Azerbaijan Is Again Targeted by the West

• 09.18.2017, 11:18
•  Europe,  Region,  World

ann.az

The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, has called for starting a legal process against Azerbaijan for non-compliance with the ECHR decision. This is an unprecedented step in the 68-year history of the Council of Europe. It is about opposition activist Ilgar Mammadov who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for participating in protests in Azerbaijan and criticizing the Azerbaijani authorities. In May 2014, the European Court of Human Rights stated that Mammadov's arrest was politically motivated and that the Azerbaijani authorities arrested him for criticizing the authorities, urging Baku to immediately release the activist. However, the Azerbaijani authorities refused to release him.

"There should not be a political prisoner in Europe. The Supreme Court has ruled that Ilgar Mammadov's arrest is illegal, and we should not tolerate the fact that the Azerbaijani authorities have imprisoned him," Jagland said.  "It is time to think seriously if Azerbaijan as a member of the Council of Europe wants to fulfill its commitments to this organization, or not," he added. Jagland wants to invoke the Council of Europe convention’s article 46.4, which can leave Azerbaijan out of the human rights body. 

The European parliament has also called for an investigation into revelations by the Guardian and media partners that Azerbaijan ran a secret $2.9bn slush fund to pay influential Europeans to paint a positive image of the authoritarian regime.

As The Guardian reports, MEPs have demanded a "comprehensive" investigation into "attempts by Azerbaijan and other autocratic regimes ... to influence European decision-makers through illicit means", following a last-minute amendment to a report on corruption.

These two cases show that the issues of corruption and repression are again returned to the European agenda, and in this respect Azerbaijan is again targeted by the West. Azerbaijan will also be a subject of discussion at the PACE autumn session. In fact, the release of a group of journalists and opposition activists in Azerbaijan was not so effective, and Baku failed to deceive Europe with this manifestation of Aliyev's goodwill ...