The PR of Azerbaijan will Again Turn into Anti-PR

• 04.13.2015, 23:41
•  Europe,  Region,  World

Journalists visiting Baku on the occasion of the upcoming European Games in June, may be banned to work or expelled from the country if they write something critical against Azerbaijan. This writes the British sports expert Kay Rednidzh on the website "Keir Radnedge World Sport Service", Panorama reports. Thus, in Azerbaijan the rules for accreditation of foreign media are made stricter: the Foreign Ministry may cancel the accreditation if it founds that the representative of the media "spreads distorted information about Azerbaijan, unfairly representing the interests of the country, then he will face the law."

It should be recalled that the authorities of Azerbaijan in 2011 during the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku were trying to make a big PR for the country, but many journalists, who visited Azerbaijan during the Contest spoke how "silenced the voices of people in Baku are" and not about how the participants sing. "Eurovision" became an occasion for the foreign media for writing about human rights violations in Azerbaijan, drawing attention of the international community on dozens of imprisoned journalists in the country.

Today, when Azerbaijan is ready to spend millions of dollars on the organization of the European Games in the country, it once again aims at creating an image of a "wonderful" country. However, today almost all international human rights organizations again urge Azerbaijan to improve the situation in the country in regard with human rights and freedom of speech.

Violations of human rights in Azerbaijan will hurt the first European Games, if the European Olympic Committee and the main National Olympic Committees do not call on the Azerbaijani government to release unjustly imprisoned journalists and activists, is said in a statement of the International Human Rights Alliance and "Sport and Law" sport organization.

It turns out that Azerbaijan - again in the pursuit of PR - will once again be the subject of anti-PR, as the human rights situation in this country has become much worse since the days of "Eurovision."