’s former residents had confirmed the existence of a corridor. Fatullayev was also charged for reportedly stating in an online discussion forum that chaotic Azerbaijani gunfire had killed some Khojali residents. The publisher maintains that both accusations are a political response to Realniy Azerbaijan’s sharp criticism of President Aliyev’s rule.
Helping to stir the press freedom controversy was a brutal beating of the editor of Gundelik Azerbaijan on the day of Fatullayev’s sentencing. The editor, Uzeir Jafarov, was hospitalized as a result of injuries suffered in the attack. He claims that a police officer who attended Fatullayev’s trial was among his assailants. The charge has not yet been investigated.
The arrest of Sanat newspaper reporter Rafik Taghi and editor Samir Sadagtogulu focused on a similarly sensitive topic, the role of Islam. On May 4, the two received three and four-year prison sentences respectively, for the publication of a 2006 article that described Christian values as more progressive than Islamic values. Charges were brought by the general prosecutor’s office for "inflaming religious conflict." [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Baku analysts have trouble explaining possible reasons for the government’s apparent hard line toward journalists. The country’s opposition is weak and fragmented, they note, and the presidential elections are still a year off.
The April 27 decision to grant a broadcast license to private television and radio company ANS after months of delay is cited by Azerbaijani reporters as the only recent sign of tolerance of media outlets that diverge from the government’s viewpoint. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Shahin Hajiyev, editor of the pro-opposition Turan news agency, which has had its own property dispute tussle with officials, sees the issue as part of a larger malaise concerning democratization. "It is not only a media problem, "commented Hajiyev. "It is a problem with the general situation with democracy in Azerbaijan."
Editor’s Note: Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance journalist based in Baku.
(Posted May 22, 2007 © Eurasianet. - http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav052207a.shtml)
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Enviado - 09 junio 2007 : 15:49:25
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AZERBAIJAN: BUILDING BRIDGES FOR PRESIDENT ALIYEV’S RE-ELECTION?
Mina Muradova and Khazri Bakinsky
EURASIANET
May 30, 2007
An ambitious infrastructure upgrade campaign has taken Azerbaijan by storm in recent months, but some economists point to the 2008 presidential vote as the prime reason for the state-funded building boom and question the projects’ transparency.
Infrastructure projects will account for a staggering 87 percent of this year’s government investment programs, recently revised to total $2.2 billion (1.9 billion manats), according to Oktai Ahverdiyev, chief of the Cabinet of Ministers’ finance department.
Under this plan, by the end of 2007, Azerbaijan will have five new airports – some in the remotest parts of the country. Aside from existing international airports in the western town of Ganja, Azerbaijan’s second largest metropolitan area, and the exclave of Nakhchivan (bordering Armenia and Iran), an international airport is planned for the southern town of Lenkoran, close to the Iranian border. Airports in Sheki, a popular tourist destination in northern Azerbaijan, and Zaqatala, a small nearby town, will handle smaller planes. The cost for these facilities has not been made public.
Extensive highway and bridge projects are also in the works. In 2007, the government plans to spend $500 million on the construction and repair of highways – a figure that is 80 percent higher than 2006 expenditures, APA news agency reported, citing the Ministry of Transportation. Ten new bridges and 18 underpasses are planned for Baku to lessen the city’s growing traffic congestion. In addition, repairs will be carried out on 40 bridges between Baku and the Russian border, and a new highway will be built from the Azerbaijani capital to the Iranian border.
At an opening ceremony for one of Baku’s new bridges in March, President Aliyev declared that the bridge building shows Azerbaijan’s economic muscle. "It means that we are becoming strong," media outlets reported him as stating. The 200 million manat ($232 million) allocated for the bridges and underpasses "will not be to make a profit," he elaborated, stressing that "[a]ll of this is done for the people’s welfare."
Senior government official Ahverdiyev has stated that "poverty reduction" will also be included in the campaign. Planned expenditures will target improvement of "the water supply, sanitation systems, education [system] and healthcare," Aheverdiyev told Trend news agency recently.
Some questions, however, surround the details.
"Azerbaijan’s infrastructure needs to improve, but first it should be seriously studied to define priority highways and bridges [for work], which of them can really eliminate problems with traffic jams," argued economist Azer Mehtiyev, deputy chairman of Baku’s non-governmental Center for Economic Research. Money for these improvements has so far been allocated without such a hit list, he added.
That leaves particular questions about the viability of the five new airports, observed Zohrab Ismaylov, head of the non-governmental Center for Market Economy Assistance in Baku. "I am not sure that airports in Zaqatala or Lenkoran can give a profit even in the mid-term future," Ismaylov said. Zaqatala has a population of around 26,000 people, according to official statistics. Lenkoran’s population stands at under 50,000. Both towns are in non-industrial areas with no emphasis on exports.
Both Mekhtiyev and Ismaylov, however, contend that the large-scale investment projects have as much to do with the 2008 presidential elections as they do with infrastructure improvements.
Decisions about the infrastructure projects "come suddenly during [Aliyev’s] trips to the regions and in meetings with residents," observed the Center for Economic Research’s Mehtiyev. "There is no clear… policy."
Mehtiyev holds that the construction projects will be used to let Aliyev show that he has met a 2003 presidential campaign promise to create 600,000 new jobs by 2008. At an April 13 speech to government ministers, Aliyev reported that 535,000 jobs – the majority allegedly permanent and outside of Baku – have been set up during his time in office.
Public tenders for the projects have also not been held, a fact that has spurred concerns that money for the projects, derived from Azerbaijan’s sizeable oil income, is being misappropriated. Mehtiyev charges that companies "close to high-level officials" act as project contractors; Ismaylov of the Center for Market Economy Assistance claims that a recent 371 million manat (about $369 million) increase in state investments was approved by parliamentarians without detailed information about the funds’ intended use.
"From the point of view of efficiency and of transparency in spending oil revenues, the construction industry is not the best sphere," Ismaylov stressed. Many construction companies are unregistered and operate wtihout paying taxes, he noted.
One pro-opposition political analyst agreed. "[Information about] implementation of these projects is closed to the public," charged Rasim Musabekov. "It is out of public control and gives the government an opportunity to misappropriate oil revenues."
Government officials could not be reached for commentary.
But for President Aliyev, what matters is that signs of change are beginning to appear.
"New business have opened, roads are paved, neighborhoods improved and modernized," the Azerbaijani leader told reporters in April. "The main goal is to reduce the gap [in living standards] between urban and rural population centers. And we can achieve this."
Editor’s Note: Mina Muradova and Khazri Bakinsky are freelance reporters in Baku.
Posted May 30, 2007 © Eurasianet
(http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav053007.shtml) |
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Enviado - 25 julio 2007 : 00:59:31
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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH SOUNDS ALARM OVER AZERBAIJANI MEDIA CRACKDOWN
Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Ross met in Baku on 16-17 July with presidential administration head Ramiz Mehtiyev, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, OSCE Office head Jose Luis Herrero, and opposition and human-rights activists, zerkalo.az and day.az reported. During his talks with Azerbaijani officials, Ross focused on what HRW termed the marked deterioration in recent years with regard to media freedom in Azerbaijan, and he called on President Ilham Aliyev to pardon and release the seven journalists currently serving prison terms. At the same time, he said their release alone would not serve to bring about the desired improvement. Ross also met with Interior Minister Ramil Usubov, to whom he complained about the widespread torture of suspects by police, day.az reported. Ross said that his organization has extensive data on such mistreatment, but that only in a handful of instances has legal action been taken against the policemen responsible.
LF
(RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 11, No. 130, Part I, 18 July 2007.)
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 02 agosto 2007 : 23:59:46
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NAKHICHEVAN - ANOTHER AZERBAIJAN
Life is poor in Azerbaijan's exclave province, where the authorities keep everything tightly under control
By Sabuhi Mammadli in Nakhichevan
In Nakhichevan, an integral part of Azerbaijan but geographically completely separate from it, people live very different lives from the rest of the country. More authoritarian and orderly than the main part of Azerbaijan, the autonomous republic suffers badly from deprivation and emigration.
It is not even easy to get to Nakhichevan. Divided from the rest of the country by Armenia, it has had no land communications with the rest of the country for the past 16 years. The only route to Nakhichevan is by air from Baku, so there is always a massive queue of people wanting to buy tickets at the capital's Heidar Aliyev Airport.
According to the last census, conducted in 1999, Nakhichevan had a population of 370,000, but in reality many of these people are just as likely to be living in Baku or in neighbouring Turkey.
By nine in the evening, the streets are all but deserted in Nakhichevan city, the provincial capital. Nor are there many people about in the central Aliev Park. As Ilqar Huseynov, a student at Nakhichevan State University, explained, "Young people are afraid to go to the park, especially in the evening. The police close all the chaikhanas [tea-houses] after ten in the evening anyway. The city authorities have also issued an unofficial ban on boys and girls walking out together. Girls can't wear miniskirts, either".
Nakhichevan is as clean as the tidiest of European cities, and you will not find a single cigarette stub in the streets or parks. The reason for this is that the locals are made to turn out for used to be known in Soviet times as "subbotniks" - compulsory public work projects.
"Employees of public sectors organisations and soldiers from the Nakhichevan garrison are often out cleaning the streets," said local resident Gazanfar Agayev.
According to Mukhtar Yusifov, a member of the opposition Musavat party, "Doctors, nurses and teachers whitewash walls, sweep the streets and tend the trees. If anyone refuses to work, they are threatened with punishment, as the order comes from Vasif Talibov himself."
Talibov is the chairman of Nakhichevan's parliament and de facto ruler of the region.
"Vasif Talibov is absolute ruler throughout Nakhichevan," said Vahid, a doctor. "It's as though the entire republic is his own property. It's not for nothing that he has been dubbed the Khan of Nakhichevan."
Vahid said the "khan" sometimes gives surprising orders. For example, it is forbidden to hang washing out on apartment balconies, and to drive old vehicles into the provincial capital on the grounds that they spoil the city's appearance.
"The current harsh regime we have has made Nakhichevan into something similar to Turkmenistan," a taxi driver said, referring to the most repressive of the Central Asian states.
However, pro-government politicians say strong rule is justified. Fazil Agamaly, the chairman of the Ana Vatan (Motherland) party, told IWPR, "Vasif Talibov cannot be blamed for the tough regime we have in the autonomous republic. The region is an exclave cut off from the rest of the country and surrounded by Armenia on three sides. Chaos and anarchy would have broken out if there hadn't been a firm hand in charge."
The economy is the region's biggest problem. Nakhichevanis struggling to make ends meet are hoping that some of the revenues from Azerbaijan's Caspian oil will trickle down to them, but until that happens life is likely to remain difficult.
A taxi driver took this IWPR contributor to the market, which we found that prices are much lower here then in Baku. For example, a kilogramme of meat costs five manats in Baku and only three manats in Nakhichevan. Fruit and vegetables are sometimes two or three times cheaper.
Labour migration out of Nakhichevan remains very high. Agayev said that the villages of Yeyje and Gargun in the Sarur district have been completely depopulated. Entire families of residents of these villages, situated right on the border with Turkey, have moved to the nearby Turkish town of Igdir.
The chairman of the opposition Union for Democratic Reforms, Parvin Rajabov, said Nakhichevan's true population numbers only half the census figure.
"There are 150,000 or 170,000 people left in the autonomous republic because of unemployment," he said. "We have monitored the situation and found that 50,000 people from the Sarur district alone are living in the Turkish cities of Istanbul and Igdir. Remember that the official statistics say that about 120,000 people live in the [Sarur] district."
Adil Qahramanov, a press officer for Nakhichevan's provincial government, insisted that the tide was beginning to turn, and that many people who had previously left were now coming back.
"New jobs are being created, as well as the conditions for small businessmen to operate, which is the main reason why people are returning to Nakhichevan," he said, adding that four large enterprises and about 200 smaller firms had started up in the past two years.
Fazil Qazanfaroglu, a Nakhichevan-born member of the Azerbaijani parliament and head of the Boyuk Qurulus (Great Creation) party, says that he believes the region does have economic potential.
"It's impossible not to see a relative improvement in the autonomous republic's social conditions," he said. "You can't deny that the capital of Nakhichevan is clean and beautiful. However, I have to note with regret that this beauty is not making people feel better off."
Isolation is the main factor hampering Nakhichevan's development. The local authorities would like to encourage health tourism using their sanatoria, which were popular back in Soviet times. But Suleiman Mamedov, a doctor at the once-famous Batabat sanatorium, said, "There are sufficient resources for developing of tourism at our sanatoriums at Batabat, Badamly and Vanand. However, as these districts are situated on the border with Armenia, not even people from other parts of Azerbaijani come here any more, let alone people from the former Soviet Union or further afield."
Political life is effectively dormant in Nakhichevan. The opposition and independent newspapers seen in other parts of Azerbaijan are not on sale at the city's kiosks. Instead, they pass from hand to hand. If they contain an article depicting Nakhichevan's leaders in a negative light, the authorities try to confiscate them before they even reach the region. A salesman who dares to sell a newspaper containing critical content is liable to be detained for 15 days.
"When it comes to the opposition, it exists here only as a formality, to keep the international organisations happy," said Elchin Gadimov of the Musavat party. "Opposition parties are prevented not just from holding protests, but even from publicly celebrating national holidays. They have to hold their conferences with police and intelligence services present."
One local resident, Ilham Narimanoglu, recently had to write a police statement just because a correspondent for an opposition newspaper had visited his home.
This correspondent had a taste of the official attitude of suspicion towards independent journalists, receiving a fine of two manats for the apparently innocent act of possessing a dictaphone while leaving for Baku. No explanation was given for the penalty.
Sabuhi Mammadli is a correspondent with Yeni Musavat newspaper in Baku.
(IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 404, August 2, 2007.) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 15 agosto 2007 : 00:40:45
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WHY IS 'ALTERNATIVE' ISLAM GAINING STRENGTH IN AZERBAIJAN?
By Liz Fuller and Babek Bakir
With the eclipse of the political opposition in Azerbaijan, Islam is increasingly poised to fill the ideological vacuum. Most government officials, however, deny that the increased interest in Islam poses a serious threat to either political stability or national security.
Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, many Azerbaijanis rejected communist ideology in the wake of the reprisals in Baku in January 1990 by Soviet troops that left at least 130 people dead.
But the pro-Turkish Azerbaijan Popular Front that took power in May 1992 failed to impose order on political chaos or reverse economic decline, and many people sighed with relief when a failed insurrection in June 1993 ended with the self exile of President Abulfaz Elchibey and the return to power of former Communist Party of Azerbaijan First Secretary Heidar Aliyev.
Aliyev restored order, signed a string of contracts with international oil companies, muzzled the media, and suppressed or co-opted the opposition. But he failed to offer a vision of a new Azerbaijan that would appeal to the majority of a population demoralized by defeat in the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
In search of a sense of identity, or in some cases out of sheer intellectual curiosity, Azerbaijanis, especially the younger generation, are increasingly turning to Islam. Thousands of people flock every week to Friday Prayers at Baku's Abu-Bakr mosque.
Mushviq Shukyurov, who is 40 and teaches at a pedagogical institute in Sumqait, the industrial satellite north of Baku, told RFE/RL that he developed an interest in Islam after reading the works of 19th century Azerbaijani philosophers. He said that reading the Koran for the first time last year changed his life, and made him want "to seek for and serve the truth." Shukyurov said that "many" of his students likewise show an interest in Islam, but that he fears some of them, lured by "false promises" made by either Saudi or Turkish missionaries, are following "a false path."
Shukyurov's misgivings highlight two parallel trends that partly account for the ongoing revival of interest in Islam: widespread ignorance resulting from the lack of any formal instruction in schools on the rudiments of religion, and the influx over the past 15 years of missionaries representing a multiplicity of Islamic, Christian, and other religious denominations.
Rafik Aliyev, who headed the State Committee for Religious Affairs from its founding in 2001 until the summer of 2006, says that interest in Islam is growing because there is no religious education. Adil Hadjiev, another former official of the State Committee for Religious Affairs, says that for that reason, people are likely "to open their doors to the first missionary who knocks."
And there is no shortage of such hopeful proselytizers. Traditionally, most Azerbaijanis are Shi'a, while a minority are Sunnis. The ratio is approximately 65 percent Shi'a and 35 percent Sunni, with Sunnis predominate in the northern regions of the country bordering on Daghestan, and Shi'a more numerous in the south, especially districts bordering on Iran.
But the Sunni share is gradually increasing, a trend that reflects, on the one hand, disillusion with and suspicion of Azerbaijan's "official" clergy who function under the Muslim Board of the Caucasus. That institution was first established in 1944 and its current head, Sheikh ul-Islam Allakhshukur Pasha-zade, has held his post since before the collapse of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, representatives of three distinct currents within Islam are actively recruiting new converts.
Those three competing schools are the Salafi/Wahhabi school as practiced in Saudi Arabia; Iran's brand of radical Shi'ite Islam; and the moderate Hanafi school of Islam promoted by the Turkish NGO Nur (Light). But it is extremely difficult to estimate how many Azerbaijanis practice which form of Islam. Writing in the Russian daily "Nezavisimaya gazeta" in April 2006, one Azerbaijani journalist estimated the number of followers of Wahhabi/Salafi Islam in Azerbaijan at approximately 25,000. The total number of mosques in Azerbaijan today is between 1,400-1,700 for a population of 8.5 million, compared with only 40 in late 1991.
Other factors too, both political and socioeconomic, drive many Azerbaijanis to seek in religion either consolation or a new meaning to their lives. One factor is the eclipse of Azerbaijan's numerous opposition parties. Over the past 14 years, since the return to power of Heidar Aliyev, opposition parties have been constantly harassed by the authorities, evicted from their offices, denied access to state-controlled media, and refused permission to stage demonstrations in downtown Baku.
The pressure to which they are routinely subjected is so intense that there is less risk involved in attending prayers at a mosque than in joining a political party. In addition, opposition parties' constant rivalry and feuding and the reluctance of prominent opposition party leaders to set aside personal ambitions and join forces to create a united front have discredited them in the eyes of many people. The Azerbaijani authorities for their part have resorted to blatant rigging of all successive national elections, beginning in 1995.
A second, related factor is anger and resentment at the country's leadership, which has permitted a handful of close associates to monopolize virtually all spheres of economic activity. And a large share of the multi-million dollar profits that President Aliyev promised from Azerbaijan's Caspian oil revenues is being plowed into grandiose but useless projects, such as Olympic-standard sports stadiums in remote areas of the country, reserved for the use of a chosen few and off-limits to the rest of the population. Moreover, Azerbaijan is showing the first symptoms of "Dutch disease." Economists predict that inflation this year will reach 16 percent; steep rises in the price of gas, electricity, and gasoline earlier this year were met with widespread popular anger.
Historian Altai Goyushov is one of those who attribute the growing popularity of Islam to growing injustice, corruption, and economic problems. Goyushov believes that voters can no longer find within the opposition camp a force they can trust to represent their interests.
And it is not just the Azerbaijani leadership that people feel betrayed by, but also the West, in particular the United States. Many Azerbaijanis, both ordinary citizens and some government officials, accuse the West of double standards. They point out that while the West proclaims its commitment to spreading democracy, it is guided more by mercantile interests, such as profiting from the exploitation of Azerbaijan's hydrocarbon wealth. For that reason, many people think, the West supported the Rose Revolution in Georgia in November 2003 and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in December 2004, but turned a blind eye to widespread falsification during the Azerbaijani presidential election in 2003 and the parliamentary ballot in 2005.
Former State Committee for Religious Affairs Chairman Aliyev argues that people have lost trust not only in pro-Western Azerbaijani politicians, but in the West in general. "The West in its dealings with other countries takes into consideration first and foremost its own national, political, and economic interests, and it does not give people correct information. It would not be wrong to say that Western democracy has failed totally," Aliyev says.
Finally, Azerbaijani police and security forces sometimes indiscriminately target men who by their clothing and long beards can be identified as followers of Salafi/Wahhabi Islam. Hadji Gamet Suleymanov, imam of the popular Salafi/Wahhabi Abu-Bakr Mosque, says that such brutal treatment can prove counterproductive. "You know this serves only to fuel radicalization, and some radical forces can use this to win more supporters. We are also against crime, if someone has committed a crime we are against that, but if you are prosecuted only because you are a believer, this is not right," Suleymanov says.
In a recent interview with the online daily zerkalo.az, Muslim Spiritual Board head Pasha-zade denied that there have been any "serious cases causing concern" in the religious sphere. At the same time, he claimed that the political opposition seeks to play the religious card, and he expressed clear dissatisfaction that the government authorities do not take a tougher stances against "Wahhabis." He said that the "Wahhabis," especially the congregation of the Abu Bakr Mosque in Baku, enjoy special privileges that are not extended to any other religious group.
Hidayat Orujev of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations said at a press conference in Baku on June 29 that "there are small groups in the country representing radical religious forces that think they can come to power. But the very idea is ridiculous." In contrast to Pasha-zade, Orujev said he considers the situation at the Abu-Bakr Mosque "normal."
But the Azerbaijani authorities nonetheless keep a close watch over religious groups. Djeyhun Mamedov, who heads the Information and Analysis department of the State Committee for Religious Affairs, admits that the activities of religious groups are monitored to determine whether any of them break the law. And Azerbaijan's National Security Ministry has in recent years announced the arrest of several "Wahhabi" groups suspected of planning terrorist acts.
Islam Izmayil, a former National Security Ministry official who now heads the Security Studies Center, believes that the government still controls the activities of various religious groups to a greater or lesser degree. He told RFE/RL he thinks the Azerbaijani government is portraying the upsurge of popular interest in religion to the West as a potential threat in order to justify its ongoing crackdown on both opposition activists and believers.
(Babek Bakir is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service based in Prague.)
(RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 11, No. 148, Part I, 13 August 2007.) |
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Enviado - 28 agosto 2007 : 23:15:24
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Azerbaijani Emergencies Ministry on multi-storey building collapse in center of Baku
Azeri Press Agency (APA)
28 Aug 2007 20:38
Azerbaijan’s Emergencies Ministry has made a statement regarding the collapsed multi-storey building in center of Baku today. APA’s corresponds at the site report Colonel Kamil Bagirov, chairman of Ministry’s Civil Defense Troops main office of civil defense organizing stated that a multi-storey building in the intersection of Mammad Nakhchivani street and Murtuza Mukhtarov street collapsed at about 5 p.m today.
The Ministry official showed violation of technical safety rules and construction regulations as the cause of the accident. He said the exact number of those remaining under the wreckage is not yet known adding that several workers feeling that the accident will happen could escape from the site. He also said rescue efforts continue, some have already been rescued. Mr.Bagirov noted that with special methods those remaining under the wreckage have been located and the rescue efforts will continue till the last person is recovered.
The teams of Civil Defense Troops, Fire Safety Service, Cynology Service, Construction Safety Agency are making rescue efforts at the site. The Emergencies Ministry is on alert.
The Ministry official said it is difficult to specify whether or not the building was 16-17- storey. He reported that the constructor is Mutefekkir company adding the company has many times warned against incompliance with safety rules and construction regulations, “Despite several warnings, the construction works continued.”
An ad hoc group will investigate the causes of the accident. Residents of several buildings around are being evacuated. Mr.Bagirov did not rule out that residents of damaged buildings will be evacuated.
(http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=33762) |
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Enviado - 06 septiembre 2007 : 23:43:57
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IRAN-AZERBAIJAN SUMMIT: "BROTHERLY" FEELINGS, WITHOUT RESULTS
Rovshan Ismayilov
EURASIA INSIGHT
August 24, 2007
Analysts in Baku are divided over the outcome of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first official visit to Azerbaijan on August 21-22. Major issues such as regional defense and energy projects and the Caspian Sea territorial dispute are believed to have been the focus of the visit, but both sides have been tight-lipped on the substance of the discussions.
Publicly, both Azerbaijani and Iranian officials stressed consensus, emphasizing the historical and religious ties that bind the two Shi’ia Muslim nations. A joint presidential statement signed on August 21 affirms "the importance of bilateral political dialogue in the context of equality of states, non-interference into each other’s affairs" and a commitment to refrain from the use or threat of force. Repeating earlier assertions by Baku, the declaration also states that Azerbaijan recognizes Iran’s right "to use nuclear energy peacefully within the framework of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency."
"The countries are getting closer," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at a joint news conference. "Our relations are strong and we are sharing opinions on all issues," Aliyev claimed that Iran also fully supports Azerbaijan’s position on the conflict with Armenia over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described Iran and Azerbaijan as "two brotherly countries" that share common views "over political issues."
"Azerbaijan’s development is Iran’s development and Iran’s development is Azerbaijan’s development," Ahmadinejad added. "Iran strongly supports Azerbaijan’s independence and security."
Political analysts in Baku remain unconvinced that bilateral relations are as strong as Aliyev and Ahmadinejad portrayed them to be. One expert, Rasim Musabekov, contends that the declarations about a common purpose and mutual support are "just words."
"Each of these countries has its own agenda . . . and the agendas are different. Azerbaijan will not plan to change its policy on military cooperation with the West, nor will Iran reconsider its position on regional and international problems," said Musabekov, a pro-opposition commentator. "The sides carefully listened to each other – it’s the visit’s only result."
Security issues could explain the effusiveness. Although Azerbaijan has publicly declared its neutrality in the wrangle between Tehran and Western states over Iran’s nuclear program, "Tehran is concerned about Azerbaijani-US security cooperation," commented Vafa Guluzade, a former presidential foreign policy advisor. "Iran does not want to see threats to its national security proceeding from Azerbaijan."
Aliyev also has a stake in interaction with Ahmadinejad, he added. Keeping the door open to Tehran helps Baku maintain balance in its relations with Washington and Moscow. "Iran is one of the major players in our region. Therefore, Baku should confer with Tehran," Guluzade said.
Prior to Ahmadinejad’s visit, US-Azerbaijani security consultations on issues ranging from North Atlantic Treaty Organization integration to anti-missile systems were held in Washington on July 9-10. Similar discussions took place in Baku on July 26-27 with a Russian delegation led by Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak.
The Aliyev administration’s warm welcome for Ahmadinejad was criticized by the Azerbaijani opposition. "Such visits to Azerbaijan by the leader of a regime that the international community considers a real threat are not a good sign," Musavat Party leader Isa Gambar told the party’s Yeni Musavat newspaper on August 23. A day earlier, police outside the Iranian Embassy forcefully broke up a demonstration by another opposition party, the Azerbaijan National Independence Party, which was protesting against violations of ethnic Azeris’ rights in Iran.
Guluzade believes that it is too early to say for sure where Azerbaijani-Iranian relations are headed. Experts believe they will have a better idea only after a meeting of the five Caspian Sea littoral states, scheduled for October 16. The Caspian states -- Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Russia and Kazakhstan -- will use the gathering to try to break the stalemate surrounding the territorial division of the Caspian Sea.
"If Iran accepts any compromise on the Caspian legal status there [during the meeting], it would mean Baku likely gave some guarantees about not [raising] military cooperation with the United States to a level that would threaten Iran," he said.
Ilgar Mammadov, an independent Baku-based political analyst, drew attention to energy issues.
At the news conference, President Aliyev said that the two countries are considering joint projects to "ensure regional security," as well as the European Union-backed 3,300-kilometer Nabucco pipeline project, intended to export gas from Turkey to Austria via Eastern Europe.
Despite US misgivings about such a partnership, growing demand from Europe for alternatives to Russian gas could motivate this interest, Mammadov believes. Securing compromises from Tehran on the legal status of the Caspian Sea could better position Azerbaijan to be a major player in the European gas game. To win the concessions, Azerbaijan may offer guarantees to bar "anti-Iranian military cooperation" with the United States and propose possibilities for facilitating the export of Iranian gas to Europe, he suggested.
In Baku, Ahmadinejad took a backhanded swipe at what he cast as US attempts to enlist Baku in a plan to geopolitically encircle Tehran. "Some forces" who are allegedly trying to "create problems between Iran and Azerbaijan," the Iranian president said, "have no chances" for success.
Mammadov believes no particular agreements between Baku and Tehran were reached during Ahmadinejad’s recent visit. "There are still debates between the West and Russia for Central Asian gas from one side, and between the Europe and the US on energy cooperation with Iran. And Ahmadinejad’s visit to Baku highlighted these conflicts," Mammadov said.
The trip was the Iranian leader’s third visit to Azerbaijan, though the first official trip. Ahmadinejad last visited Baku in May 2006 at the Organization of Economic Cooperation’s summit. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Aliyev, in turn, last visited Tehran in 2005.
Editor’s Note: Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance journalist based in Baku.
(© Eurasianet. - http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav082407.shtml) |
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Enviado - 07 septiembre 2007 : 14:59:43
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FOCUS ON ISLAM IN AZERBAIJAN
YOUNG PEOPLE INCREASINGLY DRAWN TO ISLAM
Moderate clerics say heavy-handed authorities fail to distinguish between ordinary mosque-goers and extremists
By Leila Amirova in Baku
Ilgar Ibrahimoglu is the most visible of a new generation of Muslim teachers who are teaching young Azerbaijanis about Islam. Every weekend a group of them come to his office in Baku to learn about the Islamic way of life.
Ibrahimoglu's problems illustrate the ambivalence of attitudes towards religion in Azerbaijan, an overwhelmingly Muslim country.
The young imam says that he tries to bring people together from the Shia and Sunni communities to unite against Islamic radicals. His approach has won him respect from young people who say they believe the different trends of Islam do not contradict one another.
But Ibrahimoglu's syncretic, moderate views have not shielded him from hostility from the authorities.
The majority of Azerbaijanis are Shia, especially in the south closer to Iran, but there are large numbers of Sunnis as well, mostly in northern areas.
In common with its close neighbour Turkey, Azerbaijan has a secular constitution and its rulers are suspicious of anything that smacks of radical Islam. In Soviet times, there were heavy restrictions on public worship, many mosques were closed and mullahs were only seen at funeral ceremonies.
In the years that followed the end of the Soviet Union, there was almost no one qualified to teach the principles of Islam in Azerbaijan, as there were no functioning madrassahs or Islamic schools. The opening of the borders meant Azerbaijanis could go and study abroad, but it also allowed fundamentalists to come in and proselytise.
"When I began to take an interest in Islam, I couldn't find a single person to give proper answers to my questions," Ibrahimoglu told IWPR. "I wasn't satisfied by the answers of the 'Red mullahs' who worked here in Soviet times. A lot of things about Islam remained unclear for me."
Over the course of nine years, Ibrahimoglu studied in a number of Muslim countries, learning Islamic philosophy and theology. He also studied western philosophy and human rights in Warsaw.
On his return. he became the imam, or prayer leader, of the Juma mosque in Baku. He also became well-known as a human rights activist and a leading expert in the fight against drug abuse and alcoholism.
Ibrahimoglu recalls when he started teaching, his first class - on Islamic philosophy - was set for seven in the morning, and he was not sure whether many people would come. But the classes were crowded from the first day, and so far 3,000 people have passed through them.
"Our community is fighting for the purity and education of youth," he said. "We have been able to break down the Soviet-era religious stereotypes, and we are very proud of that."
However, Ibrahimoglu fell foul of the authorities, and the Juma mosque is now closed.
The official reason for the closure is "repairs". But it is commonly held that the real motivation is Ibrahimoglu's support for opposition candidate Isa Gambar against the governing elite in the disputed presidential election of 2003. He was given a conditional prison sentence for allegedly inciting opposition demonstrators during the street clashes with police that followed the ballot.
His case is now before the European Court of Human Rights.
Surveys suggest that Azerbaijan has become a much more religious country since it became independent in 1991. According to a recent poll taken by the ADAM agency, 88 per cent of young people said they believed in God and only five per cent said they were atheists. A quarter of young people said they believed the country should be run by Islamic law.
At the same time, most of those polled said they did not worship actively.
Ibrahimoglu says the changes have really been rather superficial. "A lot needs to be done so that people can get through the post-Soviet period," he said. "At the moment we see only the extremes. The quality of Islam is not reflected in the number of believers. A lot of practices are not being observed as before."
Many Azerbaijanis - and especially the police - take a dim view of young women wearing hijab, or young men with beards and trousers that end below the knee. There is a strong fear of Wahhabism, the not always accurate name by which fundamentalist Sunni Islam is commonly known in the former Soviet Union.
Zakir Shikhkerimov from the northern town of Zakatala has experienced this animosity at first hand. He has been going to the mosque regularly for two years, prays five times a day, has a beard and does not drink.
"A beard is the distinguishing mark of a Muslim man," he said. "The Prophet Muhammad wore one."
As a result, Shikhkerimov began to be harassed by the police. "Last winter I was arrested by the police who started accusing me of having links with the Wahhabis," he said. "They forcibly shaved off my beard."
Lawyer Elman Osmanov has been acting on behalf of 50 devout Muslims from four regions of northern Azerbaijan who say that they have been abused by the police. "We have to put a stop to this kind of harassment, otherwise there could be serious problems in the future," he warned.
The interior ministry denies such allegations. "We have no concrete evidence suggesting that force has been used against resident of the northern regions of Azerbaijan for wearing a beard," said interior ministry spokesman Ehsan Zahidov.
The ministry promised to investigate any written complaints. However people are afraid of filing such complaints in case that just lands them in worse trouble.
Ibrahimoglu angrily rejects the idea that by detaining bearded Muslims, the authorities are preventing the rise of Islamic radicalism. In fact, he said, such heavy-handed treatment is counter-productive.
"Illegal actions like these are creating fertile soil for the growth of various kinds of extremist and radical movements such as Wahhabism, which have essentially nothing to do with the holy religion of Islam," he said.
"In its essence, Islam is far removed from any kind of radicalism and extremism, and calls for moderation in all forms of human activity."
Baku's Abu-Bakr mosque, which receives funding from Kuwait, is one of the places of worship under particular scrutiny from the authorities for its alleged links to Wahhabi groups.
The mosque is the biggest centre of "alternative Islam" in the country, with more than 7,000 attending the weekly Friday prayers. Sometimes there is no room inside and the congregation spills out into the street outside.
In 2001, 35 worshippers from the mosque were given prison sentences for conspiring to go and fight alongside militants in Chechnya. The imam of the Abu-Bakr mosque, Haji Hamet Suleimanov, denies that his mosque was directly involved.
"It's possible that individuals who took part in military action against the authorities in those regions did pray at our mosque at one time," Suleimanov told IWPR. "But I can assure you that there was no psychological training for these people at our mosque."
Hidayat Orujev, head of the Azerbaijani government's state committee for work with religious organisations, said that there was a risk that radical Islamic movements could spread.
"But they are not capable of affecting stability in the country. They are not strong enough to influence Azerbaijani society, democracy or freedom of speech," he added.
As the Soviet past recedes further, Islamic practice in Azerbaijan is becoming not only more diverse, but increasingly using modern methods to take root.
Rufiz Rahimov, a religious teacher who enjoys a great deal of authority amongst Sunnis in particular, is the founder of a website called Azerimuslims.com.
"Our aim is to serve all the Islamic currents in the country," he said. "We respect the views of both Sunnis and Shia. At the same time, we don't hide the fact that the website's creators are Sunni."
Rahimov believes that the number of Muslim believers is growing and that this is having a positive effect on young people who have felt their lives were empty.
"Not knowing how to deal with their psychological problems, young people are turning to God," he said.
Leila Amirova is a freelance journalist based in Baku. This and the following article were produced as part of IWPR's Cross Caucasus Journalism Network project.
(IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 407-8, August 31, 2007.) |
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Enviado - 26 septiembre 2007 : 14:36:02
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PRELIMINARY HEARING ON CASE AGAINST NEWSPAPERS AND NGO HEAD CONDUCTED
24/09/2007
Today in the Sabail District Court, under the chairmanship of Judge Famil Nasibov, a hearing on Lankeran Humanities College Director Jahangir Ibrahimov’s lawsuit against several newspapers and the head of the Women’s Crisis Center took place. During the proceeding, “Azadlig” Newspaper lawyer Elchin Sadigli, citing point 3 of article 62 of the Republic of Azerbaijan’s law on mass media, claimed that “Azadlig” Newspaper needs to be removed from the list of defendants in this case. According to this law, a mass media institution does not bear any responsibility for incorrect information taken with a citation from other mass media sources that are not refuted. “Azadlig” Newspaper took this information from another mass media source and to this day no refutation has been published. After this the judge announced that at 6 p.m. today he will announced his decision whether to consider Ibrahimov’s case or not.
In the hearing conducted a 6 p.m. today the judge announced that he would not fulfill Sadigli’s petition to have “Azadlig” Newspaper removed from the list of defendants, he had accepted the case for consideration, and that he has scheduled the next hearing on this case for 1 October at 11 a.m.
Recall that on 17 August 2007 Ibrahimov filed a lawsuit against "Merkez" Newspaper Chief Editor Shirzad Mammedli and a correspondent of the same newspaper writing under the name "Lala," "Azadlig" Newspaper Chief Editor Genimet Zahid, "Olaylar" Newspaper Chief Editor Yunus Oghuz and "Women's Crisis Center" Director Matanet Azizova, due to article "Impropriety in College?," which was run in the 31 June 2007 edition of "Merkez" Newspaper. The article, based on information included in the teacher's appeal, which was provided by Azizova to "Merkez" Newspaper, was later picked up by "Azadlig" and "Olaylar." Ibrahimov is seeking the imprisonment of all five of these people due libel and defamation, articles 147 and 148 of Azerbaijan's Criminal Code.
(From Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety, Baku.) |
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Enviado - 04 octubre 2007 : 14:24:08
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NATO ENVOY VISITS AZERBAIJAN, PRAISES COOPERATION PLANS
Following a round of meetings in Baku with senior Azerbaijani officials -- including Defense Minister Safar Abiyev and Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov -- visiting special representative of the NATO secretary-general for the South Caucasus and Central Asia Robert Simmons met on September 28 with President Ilham Aliyev, ANS-TV and Turan reported. The NATO official praised the recent completion of first phase of cooperation between Azerbaijan and NATO, but called on Azerbaijani officials to adopt further steps to improve the next stage of the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP). That next stage of the agreement covers the coming two years of Azerbaijan s activities and overall relations with NATO and, according to Simmons, includes "very significant reforms" and reflects the goals of military "modernization and integration into civil society." During a press conference on September 29, Simmons added that the first stage of the IPAP has been "successfully completed" and welcomed the implementation of effective reforms within the Defense Ministry, the creation of an Emergency Situations Ministry, and greater cooperation with the country s border guards and Interior Ministry. Simmons also introduced Zbiegnew Rybazky, the new NATO coordinator in the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
RG
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DIRECTOR OF U.S. INTELLIGENCE VISITS AZERBAIJAN
Reportedly part of a broader regional tour, Michael Hayden, the director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), arrived in Baku on September 28 for a one-day visit, Turan reported. The CIA director met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, National Security Minister Eldar Mahmudov, and other senior officials to discuss issues of "regional security" and concerning global fight against terrorism. The opposition daily newspaper "Yeni Musavat" reported on 29 September that Hayden "urged President Ilham Aliyev to help Georgia prevent Russian plans to overthrow [Georgian] President Mikheil Saakashvili" and discussed the situation in Iran.
RG
(RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 11, No. 181, Part I, 1 October 2007.)
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Enviado - 06 octubre 2007 : 15:27:47
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U.S. AMBASSADOR PLEDGES SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRATIC REFORM IN AZERBAIJAN
AND DENOUNCES VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS
Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Baku, U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Anne Derse affirmed on October 1 that "the main priority of the U.S. in Azerbaijan is to support democratic reform," adding that "we think that the parliament should become independent, free, and the main institute for the democratic development of the country," Turan and ANS-TV reported.
Noting the opening session of the Azerbaijan parliament the same day, Derse called on the parliament to adopt the recommendations presented by the Council of Europe's Venice Commission, including measures related to the laws on freedom of assembly. She further stressed that the conduct of "free, fair, and transparent presidential elections in 2008 is the main task" to be addressed by the parliament, referring to the planned consideration of amendments to the country's electoral code and voting procedures. She described next year's election as "a major opportunity" for Azerbaijan and "a necessary step to a higher level of democracy."
Derse also discussed the U.S. government's multimillion-dollar project designed to strengthen the Azerbaijani parliament as an institution, explaining that the effort will "create special offices in constituencies to improve the relationships between voters and deputies," according to the day.az website.
In comments during the same Baku press conference, U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Derse on October 1 denounced violence against reporters, warning that "we are very concerned by any reports of beating or unjustified detention of citizens or journalists," according to Turan.
Derse's remarks came in response to reports alleging the detention and torture of opposition journalist Hakim Eldostu Mehdiyev in the Autonomous Republic of Naxcivan. Two staff members of the U.S. Embassy in Baku recently visited the exclave to conduct their own independent inquiry into the case. She also said that the U.S. position on the issue remains firm, reiterating that "any violence -- beating, killing or use of force -- against media representatives by government officials is unacceptable," and calling for "each of those cases to be thoroughly investigated and criminals to be brought to justice."
The Mehdiyev case also led the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders group to demand his release, citing an unfair arrest after his writing about gas and electricity problems for the opposition "Yeni Musavat" newspaper.
RG
(RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 11, No. 182, Part I, 2 October 2007.)
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Enviado - 08 octubre 2007 : 23:08:00
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L'Azerbaijan scopre le energie rinnovabili
Il settore energetico gioca un ruolo primario nell'economia dell'Azerbaijan. Ora il Paese caucasico
grande produttore di petrolio, si avvicina alle energie rinnovabili
scrive Roberta Bertoldi
OSSERVATORIO SUI BALCANI
02.10.2007
L'economia dell'Azerbaijan è in crescita. Grazie alle scorte di petrolio e gas naturale il prodotto nazionale lordo è aumento lo scorso anno del 34.5% . A ciò si aggiunge il profitto proveniente dall'oleodotto Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (Btc), una rendita che Baku intende gestire nel migliore dei modi, sia politicamente sia economicamente. Tuttavia, secondo gli esperti, le riserve di petrolio tra venti-trent'anni finiranno anche per l'Azerbaijan e così il governo azero ha colto la sfida e ha lanciato nuove iniziative per l'uso e la ricerca sulle energie alternative.
Parte delle spese saranno affrontate proprio con i profitti provenienti dallo sfruttamento e dalla vendita del petrolio ma anche con ingenti finanziamenti esteri e gli investitori sono già ai blocchi di partenza.
L'uso dell'energia eolica è particolarmente interessate soprattutto nella penisola di Absheron , dove la velocità del vento varia tra i 7 e gli 8 metri al secondo per circa 280 giorni all'anno e così il primo impianto è già in progetto. L'impianto genererà 20 megawatts di potenza giornaliera, costerà 40 milioni di dollari e il 20% della spesa sarà sostenuto dall'azienda sud coreana STX Energy che ne curerà la realizzazione.
Rimane il problema di creare le infrastrutture necessarie all'introduzione di energie rinnovabili nella vecchia rete elettrica. A tale proposito si pensa di affidarsi al know-how tedesco. Michael Nosiadek della German-Azerbaijani Economic Foundation sostiene che l'uso dell'energia eolica sarebbe ideale per fornire elettricità in particolare ai piccoli villaggi dove non occorre creare una rete di grande distribuzione e il costo dell'energia prodotta potrebbe essere disgiunto da quello del gas e del petrolio che dall'inizio dell'anno è triplicato.
Anche il Programma delle Nazioni Unite per lo Sviluppo UNDP ha sostenuto la realizzazione di due progetti per fonti alternative di energia. Il primo prevede lo studio di applicazioni che sfruttano l'energia idroelettrica e ha un cospicuo finanziamento da parte del Governo Norvegese (1,5 milioni di dollari) il secondo è finanziato da Global Environmental Facility e UNDP e sostiene lo sviluppo di impianti eolici per 45 mila dollari. A ciò si aggiunge un progetto di studio sulle energie rinnovabili finanziato dal Governo Finlandese con il contributo del Governo azero e dall'Asian Development Bank (ADB) per 900 mila dollari.
Certo l'impegno per sostenere lo sviluppo di energie rinnovabili in Azerbaijan è ben lontano dal coinvolgimento che ha condotto alla realizzazione dell'oleodotto Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (Btc). Lungo 1765 km, con un costo complessivo di quattro miliardi di dollari, il Btc è un'opera altamente strategica che consente di trasportare greggio dal Mar Caspio fino al Mediterraneo orientale, da dove raggiunge i mercati occidentali ma l'oleodotto oltre all’oro nero trascina attraverso il Paese problemi e preoccupazioni.
L'industria petrolchimica causa seri danni ambientali in Azerbaijan. Il recente Rapporto del Blacksmith Institute stilato in collaborazione con l’associazione ambientalista Green Cross indica proprio la città azera Sumgait tra i siti più inquinati del pianeta. Il rapporto rileva che il tasso di cancro a Sumgait è dal 22% al 51% più elevato della media del Paese. Le mutazioni genetiche dei nuovi nati sono molto diffuse.
Un'attenzione all'ambiente e alla ricerca di fonti energetiche pulite, diventa perciò importante scelta politica per questo Paese.
(http://www.osservatoriocaucaso.org/article/articleview/8327/1/204/) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 17 octubre 2007 : 21:19:03
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AZERI GOVERNMENT LAUNCHES NGO PROGRAMME
Observers debate whether a new programme funnelling government money into non-governmental organisations will help or harm the NGO sector
By Sevinj Telmanqizi in Baku
The Azerbaijani authorities are due this month to launch a new programme which they will say will oversee and give support to hundreds of non-governmental organisations or NGOs across the country.
While the government insists the aim is to increase funding for NGOs, some activists are fearful that the real intention is to impose control over their work.
A presidential decree was signed at the end of July which authorised the creation of a new body to handle NGO affairs as well as an NGO support fund. Consultations on the process are due to end on October 17.
Officials point out that in western countries, NGOs receive substantial state support, with for example around half of the budgets of such organisations in Britain and the United States coming from government sources. Azerbaijan, they argue, needs to be able to hand out state grants in the same way.
But critics of the programme fear it is designed to counteract the influence of foreign donors and the NGOs they fund - many of which are strongly critical of the government's policies and record on human rights. Member of parliament Alimamed Nuriev said international donors allocated around 50-60 million manats (60 to 70 million US dollars) a year to Azerbaijani NGOs, and that the government should distribute the same amount.
"Of course, initially it will be difficult to provide that much money for NGOs out of the budget," he said. "I think that fairly big sums will be allocated in the first two years, as there will be a need for funds to set up the envisaged state body during the period. But subsequently, a certain part of the state budget will be provided to NGOs -0.5 to one per cent of budgetary revenues."
Ali Hasanov, who heads public relations department of the presidential administration, said that the government's message to NGOs was, "If you don't want to be controlled, no one will control you".
But he went on to warn opposition organisations, "Many NGOs are politicised nowadays, doing things that are no concern of theirs. Mostly, they act under the patronage of various political organisations."
Hasanov said he hoped NGOs would start publishing reports on their projects so that everyone could read them.
"NGOs advocating openness should be the first to keep their work transparent. In all democratic countries, the state provides material support to NGOs. That is also the case in Baltic countries and Georgia. It doesn't mean that NGOs in these countries are government-controlled, does it?"
NGO activists engaged in politically sensitive work are alarmed. Arastun Orujlu, who heads the East-West Research Centre, said he was worried that the real aim was to assert control over NGOs ahead of next year's presidential elections. "The fact that the decree coincides with the pre-election period makes one pause for thought," he said.
Eldar Zeinalov, director of the Human Rights Centre of Azerbaijan, said that in general he welcomed the new programme, because it would assure funding for NGOs working in areas like culture or architecture which did not receive western grants.
But he insisted that grant-funded "politicised NGOs" were an inevitable phenomenon in Azerbaijan, where there was no proper system for funding political parties.
In the Nineties, most NGOs in Azerbaijan were perceived as being close to the opposition, but they have been more politically diverse in the past seven or eight years.
There are now estimated to be around 2,500 registered such organisations in the country and a further 500 unregistered ones. In fact, says Azai Guliev, chairman of the Forum of NGOs, only around 15 per cent of them are active.
Saida Gojamanly, director of the Bureau for Protection of Human Rights and Legality, believes the new programme could be good for civil society - but only if the president protects it from being abused by officials.
"In 1998, [former president] Heidar Aliev signed a document on the development of human rights," she said. "However, instead of developing human rights, they simply created a state-controlled network of NGOs. That is why it is essential this time, that the president himself oversees the enforcement of the decree, so as to prevent officials from crushing it underfoot."
Gubad Ibadoglu, head of the Economic Research Centre, said it would be a good thing if a system of open tenders for grants was introduced, but he feared this was unlikely to happen because the NGO sector was so heavily politicised, with a clear division into pro- and anti-government camps.
"Only a few NGOs stand in the middle, and it's rather difficult to keep to a middle course," he said. "NGOs should be assessed according to what they do, irrespective of what their positions are. It's likely that preference will be given to pro-governmental organisations when projects are selected. That is why we should try to find a format that ensures that state funding is distributed transparently."
Sevinj Telmanqizi is a correspondent with Yeni Musavat newspaper in Baku.
(IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 414, October 11, 2007.) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 18 enero 2008 : 00:47:35
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Black January Story - As viewed through photographers' lens
For those of you who are thinking about the Black January events.
Here is a story we did in Azerbaijan International. It's one of those stories that makes such a deep impression - that it just doesn't go away.
Back in 1998, I did an interview with Reza - the famous AZ photographer who lives in Paris and who now works with National Geographic. He's famous for that photo on the cover of Newsweek of the American hostage blindfolded when the American Embassy was under siege in Tehran in 1981.
When the difficulties broke out in January 1990, Reza heard of the problems in AZ, flew from Paris to Moscow, took a train to Baku and smuggled himself into the morgues and hospitals. It was an extremely dangerous and harrowing trip. I pass the story and photos to you. Reza is one of the great world photographers with a conscience.
Here is background to a story and sacrifice of civilians so that AZ could have its independence today.
Spring 1998 (6.1)
Black January: Baku (1990)
Behind the Scenes - A Photojournalist's Perspective
by Reza with Betty Blair
http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/61_folder/61_articles/61_blackjanuary.html
(Source: azerbaijani_studies@yahoogroups.com , January 12, 2008.) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 11 febrero 2008 : 13:19:28
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PACE RAPPORTEUR DEPLORES DIVISIONS IN AZERBAIJANI SOCIETY
Speaking at a press conference in Baku on February 7, the final day of a four-day visit to Azerbaijan, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) co-rapporteur for Azerbaijan Andreas Herkel deplored the divide in Azerbaijani society and called for dialogue in the run-up to the presidential election due in October in order to defuse tensions, day.az and echo-az.com reported on February 7 and 8, respectively.
Herkel said he succeeded in meeting with several imprisoned former officials and journalists jailed for their professional activities, including former Health Minister Ali Insanov, Ruslan Basirli, head of the youth organization Yeni Fikir, and independent journalist Eynulla Fatullayev. He argued that the composition of election commissions should be amended to reassure the entire population that future ballots will be free and fair.
Herkel said that government officials have assured him that earlier plans to monitor internet access and usage have been shelved, day.az reported. Herkel also said that he failed to reach agreement on all points he raised during talks with President Ilham Aliyev; he did not elaborate.
LF
(RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 12, No. 27, Part I, 8 February 2008.)
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 15 marzo 2008 : 01:22:42
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Azerbaïdjan : Le card. Bertone inaugure la première église catholique
Anita S. Bourdin
ZENIT
07-03-2008
ROME, Vendredi 7 mars 2008 (ZENIT.org) - Le cardinal secrétaire d'Etat Tarcisio Bertone a inaugué la première église catholique de la République d'Azerbaïdjan, à Bakou, où il est arrivé le 6 mars. Un signe de tolérance dans un pays majoritairement musulman.
Après une rencontre avec le Premier ministre, M. Rasi-zadeh, qui a premis de réaffirmer l'importance de la proximité pacifique des Etats en vue de la stabilité des équilibres internationaux, le card. Bertone a inauguré, ce vendredi matin, au nom du pape, une église dédiée à l'Immaculée Conception. Le cardinal Bertone y voit un signe de « tolérance religieuse authentique » sur cette terre dont la population est en majorité musulmane.
Le cardinal Bertone a également déposé une gerbe sur la tombe du défunt président Heydar Aliyev, qui avait justement offert à Jean-Paul II, lors de sa visite en 2002, le terrain sur lequel est bâti cette première église catholique du pays.
Ce fut, soulignait le cardinal Bertone lors de l'inauguration, « une preuve de sa volonté de faire de la tolérance religieuse un vrai pilier de de la vie » de la Nation.
En outre, il a permis la construction d'une maison pour les sans-abri confiée aux religieuses de Mère Teresa de Calcutta.
Cette volonté de tolérance est aussi celle de son fils, le président actuel, M. Ilhm Aliyev, présent à l'inauguration, avec le Corps diplomatique à Bakou.
Lisez l'article complet à / Llegiu l'article complet a / Leed el artículo completo en: http://www.zenit.org/article-17466?l=french
(© Innovative Media, Inc.) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 23 marzo 2008 : 18:02:06
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Le Conseil de l'Europe s'inquiète pour les journalistes en Azerbaïdjan
LE MONDE, Paris
19.03.2008
Le Conseil de l'Europe s'est inquiété mercredi de la "dégradation de la liberté d'expression" en Azerbaïdjan après la condamnation à de lourdes peines de prison, ces derniers mois, de plusieurs journalistes connus pour leurs opinions critiques.
Le secrétaire général de l'organisation Terry Davis estime "inacceptable" que les autorités utilisent cette méthode pour "intimider et réduire au silence les voix critiques dans la société", dans un communiqué publié à Strasbourg.
"Je tiens à souligner que, lors de l'adhésion de l'Azerbaïdjan au Conseil de l'Europe, les autorités de ce pays ont volontairement souscrit à l'obligation claire et juridiquement contraignante de respecter et de protéger les droits fondamentaux, y compris la liberté d'expression, tels qu'ils sont garantis par la Convention européenne des droits de l'Homme", ajoute M. Davis.
"J'attends d'elles qu'elles s'abstiennent de tout comportement incompatible avec leurs obligations en tant que membre du Conseil de l'Europe", indique-t-il encore.
(0,14-0,39-34758993@7-58,0.html" target="_blank">http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/web/depeches/0,14-0,39-34758993@7-58,0.html) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 05 abril 2008 : 17:47:58
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Time to Roll Up Aliev’s Red Carpet
The Azeri president is getting a free ride while the assault on civil liberties continues
TRANSITIONS ONLINE
28 March 2008
If you are a president in trouble at home, overseas visits can provide a satisfying escape. George W. Bush is a lame duck whose military blunders and economic neglect make him wildly unpopular with Americans. So it was off to friendly Africa recently, and next month to Bucharest for his last NATO summit. Nicolas Sarkozy’s marital problems, bizarre courtship of Bush, and hyperactive reforms sent French voters swinging back to the left in municipal elections earlier this month. Le président now seems more comfortable working as the global salesman for the French nuclear industry.
But there’s no such trouble for Azeri President Ilham Aliev. His Yeni Azerbaijan Party has a lock on power, the opposition is weak, and oil and international investors have enriched the country (or at least the glittering capital Baku). Aliev has powerful friends in Ankara and Washington who like his energy assets and his secularist approach to governing a Muslim state. It all points to a preordained outcome in the October presidential election.
There is much to be said for the Aliev regime. Ilham inherited a relatively desperate country from his father, Heidar Aliev, in 2003. Since then, Azerbaijan has benefited from escalating petroleum prices, and energy resources give him influence well beyond the size of the Caucasus country of 8.1 million people.
Aliev has used his golden touch to his benefit abroad. Although the country remains a member of the Moscow-backed Commonwealth of Independent States and still has close economic ties to Russia, Aliev has shaken off the old Soviet yoke that empowered his father. Baku has sent troops to back the U.S. invasion of Iraq, helps out on NATO missions, and in 2005 won coveted partnership status with NATO despite Russia’s concerns about being flanked by the alliance.
This has won Aliev accolades, especially from Washington. “We've just had a really interesting visit,” Bush said after meeting Aliev at the White House on 28 April 2006. “And we talked about the need to – for the world to see a modern Muslim country that is able to provide for its citizens, that understands that democracy is the wave of the future. And I appreciate your leadership, Mr. President.”
Just last week, Georgetown University in Washington hosted a half-day program on Azerbaijan. Baku’s ambassador to Washington delivered the opening remarks, followed by relatively harmless discussions on topics like Azerbaijan’s “contribution to the global energy balance.”
THE DARK SIDE
That’s the Azerbaijan Aliev must love to hear about. But there’s the other face of Azerbaijan, and its president in particular.
Aliev’s regime has made life hell for independent journalists. Reporters Without Borders gives the Azeri leader a place in its rogue’s gallery of media “predators,” along with the presidents of Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Uzbekistan.
The Media Rights Institute in Baku has issued a damning report detailing how the courts play into the president’s hand. The group’s 2007 annual report lists three dozen cases where journalists were fined for causing “moral damage” – mostly in defamation cases brought by public officials. One of the more high-profile cases involved a correspondent for the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, who was sentenced without a lawyer present and imprisoned in December on dubious charges of defaming the police.
Since then, Aliev has pardoned five detained journalists, but several more remain in jail and other forms of intimidation continue. The Committee to Protect Journalists documents numerous cases of arbitrary arrest and assaults on journalists that go unprosecuted. On 13 March, a reporter for the opposition daily Azadlyg was wounded in a knife attack. The same journalist had been beaten a month earlier while reporting a story. While there is no direct evidence that the assaults were politically motivated, the 25-year-old reporter had been warned by the authorities about his reporting. Last year, a reporter for the now-shuttered daily Gundalik Azarbaycan was severely beaten after publishing articles on graft in the Defense Ministry. The police never investigated the case.
CRACKDOWN ON FAITH
But it’s not just reporters who face trouble. Aliev, who wears the mantle of a U.S. ally in the anti-terrorism fight, is also targeting independent Islamic groups in the country. A report released this week by the International Crisis Group warns of an escalation in the crackdown on moderate Islamic leaders who oppose the official clergy. The organization accuses the government of using “excessive means to control peaceful religious activities,” including secret trials and obtaining forced evidence.
“Harassment of independent believers, even if not on a mass scale, runs the danger of pushing otherwise peaceful groups toward radicalization, if not … overt violence,” says the Crisis Group report, “Azerbaijan: Independent Islam and the State.”
To its credit, the U.S. State Department has urged Baku to strengthen its avowed commitment to civil liberties and democracy, and has urged Aliev to institute reforms that will create a more independent judiciary and legislature. And Washington condemned Baku’s treatment of the RFE correspondent. It has also pressed Baku to settle its longstanding conflict with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh – a frozen conflict that both sides use to stoke nationalism among their populations.
But Washington remains mostly feckless in its dealings with Azerbaijan on human rights and political pluralism. As Lincoln A. Mitchell points out this week in a TOL commentary, three other presidential elections in the former Soviet Union this year all showed that U.S. efforts to build democracy in this region are either struggling (Georgia) or failing (Armenia and Russia), and there is little to suggest that Azerbaijan will be any different in October.
A docile opposition means Azeris have little choice when it comes to politics. And even if they did, the regime’s intolerance of independent reporting makes access to information difficult. But Aliev shouldn’t be getting such a free ride.
NATO, for one, should bar the door to “partners” like him who fail to meet the alliance’s democratic standards. And the Bush administration could set an example for its successor by denying legitimacy to regimes like Aliev’s. That means no more red-carpet treatment at the White House, and putting pressure on friendly countries like Turkey to demand accountability from its Caucasus ally. Aliev may not be a lame duck at home, but giving him lame-duck treatment abroad might nudge him to make future elections less of an exercise in futility.
(http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=262&NrSection=2&NrArticle=19480) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 08 abril 2008 : 20:59:43
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Azerbaijan: rapporti tra Stato e Islam
A cura dell'International Crisis Group, Europe Report N°191; Baku/Tbilisi/Brussels, 25 marzo 2008;
(titolo originale: “Azerbaijan: Independent Islam and the State”).
Traduzione di Carlo Dall’Asta per
OSSERVATORIO SUL CAUCASO
01.04.2008
In Azerbaijan il governo controlla severamente le comunità religiose islamiche con il rischio di spingere gruppi, altrimenti pacifici, verso idee più radicali. Un rapporto di Crisis Group
Scarica il Rapporto N°191 dell'International Crisis Group (pdf): http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/europe/caucasus/191_azerbaijan_independent_islam_and_the_state.pdf
Le voci secondo cui gravi attentati terroristici sarebbero stati sventati in Azerbaijan alla fine del 2007 hanno stimolato la discussione su fino a che punto nel Paese petrolifero l'estremismo islamico sia davvero una minaccia. L'Azerbaijan è uno Stato laico con una popolazione in prevalenza composta da musulmani moderati (soprattutto sciiti). Fin dalla separazione dall'Unione Sovietica e dall'indipendenza del 1991, sono emersi gruppi indipendenti sunniti e sciiti che rifiutano l'autorità spirituale del clero ufficiale. Alcuni sono gruppi politicizzati ma ma molto pochi - e probabilmente nessuno - sembrano orientati ad impiegare la violenza per rovesciare lo Stato. Il governo ha comunque espresso preoccupazione rispetto a questi gruppi “indipendenti”, e cerca di controllarli anche attraverso la repressione. Questa strategia rischia però di radicalizzare dei pacifici attivisti religiosi.
Dopo il 1991 l'Azerbaijan è diventato un obiettivo per vari movimenti religiosi che vi si contendono la supremazia. Sono arrivati per fare proselitismo missionari e beneficenze dall'Iran, dal Medio Oriente e dalla Turchia, come pure singoli individui dal Caucaso settentrionale russo. Alcuni si è detto fossero legati alle reti dei militanti islamici, inclusa al-Qaeda. Molti sono stati espulsi dallo Stato, e attualmente solo i gruppi turchi continuano a lavorare relativamente indisturbati.
In larga misura ispirate e finanziate da gruppi stranieri, le comunità religiose indipendenti sono cresciute molto più rapidamente delle moschee ufficiali. Il Salafismo, di cui fino a venti anni fa in Azerbaijan non si era praticamente mai sentito parlare, si è guadagnato una solida posizione soprattutto a Baku e nel Nord del Paese. Anche i gruppi di sciiti che si rifiutano di riconoscere la leadership spirituale sostenuta dallo Stato sono diventati sempre più numerosi, ma solo pochi di loro possono essere considerati gruppi politici, e ancora meno militanti. Nondimeno, il governo è sospettoso verso tutte le espressioni indipendenti dell'Islam e cerca di controllare questi gruppi attraverso il Comitato Statale per la Collaborazione con le Oganizzazioni Religiose (SCWRO) e i Consiglio dei Musulmani del Caucaso (CBM), e generalmente reprime prontamente le manifestazioni di indipendenza. I pacifici seguaci dei gruppi al di fuori del controllo del CBM sono, stando a quanto essi stessi dicono, regolarmente perseguitati e imprigionati.
Il governo giustifica la sua linea dura menzionando l'esigenza di combattere l'estremismo e di prevenire il terrorismo, e adduce significativi successi. All'inizio degli anni '90, lo Stato era relativamente debole, e apparentemente erano attivi alcuni gruppi estremisti. Nel rafforzarsi lo Stato è diventato, si dice, sempre più abile nell'arrestare e nel condannare gli estremisti. Gli osservatori indipendenti mettono però in dubbio che le persone fatte oggetto di questo trattamento abbiano effettivamente dei legami operativi con gli estremisti.
Il governo ha impiegato metodi eccessivi per controllare delle pacifiche attività religiose, e i processi dei presunti estremisti si tengono spesso a porte chiuse, utilizzando prove raccolte sotto coercizione. Le comunità religiose indipendenti, nonché alcuni esponenti dell'opposizione politica, sostengono che le autorità esagerano la minaccia terrorista islamica per guadagnare dall'Occidente simpatie e tolleranza per le loro inclinazioni antidemocratiche. La tattica del governo rischia come minimo di spingere gruppi altrimenti pacifici verso la jihad; la radicalizzazione, se non è ancora aperta violenza, sta diventando però visibile in una minoranza della comunità salafite. La sfida è quella di fermare tutti i gruppi propensi alla violenza, pur assicurando la libertà di culto.
Il governo ha intrapreso alcuni passi per rafforzare la cooperazione coi credenti, migliorando l'istruzione per i giovani religiosi e riformando il CBM. Sta cercando di coltivare un Islam autoctono, basato su valori e tradizioni locali, per fermare l'invasione di forme di culto straniere, ma dovrebbe estendere i suoi sforzi fino ad includere le organizzazioni non governative (ONG) e le comunità indipendenti in un ampio dibattito su Stato e religione. E, cosa ancora più importante, il governo dovrebbe trovare un modo di rapportarsi coi gruppi indipendenti senza criminalizzarli e sia più rispettoso dei diritti religiosi.
(http://www.osservatoriocaucaso.org/article/articleview/9338/1/204/) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 11 abril 2008 : 00:33:33
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OSCE MEDIA OFFICIAL EXPRESSES CONCERN FOR DETAINED AZERBAIJANI JOURNALISTS
Speaking to reporters in Baku, the OSCE representative on the freedom of the media, Miklos Haraszti, expressed on April 7 his concern over the arrests of journalists in Azerbaijan and called for an end to the criminalization of defamation in the country, ANS-TV reported.
Haraszti stated that the "criminalization of journalists for libel, defamation and insult is unacceptable" and urged the Azerbaijani authorities to take immediate steps to prevent the violation of media rights in the country.
Haraszti's statements coincide with an ongoing hunger strike conducted by a group of opposition journalists, including two jailed opposition editors, Qanimat Zahid and Eynulla Fatullayev, demanding the release of all imprisoned journalists. U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Anne Derse also expressed similar concern about the poor state of media freedom in Azerbaijan.
Responding to the criticism, Siyavus Novruzov, a senior legislator from the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, countered on April 7 that "the hunger strike of journalists and the opposition's involvement in this action is a show" aimed at "putting pressure on Azerbaijan," according to the APA news agency. He added that the hunger strike was "orchestrated by foreign forces, countries, and embassies."
For his part, presidential-administration official Ali Hasanov argued on April 7 that the "media situation in Azerbaijan is not bad" and said that the government "condemned" the ongoing hunger strike, according to ANS-TV.
RG
(RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 12, No. 66, Part I, 8 April 2008.)
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Enviado - 07 junio 2008 : 23:52:08
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AZERBAIJAN: ELECTION CHANGES SPARK ANGER
Opposition claims legislative amendments are designed to undermine its election campaign
By Emil Guliev in Baku
Azerbaijani politicians are fighting the first battles of this October's presidential elections, arguing fiercely over legislation that will shape how the campaign will be conducted.
In its two last plenary sessions, the Azerbaijani parliament, the Milli Mejlis, has adopted amendments to two acts of legislation which will have a direct bearing on the campaign and on how the polls are conducted.
The opposition, which is already facing the prospect of a tough fight against incumbent president Ilham Aliev, who is expected to stand for a second term in the poll, says the changes will undermine the chance of the election being fair. Opposition leaders say they are considering a boycott.
"Sometimes bad amendments are introduced into a good law, but in our case even worse amendments are being brought into a bad law," said Panah Husein, a member of parliament for the opposition party Musavat.
The first set of changes concern the law on freedom of assembly. It has been changed so that anyone under 18 can only attend a rally with the permission of their parents, a meeting cannot be held without its organisers being present and foreigners resident in Azerbaijan are allowed to hold rallies.
The most controversial amendment is one which will disallow rallies "in the run up to" international meetings in Azerbaijan.
Gudrat Hasanguliev, head of the opposition party, the United Popular Front, says that the phrase "in the run up to" is worryingly ambiguous, as it is not clear whether it means a day, a week, a month or a year prior to the international gathering.
"Maybe I want to demonstrate against this international event," he said. "Why should I lose the right to do so? Even during G8 summits people get the chance to state their views about their policies."
Another opposition member of parliament Fazil Gazanfaroglu, said he was worried that the authorities might stop the organisers of a rally attending it, thus finding a legal pretext to declare it illegal.
It's not only the opposition which is unhappy. The head of the pro-government party Ana Veten, member of parliament Fazail Agamali, disagrees with the amendment allowing foreigners to hold rallies, saying this could be exploited by Azerbaijan's enemies.
"For example, the Iranian regime, which is not very kindly disposed towards Azerbaijan, could send 200 of its people to our country and give them large amounts of money," said Agamali. "In their turn, they could find their supporters and hold a protest rally calling for the establishment of an Islamic state in Azerbaijan.
"Unfortunately, after the changes in the law they will get a chance to do this."
Pro-government parliamentarian Ali Ahmedov countered that the aim of the changes was to make Azerbaijan more democratic and that the opposition was only angry because it was losing support.
"In the years 2003-05, Azerbaijan had more mass demonstrations than other countries," said Ahmedov. "Now the situation has changed and the opposition can't collect enough people to hold meetings. People have work to do and they have no reason to go out and demonstrate."
The opposition is even more indignant about the changes to the electoral code passed by parliament. The length of the election campaign has been reduced from 120 days to 75 and candidates for the presidency or parliament are now being denied the free campaigning airtime they formerly had on state television or radio - although they retain it on public television and will be allowed to buy airtime on private channels at commercial rates.
Arzu Samedbeili of Musavat is especially worried about the composition of the electoral commissions which oversee the voting on election-day. She says that a government majority in the commissions will ensure the result is biased and there should be equal representation for opposition and government in them.
"This is needed to maintain balance between political forces and public trust in the election results," she said. "If there is a majority in the commissions on the side of the authorities, then public trust in the results diminishes. By itself, the refusal of the authorities to form electoral commissions on the basis of parity gives grounds for people to make a negative conclusion on all the proposed changes."
First deputy speaker of parliament Ziyafet Askerov said that in 2000, at the request of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the commissions had been formed with equal numbers of government and opposition members, but the effect had been disastrous.
"The opposition took the decision to paralyse the activity of the central electoral commission and began to boycott its sessions. Even OSCE representatives appealed to them to attend electoral commission sessions but it was no use. In the end, they had to return to the old format."
Unlike in some countries - such as neighbouring Georgia - there is no provision for the head of state to stand down during the election campaign.
Daniel Blessington, head of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, one of the international organisations consulted on the amendments, had mixed feelings about the final outcome.
"On the whole the changes in the electoral code have toughened up the legislation," he said. "There are some points in which the [electoral] code has been improved. But I am critical of several of the amendments that have been brought in and I wouldn't say that every amendment has served to improve the legislation."
Opposition deputy Panah Husein said that up until now he had backed the idea that the opposition should contest the election, whatever happens, but he was not so sure now.
"The proposed changes are forcing people like myself to think again and provide additional arguments to people who want to boycott the elections. Taking into account the changes, the opposition ought to review its approach and its tactics for the election," he said.
Emil Guliev is a correspondent with Day.Az news agency.
(IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 447, June 5, 2008.) |
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Enviado - 01 julio 2008 : 20:19:24
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Azerbaïdjan: passe d’armes sur les risques de crise alimentaire
La Lettre du Courrier des pays de l'Est
N° 47 - juin 2008
Depuis avril, l’opposition a pour nouveau cheval de bataille les conséquences pour le pays, importateur de céréales, des turbulences sur le marché mondial des matières premières agricoles. Ainsi, elle reprend à son compte les propos d’un économiste renommé, directeur du Centre d’études économiques, qui prévoit la quasi-disparition des réserves de céréales et le doublement du prix du pain en Azerbaïdjan, avec la flambée des cours internationaux et le contingentement de leurs livraisons par ses principaux fournisseurs, la Russie et le Kazakhstan, lesquels entendent donner priorité à leurs marchés intérieurs.
Quant à la production nationale, en dépit du réensemencement de 127.000 hectares, elle aurait peu de chances d’atteindre l’objectif de 2-2,5 millions de tonnes du fait de pluies persistantes dans les régions productrices.
Côté gouvernement, on dénonce cette nouvelle campagne de propagande et on affiche un optimisme sans failles quant à l’abondance de la récolte et à la complaisance des céréaliers russes et kazakhes. Ceci étant, le ministre des Impôts et Taxes a annoncé, début juin, que les boulangeries allaient être exemptées de la TVA pour empêcher toute hausse autre que marginale de leurs prix et une délégation s’est discrètement rendue à Astana pour plaider le maintien des livraisons.
(http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/revues-collections/courrier-pays-est/lettre/lettre47.shtml?xtor=EPR-529) |
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Enviado - 01 agosto 2008 : 21:35:16
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Bloque opositor boicoteará elecciones presidenciales en Azerbaiyán
RIA Nóvosti, Moscú
21/ 07/ 2008
Bakú, 21 de julio, RIA Novosti. - El bloque opositor azerbaiyano Azadlig ("Libertad") anunció hoy la intención de boicotear las elecciones presidenciales del próximo 12 de octubre.
"Ya decidiremos, si va a ser un boicoteo activo o pasivo", declaró Hasan Kerimov, vicepresidente del Frente Popular de Azerbaiyán (FPA).
Kerimov agregó que Azadlig pretende convocar manifestaciones multitudinarias a favor del boicoteo, siempre y cuando el Gobierno cree las condiciones normales para ejercitar la libertad de reunión.
Además del FPA, pertenecen al bloque dos formaciones más: el Partido Liberal y Ciudadano y Desarrollo. Otras dos organizaciones que integraban este bloque creado en vísperas de las elecciones parlamentarias de 2005 - el Partido Democrático y Musawat - lo abandonaron después de celebrados los comicios.
(http://sp.rian.ru/onlinenews/20080721/114511015.html) |
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Enviado - 25 agosto 2008 : 13:26:39
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AZERBAIJANI MEDIA UNDER AD SQUEEZE
Opposition newspapers complain of advertising boycotts
By Roya Rafieva in Baku
IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE
No. 451, August 7, 2008
When a company in Baku wanted to advertise its product last year, it chose a popular opposition paper to get broad publicity - but then it thought again.
"We were told that we could lose our business or even the whole company," said an employee of the firm's press office, who declined to give his name.
Noting the bureaucratic obstacles that suddenly arise for those who refuse to comply, "The companies that do run these kind of ads [in opposition papers] get audited by the tax service, the health and safety directorate, and even the fire service and these agencies uncover a lot of problems."
In a market where advertising forms an important part of the media's revenue, political considerations dictate that outlets critical of the government do not get the advertisements they need to survive, while little-read pro-government media reap the benefits.
Nargiz Samadova works for the ministry of finance, where she says she and her colleagues are forced to subscribe to official newspapers that they never read. Her son works as advertising manager for a private company.
"[They are told that] from time to time placing ads in independent newspapers is permitted," said Samadova. "But placing one ad in an independent newspaper requires that it als be placed in some four to five official newspapers. And no ads are ever allowed in opposition newspapers, otherwise the punishment can be harsh."
Large companies and banks advertise their products almost exclusively in official newspapers.
"There are two reasons why this happens," said Mehman Aliev, head of the pro-opposition Turan news agency. "Firstly, these companies don't actually need advertisements at all, because of the shadow, closed and monopolistic economy... The second and main reason is the control exerted by the presidential administration. They want to keep newspapers dependent. Most of the media in the country, I'd say 90 or 95 per cent, are financed by the government."
Aliev said that in the West, around 70 per cent of media income is generated by advertising. "Taking this as a basis, the advertising market here should be no smaller than 100 million manats [123 million US dollars]. In reality, it's just two million manats."
"The ad market in Azerbaijan is run according to ideological rules, " said Arif Aliev, the founder of the independent Gun-Seher newspaper, which had to cease publication a couple of months ago because of financial difficulties. "In western countries, small businesses control 60 to 70 per cent and large ones 20 to 30 per cent of the advertising market. In Azerbaijan, 90 per cent of the advertising market belongs to big business."
Aliev said it was lack of advertising that forced him to shut his paper. "In 2005, we signed one-year advertising contracts with five banks," he recalled. "However on the eve of the parliamentary election in October 2005, all five banks refused to place ads with us. Later, we started to publish our magazine as a weekly but after that, before the next elections, we had to halt operations."
Elchin Shikhli, who is editor in chief of two independent newspapers called Ayna and Zerkalo, said the latter paper gets quite a lot of advertising, but that "the instructions are that a company that places an advertisement in an independent paper also has to run ads in a couple of state newspapers. The companies themselves have confirmed this to us."
Russian-language papers such as Zerkalo have a slightly easier life than their Azeri-language counterparts, presumably because their political influence is not deemed to be so great.
"Foreign companies operating here prefer to place advertisements in newspapers published in English and Russian," said an employee of the Poster Advertising Agency, who did not want to give his name.
Ilham Afandiev, head of the PR department for the popular Bakcell mobile phone company, confirmed there was a list of preferred newspapers and others which they chose not to deal with.
He said Bakcell pays for advertising slots in official newspapers such as Khalg, Azerbaijan and Respublika and independent ones such as Express, Sharg, 525-ji Gazet and Echo, running between ten and 12 ads a year in each of them.
He confirmed that Bakcell does not work with opposition newspapers, but said there was simply no tradition of dealing with opposition media. "We're not prejudiced against them," he insisted.
Pro-government newspapers deny that advertising is crucial for them.
Ramin Valibeyov, one of the managers of Yeni Azerbaijan, the official newspaper of the ruling party, said the market was very undeveloped.
"There are ads placed in our newspaper, but the income from them does not cover the expenses of the editorial office," he said. "There needs to be supply and demand if the advertising market is to develop. It looks as though the electronic media is more developed than print, and advertisers prefer to place ads in the electronic media."
Various solutions are being suggested to make the allocation of advertising more equitable.
The head of Azerbaijan's Press Council, Aflatun Amashov, says a new body should be created to distribute advertising fairly amongst newspapers.
"To solve this problem, we submitted a concept note on state support for the media to President Ilham Aliev a month ago. If advertisements are controlled from a single centre, the problem of placing unequal numbers of ads in different newspapers will be resolved. The Press Council can perform this role," he said."
However, large newspapers are sceptical about this plan.
Sujeddin Sharifov, editor of the pro-opposition Azadlig newspaper, says the Press Council has its own agenda and the plan will not work.
"The Press Council primarily consists of several small unknown and state newspapers," he said. "Once the council starts pushing for ads in its own newspapers, the situation will become even more difficult for independent and opposition newspapers."
Roya Rafieva is a journalist with Express newspaper in Baku. |
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Enviado - 27 agosto 2008 : 21:20:34
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Wahabbis in Azerbaijan
Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief
PoliGazette
August 9, 2008
Michael Totten, one of the others who go to Azerbaijan to speak at the conference on Azerbaijani - American relations, sent me a link to this article at Slate about Wahabbism in this country. It seems that Wahabbis, who support the radical Saudi-version of Islam, are trying to make converts by taking over mosques. Most such mosques have been closed down by the Azerbaijani government, which logically fears Wahabbis, but one remains open.
The one that remains open is the Abu Bakr mosque, located near the center of the country’s capital Baku.
The author of the article, Joshua Kucera, had the opportunity to visit this mosque and to talk to its visitors. Reading his report makes one thing clear; Wahabbism seems to have quite an appeal in Azerbaijan and these Azeris glorify Saudi Arabia, considering it a country in which ‘true Islam’ rules.
“If you go to Saudi Arabia and have nowhere to stay, you can ask any Muslim, and he will let you stay at his house for three days. That’s where you see true Islam,” Meydan, the man who showed Kucera around, said.
Meydan is a typical example of a Muslim living in a developing country who does not know much about the world, but who wants to live as good a life, as holy a life, as he can. Such individuals are easy victims for Wahabbis. It is easy for Wahabbis to pretend to people like Meydan that Wahabbism is true Islam and that life in Saudi Arabia is simply wonderful. Meydan is pious and wants to become more pious… and he does not seem to know a whole lot about the world, nor about (the history of) Islam itself.
Those who know a bit about the historic development of Islam know that Wahabbism is not ‘true Islam’ by any means. It is not ‘true Islam’; it is a mixture of the most strict interpretation of what Islam could mean and ancient tribal practices in Arabia, although especially Saudi Arabia. The Islamic prophet Mohammed tried to break with those practices; Wahabbis have brought them back and reconciled them with an extreme and intolerant version of ‘early Islam’ as they think ‘early Islam’ was, not how it truly was.
According to Kucera approximately 10,000 Azeris visit the Abu Bakr mosque on Fridays. That is a gigantic number for a country the size of Azerbaijan. It shows that Wahabbism seemingly appeals to a terrble lot of Azeris.
Kucera discovered that one of the main reasons that Wahabbism is able to attract so many followers is that the West has failed to live up to its responsibilities in Azerbaijan. Azeris can choose between three directions (for their country): focusin on Russia, on the West, or on the Islamic world. Naturally Azeris are inclined to look at the West also because Russia strongly supports Armenia on the isue of Karabagh (which was invaded by Armenia in the 1990s. The West, however, has lost a great deal of respect, according to Kucera at least, when it supported ‘the deeply flawed election of Ilham Aliyev as president in 2003. As a result, more and more people are turning to Islam—not just as a religion but a political orientation.’
(http://poligazette.com/2008/08/09/wahabbis-in-azerbaijan/) |
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Enviado - 03 septiembre 2008 : 22:36:32
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Explosion in Mosque in Baku - Three Died and Several Wounded
TREND NEWS, Baku
18.08.08
Azerbaijan, Baku, 18 August /TrendNews/ - On 17 August at 21:00 p.m. with local time, an explosion took place in Abu-Bekir Mosque in Baku during the evening praying. Trend News correspondent reports from the place of incident that according to the witnesses, an unknown person broke the window with stone and dropped two grenades RQD-1 produced Russia formerly, as a result of which, three people perished and 8 were wounded.
A source in the Hospital named after Musa Nagiyev, where the victims were delivered, told Trend News that 53 years old Abbasov Vagif perished, as well as 22 years old youth, whose name is not reported, died in the same hospital. Those wounded also include Khasayev Sahib born in 1976 (received light injure and has already been missed to home), Jamalov Rashad, born in 1985, Ibrahimov Dashgin - 27 years old, Mammadov Namig - 24 years old, Ismaylov Rashad - 24 years old and Salahov Vugar - 25 years old (is in heavy state in the resuscitation). Several minutes ago, one more wounded Safaraliyev Ruslan was delivered to Musa Nagiyev Hospital from the Eye Hospital.
The Imam Gamet Suleymanov sustained light wound. In the Tusi Hospital, two seams were superimposed to the foot, after which he was missed to home.
He was delivered to the hospital, where he was provided with the first aid. After roentgen, Imam of mosque was missed to home.
Mainly Wahhabis make prayer in Abu-Bekir Mosque. During the current year, as a result of operations implemented the Ministry of National Security jointly with State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations of Azerbaijan, religious books, which is forbidden by law, were withdrawn from the above-mentioned mosque.
The Interior Minister Ramil Usubov and Minister of National Security Eldar Mahmudov came to the place of incident, who after inspection left the place of incident, not providing any commentaries to media.
(http://news.trendaz.com/?show=news&newsid=1272240&lang=EN) |
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Enviado - 01 octubre 2008 : 22:16:43
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Dick Cheney viaja a Azerbaiyán para dialogar sobre seguridad energética
EcoDiario.es
2/09/2008
El vicepresidente estadounidense Dick Cheney, que viajará el miércoles a Azerbaiyán, intentará obtener en Bakú garantías de seguridad sobre los corredores energéticos para las entregas de gas y petróleo del mar Caspio a Occidente, según analistas consultados en la capital azerí.
En el marco de su gira, Cheney visitará también Georgia y Ucrania y participará en un foro económico en Italia.
Su visita a Georgia es considerada como una señal de apoyo de Washington a esta ex república soviética, que enfrenta una ofensiva militar rusa lanzada el 8 de agosto, tras la operación de las fuerzas georgianas contra la región separatista de Osetia del Sur.
Pero para varios analistas, la decisión de Cheney de visitar primero el vecino Azerbaiyán refleja ante todo el interés de Estados Unidos en los hidrocarburos de la región del Cáucaso.
"La visita de Dick Cheney está ante todo ligada a las cuestiones energéticas. Azerbaiyán y Georgia forman parte de un corredor por el cual los recursos energéticos son enviados a Europa", indicó Rassim Mussabekov, politólogo azerí.
"Estados Unidos busca obtener garantías de Azerbaiyán para el mantenimiento de las entregas de gas y petróleo a través de Georgia", subrayó.
El conflicto ruso-georgiano hizo temer que los productores de gas y petróleo en la región del mar Caspio, entre ellos Azerbaiyán, pudieran detener sus exportaciones de hidrocarburos hacia Occidente a través de Georgia.
Grupos energéticos internacionales invirtieron de manera masiva en la construcción de gasoductos y oleoductos para transportar hidrocarburos azeríes a Turquía a través de Georgia, que luego son trasladados hacia los mercados occidentales.
Pero hoy Azerbaiyán tiene razones para pensar que su decisión de convertir a Georgia en un eslabón importante de esta cadena fue un error, estiman los analistas.
Tiflis acusa a Moscú de haber bombardeado durante el conflicto dos importantes oleoductos en Georgia: el de Bakú-Tiflis-Ceyhan y el de Bakú-Supsa, así como el gasoducto del Cáucaso Sur, que transporta gas hacia Turquía.
"Estados Unidos tiene miedo de que Azerbaiyán comience a transportar sus recursos energéticos a través de Rusia en lugar de Georgia. Esta cuestión será uno de los puntos principales de la visita", estimó Vafa Guladze, politólogo y ex consejero de la presidencia azerí.
Rusia compite con Occidente por el acceso a los recursos energéticos de Azerbaiyán bastante antes del conflicto con Tiflis.
A comienzos de junio, el gigante del gas Gazprom propuso comprar a Azerbaiyán volúmenes de gas importantes "a precios de mercado".
Durante su visita a Bakú en julio, el presidente ruso Dimitri Medvedev estimó que hay "perspectivas" de cooperación entre Moscú y Bakú en el área de hidrocarburos.
Según analistas, Cheney busca igualmente asegurarse el apoyo de Azerbaiyán al futuro gasoducto Nabucco, que uniría la región del mar Caspio a Europa, evitando a Rusia.
Este proyecto, concebido para disminuir la dependencia de Europa del gas ruso, permitiría transportar el gas desde el mar Caspio hacia Austria a través de Turquía y los Balcanes, a lo largo de 3.300 km. Azerbaiyán es considerado como uno de los principales proveedores potenciales para este proyecto.
Rusia apoya un proyecto de gasoducto competidor, South Stream. Construido por Gazprom y el grupo italiano ENI, pasaría por debajo del mar Negro, uniendo Rusia a Bulgaria, donde se dividiría en dos ramas: una hacia Austria, otra hacia Grecia e Italia.
Si Bakú se retira del proyecto Nabucco, éste "corre el riesgo de fracasar", subrayó Tania Costello, de la consultora política Eurasia Group.
(http://ecodiario.eleconomista.es/mundo/noticias/731254/09/08/Dick-Cheney-viaja-a-Azerbaiyan-para-dialogar-sobre-seguridad-energetica.html) |
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Enviado - 02 octubre 2008 : 23:01:06
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AZERBAIJAN: CHENEY SEEKS TO KEEP BAKU TILTED TOWARD THE WEST
Shahin Abbasov
EURASIA INSIGHT
September 3, 2008
US Vice President Dick Cheney, a polarizing political figure at home, is traveling in the Caucasus, aiming to rally local support for the US energy and strategic agenda in the region. Cheney’s first stop September 3 was Azerbaijan, where he announced Washington’s intention to ensure a "free stream" of oil and natural gas from the Caspian Basin to the West. For Azerbaijan, the Cheney visit signals the rapid approach of a moment when it will have to choose geopolitical sides between the United States and Russia, local experts say.
Cheney’s tour of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine is a response to Russia’s incursion into Georgia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The lingering presence of Russian troops on Georgian soil is seen as a threatening development for US-backed energy supply routes traversing the Caucasus. All of these routes have experienced disruptions due to the Russian-Georgian conflict.
In Baku, Cheney sought to ease the jitters of local officials, who have been unnerved by the evident vulnerability of export routes that are not under Russian influence, especially the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas route. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Cheney conveyed a message that the Russian incursion had redoubled Washington’s determination to diversify the means of exporting energy from the Caspian Basin.
"The United States has deep and strong interests in your [Azerbaijan’s] welfare and security," Cheney said in a written statement distributed after he met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. "The United States is convinced that together with European countries and Turkey we have to work with Azerbaijan and other Caucasus and Central Asian countries to offer additional routes for energy [exports that] will guarantee a free stream."
In addition to meeting with Azerbaijani officials, Cheney was briefed on the latest developments in the Caucasus by US Embassy officials and by top executives of British Petroleum, a major energy developer and exporter in Azerbaijan. Local reporters were barred from having access to the US vice president.
Prior to Cheney’s arrival, Anne Derse, the US envoy to Azerbaijan, said the visit would reinforce Washington’s support for the "Euro-Atlantic integration aspirations" of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine. "Many in the region are afraid now that these [Russia’s recent] actions are directed not only against Georgia, but against all of those who have democratic aspirations," Derse said.
Experts in Baku believe Cheney’s visit is coming at a pivotal moment for Azerbaijan. Citing the rapid spike in tension between Russia and the West over Georgia, some observers say that Baku’s policy of trying to stay on good terms with both Washington and Moscow is no longer viable. The day is fast approaching when the Aliyev administration will have to confront a painful dilemma head-on.
"Azerbaijan will have to make a difficult geopolitical choice," Rauf Mirgadirov, a political columnist for the Zerkalo newspaper, told EurasiaNet in an interview on September 1.
Another expert, Elkhan Shahingolu, who heads the Atlas research center in Baku, also believes that the Caucasus crisis has left Azerbaijan no room for maneuver between Washington and Moscow. "Both Russian President [Dmitry] Medvedev and Western leaders have already signaled to regional countries that they should make a choice," Shahinoglu said.
To date, Azerbaijan has clearly sided with the West in the competition over Caspian Basin energy development and exports. But moving forward, Azerbaijan cannot be considered a sure bet to stick with the United States and European Union. Russia, in an attempt to lure Baku over to its side, has been dangling a lucrative offer to purchase large amounts of Azerbaijani gas at market prices. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Azerbaijani officials have thus far not shown an eagerness to accept the offer.
But experts believe the Russian incursion into Georgia may have altered the regional energy equation enough that it might prompt Baku to seriously contemplate going with Gazprom. The Azerbaijani government has been conspicuously neutral in its public pronouncements concerning the Georgian-Russian war. "It is not clear what Aliyev’s choice will be," said Mirgadirov. "Most likely he will try to take his time."
Doubts in Baku may well have increased with the September 2 announcement that Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have agreed to construct a new gas pipeline that will feed into Russia. Such a route would seem to preclude the construction of the so-called Nabucco pipeline. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. However, the Uzbek announcement does not mean the pipeline will ever get built. Previous Russian-brokered pipeline deals with Central Asian states, in particular Prikaspiisky project, remain stalled due to various disagreements.
Shahinoglu expressed the belief that Cheney probably prodded Aliyev to pick a side. "Cheney most likely warned [Aliyev] that time for [fence sitting] is over and that Baku should be in the same group with Tbilisi in Kyiv," he said.
Mirgadirov suggested that Cheney may have renewed US efforts to secure a military presence in Azerbaijan, a proposition that American officials could now cast as a security guarantee against Russian pressure. In the past, Baku has resisted US overtures about basing American troops in the Caucasus country, not wanting to get directly involved in the long-running disputes between the United States and Iran, Azerbaijan’s southern neighbor. Cheney’s statement on September 3 made no mention of a possible US military presence in Azerbaijan.
Editor's Note: Shahin Abbasov is a freelance correspondent based in Baku.
(© Eurasianet - http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav090308.shtml) |
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Enviado - 05 octubre 2008 : 18:08:25
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Azerbaijan freezes foreign broadcasts
Blocked until presidential election on Oct. 15
By Vladimir Kozlov
THR.com
Sept 5, 2008
MOSCOW -- Foreign TV stations will be barred from satellite broadcasting in Azerbaijan until the end of the current presidential election campaign. According to Nushirevan Magerramli, chairman of the national council for broadcasting, this is "because of the lack of a relevant legislative base and out of national security interests," the 1st News Azerbaijan online news service reported Friday.
According to the report, foreign broadcasters won't be able to use existing satellite equipment or bring new equipment into the country. The presidential election is scheduled for Oct. 15.
(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/world/news/e3i34d901a64c3dcda2cafb9a2390dcb53e) |
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Enviado - 05 diciembre 2008 : 01:05:49
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Aliev, come da programma
scrive Ermanno Visintainer
OSSERVATORIO SUI BALCANI
17.10.2008
Il presidente dell'Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev, succede a se stesso in un voto senza oppositori. Le notizie dalla stampa azera e turca
La gazzetta ufficiale dell’Azerbaijan, organo del Consiglio Nazionale, con toni tanto enfatici nella forma quanto laconici nel contenuto commenta il preannunciato trionfo elettorale di Ilham Aliev sottolineando che “il popolo azero ha optato per un futuro felice, per la stabilità e la sicurezza”.
Proseguendo sulla medesima falsariga asserisce poi che il 15 ottobre 2008, data in cui oltre 4,8 milioni di elettori hanno riposto la propria fiducia nel futuro dei prossimi 5 anni del paese, entrerà nella storia del nuovo millennio dell’Azerbaijan indipendente come il giorno delle seconde elezioni presidenziali.
La stampa turca offre qualche elemento in più sulle elezioni di mercoledì scorso in Azerbaijan. Enes Cansev#601;r, opinionista del quotidiano azero Zaman ('Tempo') e corrispondente dell’omonimo giornale turco, ribadisce la notizia della scelta, da parte degli elettori, a favore della ricandidatura di Ilham Aliev a Presidente della Repubblica per altri 5 anni. Aggiunge che Aliev, superando altri sei candidati, ha ottenuto l’80 per cento dei voti di queste elezioni. Come annunciato, è venuta a mancare l’adesione al processo elettorale dei partiti all’opposizione, in particolare del Partito Müsavat (Uguaglianza) e del Fronte Popolare (AHCP), secondo i quali le elezioni non si sono svolte secondo parametri democratici.
Secondo alcune organizzazioni civili che si sono occupate di sondaggi statistici, all’uscita delle urne, la percentuale di partecipazione alle elezioni sarebbe stata del 68,5%. Dodicimila stranieri e circa quarantacinquemila osservatori locali hanno monitorato l’andamento delle elezioni di ieri che, al contrario di quelle tumultuose del 2003, sono trascorse senza problemi.
Tre organizzazioni civili erano presenti per ispezionare lo svolgimento trasparente della giornata elettorale, prestando la loro opera di sorveglianza anche dopo il voto.
Il leader azero Aliev, con la moglie Mihriban Aliyeva, ha votato presso la sezione numero 29 della circoscrizione Sabael a Baku. Alle precedenti elezioni del 15 ottobre 2003 Aliev aveva guadagnato l’appoggio del 76,84 per cento della popolazione.
Si è votato in 1.184 sezioni elettorali dove circa 4 milioni e 835.000 iscritti alle liste hanno espresso la loro scelta. Per la prima volta nel paese lo svolgimento della votazione e il conteggio dei voti è stato tecnicamente seguito via internet, con l’ausilio di telecamere installate all’interno di 500 sedi elettorali.
Il presidente turco Abdullah Gül e quello georgiano Mikhail Saakashvili, si sono congratulati telefonicamente con Aliev per la vittoria elettorale conseguita.
(http://www.osservatoriocaucaso.org/article/articleview/10343/1/204/) |
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Envíos 10057 |
Enviado - 16 diciembre 2008 : 12:15:10
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Shuttle Diplomacy between Azerbaijan and Turkey
Shamxal Abilov
The Journal of Turkish Weekly (JTW)
Monday, 10 November 2008
Since the independence of the Azerbaijan Republic in 1991 the first official visit of Azerbaijan President has always been to the Turkish Republic. This tradition has not changed and President Ilham Aliyev also made his first visit to Turkey by the official invitation of the Turkish Republic President Abdullah Gül after presidential elections in October 2008 in Azerbaijan. On November 5 an official party for the honor of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev was held in the official Palace of Turkish Republic.
The Turkish President congratulated Ilham Aliyev for the reelection to the Presidential Post. He noted that after gaining independence Azerbaijan won respect in the world for its stable and attentive policy. “He showed the best direction for Azerbaijan and featured the relations between the two countries by the phrase ‘one nation, two states’, said. President Gül noting that under Ilham Aliyev's leadership the country attained even a greater progress.
President of Turkey also said that after the recent events in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan and Turkey are making great efforts to establish peace and stability in the region.
On November 6, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev met with Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his official Palace in Ankara. The parties stress that the first official visit of the Ilham Aliyev to Turkey after the presidential election in Azerbaijan will contribute the further development of friendly, brotherly and strategic relations between these two countries.
In his speech in the Parliament of Turkish Republic, President Ilham Aliyev said regarding the resolution of the Karabakh conflict that Azerbaijanis, who were forced to flee their homes during war, must return to Nagorno Karabakh before discussing the future status of this occupied land. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev described the Turkish-Azerbaijan union as a solution for solving Karabakh problem and called for further Turkish political intervention to the region. This union is an important factor in the region, because he said in his speech that Azerbaijanis believe the peace and stability will be established with Turkey initiative and the good will of the regional countries.
The first official visit of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev after the 2008 Presidential election was ended on November 6.
Immediately after his visit to Turkey, Ilham Aliyev received the delegation of the Turkish General Staff headed by Ilker Basbug on November 7. In the meeting President talked about friendly and brotherly relationship between two countries and successful development over the all areas, especially over the military spheres. Head of the state stressed that after being elected as the Chief of the Turkish General Staff Ilker Basbug made his first visit to Azerbaijan. Moreover, President Aliyev believed this visit will expand the relations in military sphere.
President noted that his first official visit after the presidential election was held to Turkey and all meeting was held in the high level. In this visit the future bilateral relations and plans were discussed with the Turkish high authority.
Today, Turkey plays an important role in the foreign policy and also in the solving of Nagorno Karabakh problem as strategic partner. According to Turkish media there will be trilateral negotiation between presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey over the Karabagh issue, as it was discussed during the visit of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev to Ankara. These negotiations will strengthen further relations and political dialogue between the two countries at the highest level.
(http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=61058) |
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Enviado - 21 diciembre 2008 : 23:34:23
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Attacks On Journalists Going Unpunished In Azerbaijan
RFE/RL WATCHDOG
December 10, 2008
A media rights watchdog has identified 20 cases in which pressure was put on Azerbaijani journalists in the last six months but claims that none of the instances were properly investigated by police.
Khalid Aghaliyev, of the Media Rights Institute, told RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service that "only three out of more than 200 cases of threats and physical attacks against journalists have been investigated since 2003."
Aghaliyev said the unpunished attacks on journalists have led to self-censorship developing among the country’s media.
Rabiyyat Aslanova, a deputy from the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party and head of the parliament's Human Rights Commission, dismissed charges that the government was not responsive to attacks against journalists.
He told RFE/RL that the "rights of all citizens, including journalists, are protected. There is a sufficient legislative base and political will for that."
(http://www.rferl.org/content/Media_Watchdog_Attacks_On_Journalists_Going_Unpunished_In_Azerbaijan/1358386.html) |
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Enviado - 26 diciembre 2008 : 23:14:51
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La riforma dell'esercito in Azerbaijan
OSSERVATORIO CAUCASO
21.11.2008
L'Azerbaijan aumenta il suo bilancio militare, uno dei settori più segreti e meno trasparenti dell'azione di governo.
Indagine e rapporto di International Crisis Group
Per riconquistare il Nagorno Karabakh e i sette distretti adiacenti, l'Azerbaijan vuole dotarsi di un esercito forte. Questo sia per avere più peso negoziale nei confronti dell'Armenia, sia nell'eventualità che si torni ad una guerra combattuta. Così ha incrementato esponenzialmente il suo bilancio militare, anche se fino ad ora non ha raggiunto una chiara superiorità sulle forze armene. Se il nuovo apparato militare dev'essere non solo più forte ma anche meglio governato, esso comunque necessita di riforme profonde che lo rendano meno corrotto e meno preda dei personalismi, più trasparente e meglio diretto. Finora c'è stata un'insufficiente volontà politica, sia di permettere un maggiore controllo civile e democratico, sia di rompere l'abitudine a considerare l'esercito innanzi tutto come uno strumento con cui proteggere gli interessi delle élite.
Una guerra in Nagorno Karabakh è improbabile nell'immediato futuro. Ma a più lungo termine tutte queste forze armate frammentate, divise, che non rispondono “a nessun altro che al presidente”, prive di trasparenza, corrotte e divise al loro interno possono fin troppo facilmente essere mandate a combattere per soddisfare lotte interne di potere. Un esercito moderno ed efficiente, anche se soggetto ad un controllo civile e democratico, non è privo di problemi fintanto che la situazione in Nagorno Karabakh rimane oggetto di forti divisioni a livello politico. La possibilità di responsabilizzare la leadership per le spese e le priorità politiche ha perlomeno il vantaggio di rendere il sistema più responsabile e prevedibile. La NATO, che sta collaborando alla riforma militare, dovrebbe migliorare la competenza degli azeri in tema di peacekeeping e di leggi di guerra, e dove possibile facilitare il dialogo e i contatti tra le forze militari delle due parti. L'UE, gli USA e la Russia dovrebbero anch'essi rinvigorire gli sforzi per spingere le parti a giungere ad una soluzione pacifica del conflitto.
L'impegno del governo a riformare significativamente l'apparato militare fa parte dell'obiettivo dichiarato di modernizzare e democratizzare il Paese. Benché le elezioni presidenziali del 15 ottobre 2008 abbiano segnato tecnicamente un miglioramento, non hanno offerto una vera alternativa al presidente in carica. Allo stallo della democratizzazione ha corrisposto quello delle parti cruciali della riforma militare. Così il parlamento non è riuscito ad ottenere la supervisione sulle spese militari, e non ha alcun potere di convocare ministri potenti come il ministro della Difesa perché riferiscano sulle loro attività. Ma il parlamento è esso stesso il prodotto di elezioni imperfette, ed è lontano dall'essere una istituzione veramente democratica. I miglioramenti democratici dell'apparato militare possono contribuire alla democratizzazione del Paese, ma è improbabile che possano guidare tale processo o progredire se restano isolate. Se l'Azerbaijan è determinato a portare avanti la riforma dell'apparato militare, dovrà necessariamente fare dei cambiamenti anche in molte altre aree del governo e della società.
Le riforme della difesa che hanno avuto luogo sono spesso state stimolate dalla cooperazione con la NATO. L'Azerbaijan è stata una dei primi Paesi ex sovietici ad entrare nel programma di Partnership per la pace (PfP) nel 1994. In particolare i Piani d'azione individuali per la partnership (IPAP) del 2005 e del 2008 hanno costituito un modello per il controllo democratico delle forze armate, per la pianificazione e il finanziamento della Difesa, per l'interoperabilità con la NATO e la riorganizzazione strutturale secondo gli standard della NATO. Baku si è spesso mostrata riluttante ad implementare le riforme raccomandate dall'IPAP, almeno in parte perché non ha chiare aspirazioni a diventare Paese membro della NATO. La sua politica estera cerca infatti di tenere in equilibrio gli interessi di Stati Uniti, UE, Russia e Iran. L'intervento militare di Mosca in Georgia di agosto l'ha ulteriormente convinta dei vantaggi di una politica ambigua e l'ha resa meno disposta ad andare avanti nell'integrazione con la NATO.
La riforma del settore della Difesa in Azerbaijan è un soggetto poco studiato, su cui sono state tentate poche analisi esaurienti. Il nocciolo delle ricerche è stato condotto da una manciata di giornalisti. Il settore della Difesa rimane uno dei settori più segreti e meno trasparenti del governo. Il Crisis Group è stato limitato nel suo lavoro sia per quanto riguarda l'accesso alle fonti governative, che al personale e alle installazioni militari. Migliorando la distribuzione delle informazioni il governo potrebbe fare di più per dissipare i dubbi che sorgono riguardo all'impatto delle sue accresciute spese militari.
Il governo deve, se vuole ottenere un apparato militare più efficiente, in linea con gli standard della NATO, soggetto ad un maggior controllo civile e democratico e che abbia una maggiore trasparenza e debba rendere conto del proprio operato:
* ampliare le capacità di supervisione del parlamento, specialmente della già esistente Commissione per la Difesa e la sicurezza e la Camera dei revisori dei conti, ed incoraggiare i parlamentari ad aumentare la loro conoscenza della riforma dell'apparato militare organizzando regolarmente corsi, workshop e conferenze;
* migliorare la pubblica informazione e partecipazione alla gestione del settore della sicurezza pubblicando i documenti dell'IPAP della NATO, rendendo più facile l'accesso ad informazioni in materie militari, e creando un sito web del ministero della Difesa, aggiornato regolarmente;
* incrementare il controllo civile sul ministero della Difesa;
* elaborare una esaustiva dottrina militare e condurre una revisione strategica della Difesa;
* correggere la legislazione e i regolamenti militari per renderli coerenti con gli impegni assunti in sede internazionale in tema di diritti umani, in particolare non permettendo la detenzione di personale in servizio senza regolare processo, adottando una nuova legge sul servizio alternativo e creando un ombudsman militare; e infine
* migliorare la gestione e la formazione del personale istituendo degli efficaci sistemi per le paghe e le indennità, la rotazione degli ufficiali, l'addestramento dei riservisti e i sistemi di richiamo, l'istruzione militare e l'avanzamento in carriera in base al merito.
Nel frattempo, la NATO dovrebbe rivedere attentamente le sue finalità strategiche lavorando con le forze militari degli Stati del Caucaso, particolarmente rispetto ai conflitti irrisolti. Dovrebbe concentrare strettamente la sua cooperazione militare con l'Azerbaijan sugli sforzi per migliorare il controllo democratico e civile delle forze armate e non oltrepassare i limiti dell'IPAP finché il conflitto in Nagorno Karabakh rimane irrisolto. Specialmente gli Stati Uniti e l'Unione europea dovrebbero allo stesso tempo porre in cima alle loro agende la risoluzione di questo conflitto latente e cercare, in cooperazione con la Russia, di fare pressione sia sull'Azerbaijan che sull'Armenia perché arrivino a un compromesso in linea coi principi proposti dal Gruppo di Minsk dell'Organizzazione per la sicurezza e la cooperazione in Europa (OSCE).
Da Europe Briefing N° 50, International Crisis Group, 29 ottobre 2008. (Titolo originale: “Azerbaijan: Defence Sector Management and Reform”)
Traduzione per Osservatorio Caucaso: Carlo Dall'Asta
(http://www.osservatoriocaucaso.org/article/articleview/10492/1/204/) |
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Enviado - 23 enero 2009 : 18:33:26
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Azerbaijan Needs Free Media
VOA News.com
02 January 2009
Azerbaijan has decided not to renew the broadcasting licenses of Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and the BBC. The decision would effectively silence foreign media according to Kenan Aliyev, director of Radio Liberty in Azerbaijan.
"If we lose FM," he said, "we lose 95 percent of our audience." The banned broadcasters would only be able to broadcast in Azerbaijan via satellite or cable networks.
In a written statement, U.S. Acting Deputy State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said the U.S. "deeply regret(s) Azerbaijan's decision not to renew the broadcasting licenses of Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and the BBC.
These media organizations play a crucial role in supporting democratic debate and the free exchange of ideas and information. This decision, if carried out," said Mr. Duguid, "will represent a serious setback to freedom of speech, and retard democratic reform in Azerbaijan."
The move to silence foreign broadcasters appears to be part of an overall campaign against the free press. In 2008 three prominent journalists remained in prison based on politically-motivated charges. A fourth journalist was sentenced in a court proceeding with serious violations of judicial process.
Emin Huseynov, a journalist, was hospitalized after the police detained and severely beat him. Authorities failed to investigate the incident or solve any of the other cases involving violence against journalists. According to Reporters Without Borders yearly press freedom index, Azerbaijan ranks 150 out of 173 countries.
Without the FM broadcasts of Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and BBC, Azerbaijanis will have almost no access to uncensored media, says Charles Rice with the International Center for Journalists. Unlike local and state-owned media, the foreign stations thoroughly report on issues such as corruption and bribery.
Jeffrey Hirschberg is a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors that oversees VOA and RFE/RL. "The people of Azerbaijan," he said, "are the real losers. The decision appears to be part of a concerted official effort to limit access to unbiased information. We urge the Azerbaijani authorities to reverse this decision and to continue to work to resolve this situation, as they indicated they would. Meanwhile, we will pursue all available alternatives for broadcasting the popular programs of RFE/RL and VOA to Azerbaijan."
(http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2009-01-04-voa7.cfm) |
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Enviado - 07 febrero 2009 : 00:03:18
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AZERBAIJAN: PRESSURE ON RADIO AZADLIQ CONTINUES
Mina Muradova
EURASIA INSIGHT
January 16, 2009
Azerbaijani government scrutiny of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Azerbaijani service, Radio Azadliq, continues following a ban on the station’s FM broadcasts. Meanwhile, loyal listeners are going digital to keep up with the US-financed broadcaster’s Internet and satellite-distributed programs.
Radio Azadliq (Radio Liberty) stopped its FM broadcasts on January 1 after a heavily criticized decision by Azerbaijan’s National Television and Radio Council that foreign-owned stations should not have access to the frequency.
But official misgivings about the station apparently did not end there. On January 6, two representatives from the Ministry of Communications’ State Frequencies Commission visited the Radio Azadliq office, according to Baku bureau chief Khadija Ismayilova.
The envoys demanded to be shown broadcast equipment, and started to tinker with it, she recounted. "We stopped them and asked them to leave our premises. They did not give us any official document. Moreover, later an official from the ministry said that they had no instructions [to enter the station]," Ismayilova said. "Now, we should be on our guard."
The station, which ranked as one of Azerbaijan’s most popular, was known for presenting a variety of views on government policy and actions -- an increasingly rare phenomenon amongst Azerbaijani media outlets.
"Every morning, I turned on the radio as soon as I got up. Almost the whole day I listened to Radio Azadliq," said 70-year-old Baku resident Mobil Bahaduroglu. "Now, I have lost my friend."
Despite the ban, work at Radio Azadliq continues apace. Only slight changes have been made to the station’s 10-hour schedule, which now relies on the Internet, satellite and shortwave radio for broadcast.
"There were no dramatic changes in programs," said Ismayilova, who has worked as a reporter for EurasiaNet.org. The make-up of the station’s audience has undergone the greatest change, she added.
"Although many listeners call us and ask how to listen to the radio via Internet and satellite, the majority of our audience listens to the radio on shortwave. But its quality is low and the broadcasting is just for one hour."
Police reportedly took an interest in regular gatherings by clients at one small Baku shop to hear Radio Azadliq programs broadcast by the shop’s satellite dish, according to Ismayilova. Elsewhere, Baku residents with satellite dishes have neighbors over to listen to the radio together.
Radio Azadliq employees joke that it is the station’s "contribution to the development of information technologies in Azerbaijan."
"We are joking about the situation, but, in reality, it is quite serious," said Ismayilova. "Our Internet statistics have been increasing, but 90 percent of our regular listeners that we had before have lost [access to our] information."
Some local observers believe that the decision to halt FM broadcasts by Radio Azadliq and other foreign news outlets has already negatively affected Azerbaijan’s international image. Ilgar Mammadov, a Baku-based political analyst, worries that the broadcasting ban means that few opposing points of view will be heard in the weeks leading up to the March 18 referendum on removing term limits for President Iham Aliyev.
The West, he believes, should be more skeptical in its assessment of Aliyev’s rule.
"Many international democratic institutions support him and his presidency because of political pressure associated with Western energy, oil, and strategic security issues," Mammadov said. "The international community should reconsider seriously its attitude to this cruel dictatorship that does not recognize human rights in the country, violates its international obligations, and is transforming the Azerbaijan republic into a monarchy run by one family."
[Ilgar Mammadov serves on the board of the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation in Baku. EurasiaNet operates under the auspices of OSI’s Central Eurasia Project in New York City].
The question of foreign radio stations in Azerbaijan will be considered at the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE), news agencies have reported. "The existing events testify about the problems with the freedom of speech and human rights," Turan quoted PACE Rapporteur Andres Herkel as saying.
On January 15, PACE President Lluís Maria De Puig of Spain and Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos expressed hope that Azerbaijan’s "highly regrettable" decision to ban FM broadcasts "will be reconsidered and that steps can be taken quickly to rectify this situation."
Editor's Note: Mina Muradova is a freelance journalist in Baku.
(© Eurasianet. - http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav011609d.shtml) |
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Enviado - 21 febrero 2009 : 22:34:49
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Azerbaijan ready for delimitation of state border with Armenia
ABC.az
2.2009
Baku, Fineko/abc.az. - Azerbaijan is ready for delimitation of its state border with Armenia (the country’s longest border).
Garib Mammadov, the chairman of the State Land & Cartography Committee, says that Azerbaijan is ready for delimitation of the border with Armenia only after the latter releases occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
“The state border between Azerbaijan and Armenia recognized by the world community has length of 1 007 km,” he said.
Diverse sources indicate different surface area of lands occupied by Armenia – 16% and 20% of Azerbaijani territory.
“Surface of occupied lands of Azerbaijan is 20% with taking into account buffer zone,” Mammadov said.
(http://abc.az/eng/news/main/32069.html) |
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Enviado - 24 febrero 2009 : 19:39:00
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Head of Azerbaijan's air force killed
By AIDA SULTANOVA
Associated Press (AP)
February 11, 2009
BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — An unidentified gunman fatally shot Azerbaijan's air force chief Wednesday, the Defense Ministry said — the highest-level killing to hit the oil-rich country's armed forces in peacetime since the Soviet collapse.
President Ilham Aliyev in televised comments called the slaying a "terrible crime" and said he would take personal control of the investigation.
"I demand the law enforcement agencies find and hold responsible those who carried out and ordered this terrible crime," Aliyev said.
Azerbaijan's chief military prosecutor, speaking from the rain-soaked site of the shooting outside Lt. Gen. Rail Rzayev's home in the capital, Baku, said authorities did not know the motive.
Strategically located between Russia and Iran, Azerbaijan is a crucial link in Western efforts to reduce reliance on Russian energy exports and a target in Moscow's tug-of-war with the United States over regional influence. But there was no immediate sign of a link with that struggle.
Tension with neighboring Armenia remains high 15 years after a cease-fire in a war that left Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh territory in ethnic Armenian hands. Ruled for most of the past 15 years by members of a single family, Azerbaijan has a rich history of alleged coup plots and political machinations.
According to chief military prosecutor Khanlar Veliyev, Rzayev's driver told investigators both men were outside the general's home and the driver was throwing bag of garbage away at the request of his boss when he heard a gunshot. Veliyev said it appeared Rzayev died of a single gunshot wound to the head.
Rzayev had gotten into his car to be driven to work when he was shot, the private television station Lider reported. Veliyev said investigators were looking at security-camera footage from the home and searching the area for clues, but were hampered by the heavy rains that fell all night.
Rzayev, 63, was a longtime Soviet military officer who became head of Azerbaijan's air force shortly after the country gained independence in the 1991 Soviet collapse.
As air-defense forces chief, he had represented Azerbaijan in talks with Russia and the U.S. on Moscow's 2007 proposal to make a Soviet-built radar station in Azerbaijan part of a joint missile shield to protect against potential threat from, Iran.
The Kremlin proposal failed to persuade the U.S. administration to abandon plans for missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic, which Russian officials contend are actually aimed to weaken their country.
Moscow uses the Gabala station as part of its early-warning system. It is renting the Gabala station until at least 2012, but is building a radar station in southern Russia as a potential alternative once that lease expires.
The United States and European Union have cultivated warm ties with Azerbaijan because of its oil riches and its location on an energy export route bypassing Russia and Iran, and Azerbaijan is one of the few mostly Muslim countries that have sent troops to Iraq. But the U.S. and Europe have expressed concern over government treatment of opponents and independent media under Aliyev, who succeeded his long-ruling father in 2003 after an election the opposition said was rigged.
(http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gKEsQRXafMwe_iVefFRPvKmfHTCwD969HS8O0) |
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Enviado - 03 marzo 2009 : 15:24:23
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Azerbaijan and Greece Franchise Associations signed a co-operation agreement
ABC.az, Baku
18.02.2009
Baku, Fineko/abc.az. - Yesterday within the framework of Greece-Azerbaijan business forum the Azerbaijan Franchise Association has signed an agreement of cooperation with Greece Franchise Association.
AFA reports that the agreement from Azerbaijan side was signed by the chairman of the board of Azerbaijan Franchise Association Elshan Musayev and from Hellenic side by director general of Franchise Association of Greece Sotiris Yanakakis.
The agreement says of studying franchising experience in Azerbaijan and Greece, effective development and distribution of franchising, contribution to adaptation of foreign franchise systems to the conditions of the local markets, information exchange about the theory and experience of franchising.
The AFA was established on February 2007. In September 2007 AFA signed an agreement on cooperation with Baltic Franchise Association and in November 2007 with Turkish Franchise Association. AFA also cooperates with Russian, Ukrainian, and German Franchise Associations. Its main goal is creating Azerbaijan’s own brands and developing small and medium entrepreneurship by using franchising. Now Association works on bringing new brands from other foreign countries.
(http://abc.az/eng/news/main/32362.html) |
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Enviado - 17 junio 2009 : 12:49:05
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L'economia dei petrodollari
La situazione dell’economia azera: una crescita alimentata dai petrodollari
Da Baku, scrive Arzu Geybullayeva
OSSERVATORIO SUI BALCANI
09.06.2009
L'Azerbaijan ha mantenuto negli ultimi anni uno dei tassi di crescita più alti al mondo grazie al suo potenziale di idrocarburi ma i settori non petroliferi vengono trascurati
Quando, nel 1991, la repubblica socialista sovietica azera dichiarò la sua indipendenza dall’Unione Sovietica, nessuno si sarebbe aspettato un aumento dello sviluppo economico da allora sempre crescente. Il paese era alle prese con un’economia al collasso, in guerra con l'Armenia e con una politica interna nel caos, 18 anni più tardi ha dimostrato uno dei tassi di crescita più alti al mondo, lasciando dietro a sé perfino giganti economici come USA e Cina.
Oggi l’Azerbaijan sta prosperando grazie al suo potenziale di idrocarburi, resta ora da vedere se il suo attuale sviluppo economico alimentato dai petrodollari e guidato da un regime corrotto si trasformerà in una crescita sostenibile nel lungo periodo.
Gli inizi
In Azerbaijan è stato trivellato il primo pozzo petrolifero del mondo nel 1848. Ha attirato nomi come Rotschild e i fratelli Nobel, venuti per controllare le riserve petrolifere esistenti, modernizzare l’industria e attrarre più capitale straniero in questo piccolo paese che si affaccia sul Mar Caspio. Fino agli anni ’70 l’Azerbaijan forniva il 70% della produzione mondiale di petrolio. La crescita del settore degli idrocarburi ha subìto un rallentamento all’inizio degli anni ’90 con la caduta dell’Unione Sovietica, ma l’Azerbaijan ha presto riguadagnato la sua antica immagine con l’accordo di produzione congiunta del 1994, noto come “Contratto del secolo”. Questo ha dato il via ad una nuova fase dell’economia azera, in quanto prevedeva il controllo dei giacimenti del Mar Caspio, che in precedenza non erano stati sfruttati dall’Unione Sovietica. Nel 2006 l'Azerbaijan ha avuto una crescita del Pil del 34,5%.
Lo sviluppo delle ricche riserve di idrocarburi ha trasformato questo paese di 8,6 milioni di abitanti in una importante fonte alternativa di petrolio e gas. Sebbene principalmente nel settore energetico, l'Azerbaijan ha registrato una forte crescita nell'edilizia, nello sviluppo industriale e nel commercio
Proprio il risultato della crescente quantità di materie prime in Azerbaijan ha reso possibile a Baku il moltiplicarsi di luoghi di ritrovo, bar e ristoranti moderni, di edifici altissimi che affollano l’orizzonte, così come uno stile di vita lussuoso. Tuttavia, mentre la crescita economica si è resa visibile soprattutto nella capitale, dove stanno avvenendo gran parte dei cambiamenti, la redistribuzione del capitale procede a rilento.
Secondo l’analisi di Nations in Transit [Report annuale a cura dell’ong Freedom House, ndt] “negli ultimi dieci anni l’Azerbaijan è retrocesso rispetto ad ogni parametro preso in considerazione dal report”. Questa regressione è avvenuta in modo sistematico e in diversi settori, colpendo anche il processo elettorale, la società civile, la governance nazionale, i media e la giustizia indipendenti”.
Tuttavia, il governo azero sostiene che le cose non stanno così. Nel 2006 il presidente Aliyev affermava che l’Azerbaijan “deve sfruttare l'opportunità unica di risolvere i suoi problemi sociali ed economici. Noi puntiamo a costruire uno stato solido, indipendente, economicamente autonomo e politicamente libero”.
Leggete l'articolo completo a http://www.osservatoriocaucaso.org/article/articleview/11426/1/398/ |
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Notícies d'AZERBAIDJAN / Noticias de AZERBAIYÁN
