JUNE 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Tajikistan lifted a ban on Facebook and YouTube imposed after a police chief defected to the radical group IS in Syria last month, the AFP news agency reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Azerbaijan ordered the OSCE to close its office in Baku and barred Amnesty from visiting the city, triggering fresh criticism of its civil rights record shortly before President Ilham Aliyev opens the inaugural European Games.
Azerbaijan and the West have been locked in an acrimonious row over civil rights which has threatened to damage their fragile relationship.
Now the OSCE, as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is more commonly known, said that the Azerbaijani authorities had ordered it to close its Baku office.
“The government of Azerbaijan has notified the OSCE of its intention to close the organisation’s office in Baku,” AFP quoted the spokesman for the OSCE Baku office, Rashad Huseynov, as saying.
This takes relations between Europe and Azerbaijan to a new low. Among other roles, the OSCE is Europe’s democracy watchdog. It evaluates elections against European democratic standards.
Azerbaijan already has form, though. At the end of last year it raided and closed the office of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
London-based Amnesty also said it had cancelled a trip to Baku after the Azerbaijani authorities said that its delegation was not welcome to visit until after the European Games.
It’s a delicate relationship between Europe and Azerbaijan. While it may not like Azerbaijan’s attitude towards dissenters, Europe wants to buy its gas.
For Mr Aliyev, these are frustrating times.
He wants to increase the profile of Azerbaijan through sport and had hoped that the European Games, set to open on June 12, would act as the perfect launch.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Games, due to start in Baku on June 12, may turn out to be more of curse for Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev than a blessing.
The Games have shone a spotlight on Azerbaijan and it is not a pretty sight, according to many Western politicians and activists.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Michael Frost, was the latest high profile figure to criticise Azerbaijan on its civil rights record.
“As preparations are in full swing for the Baku Games, the Azerbaijani authorities stepped up their efforts to harass, jail, and surveil human rights defenders, as well as ban them from travel and freeze their assets,” he said, according to the UN website.
Many of the journalists and activists arrested over the past couple of years have been sent to prison on drugs and arms related charges. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been chased out of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijani officials dismissed Mr Frost’s statement as part of the anti-Azerbaijan narrative that has been put forward over the last few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
JUNE 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A human rights campaigner in Uzbekistan told the eurasianet.org website that police sexually abused her when they detained her last month for photographing forced labour in cotton fields. The UN and other organisations have complained of torture and sexual abuse in police custody previously.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The New York-based Human Rights Watch said EU leaders should do more to pressure Azerbaijan into releasing journalists, human rights defenders and critics of the government from prison. Azerbaijan has detained and imprisoned dozens of opposition activists over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rupert Colville, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that Kyrgyzstan should drop a draft law that will make cooperation between local and foreign NGOs more complicated. “This vague wording may put at risk numerous organisations working to deliver services or conduct human rights advocacy,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Azerbaijan questioned businessman Ibrahim Ibrahimov over an outstanding loan from the state-linked International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), media reported, the second high-profile Azerbaijani company owner to be hauled into a police station in a week.
Turan news agency reported that Mr Ibrahimov took a loans $57m, but sources in IBA told the news agency that the sum was actually $850m.
Last week police detained Nizami Piriyev, head of Azerbaijani Methanol Company. He was charged with financial fraud. Mr Piriyev is also charged with not repaying bank loans.
Natiq Cafarli, economist and executive director of ReAL opposition movement said in an interview with faktxeber.com that he does not expect the oligarchs to stay in jail for a long time. He said that the government just wants to recover its money.
“The ruling party does not need a lot of news around famous people,” he said. “They will be released soon.”
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(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)
MAY 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Seemingly in a fit of pique, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev said he will not attend an EU summit in Riga later this month designed to bring countries that ring Europe closer to the group.
APA news agency, which is linked to the Azerbaijani authorities, quoted the deputy head of the presidential admitstration, Novruz Mammadov, as saying that Mr Aliyev blamed the EU and the US for mounting an anti-Azerbaijan campaign in the media.
“The expansion of the black PR campaign against Azerbaijan, in close collaboration with some western powers which claim to be interested to develop strategic partnership ties with Azerbaijan, on the eve of the first European Games has triggered a reasonable uproar,” APA reported.
The West has criticised Azerbaijan for what it has said are retarded steps on civil rights. Courts in Azerbaijan have imprisoned journalists lawyers, opposition leaders and activists who have been critical of the government.
For Azerbaijan, this is a particularly sensitive time. Next month it hosts the inaugural European Games and it desperately wants to both put on a good show and also to present itself in a good light.
By ditching plans to visit the EU summit in Riga, Mr Aliyev is aligning himself more closely with Russia and away from Europe.
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(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)
MAY 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Baku arrested Nizami Piriyev, a high-profile Azerbaijani businessman closely associated with President Ilham Aliyev.
Mr Piriyev, media reported, was charged with various financial crimes. He is in prison ahead of a trial in what appears to be a spectacular public fall.
One of Azerbaijan’s richest men, Mr Piriyev was the official owner of the Azerbaijan Methanol Company, a large and high-profile operation on the outskirts of Baku.
He paid for former British PM Tony Blair to fly to Baku in 2009 to open the plant. Mr Blair, criticised for taking cash from dubious governments since he left office in 2007, was photographed at a press conference in Baku sitting between Mr Piriyev and his son, Nasib.
Mr Piriyev’s holding company PNN Group also owned franchise rights to a number of Western brands in Azerbaijan and across the former Soviet Union. This included the British high street news agent WHSmith and US fast food chain KFC.
Mr Piriyev used to work in Russia for Gazprom and had businesses stretching across Central Asia.
It’s unclear what triggered his arrest and whether he has been associated with Azerbaijan’s increasingly marginalised opposition or if he had fallen out with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The United States and Europe have been increasingly critical of Mr Aliyev for cracking down on opposition.
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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)
MAY 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Baku rejected an appeal by journalist Khadija Ismayilova against a conviction for libel in February. Ms Ismayilova is in prison waiting for her trial to begin for coaxing another journalist into a suicide attempt. Her supporters have said that the charges are fabricated.
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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)
