Azerbaijan to keep Europeans warm in winter

So today is the day when a new energy union unveils in Brussels. The plan is "to establish a single European market in energy supplies, purchases and consumption, in an attempt to loosen the Kremlin's stranglehold on Europe's gas supplies"

The official press statement goes into tedious detail of what European people need and etc. There are few words of wisdom about Russia's evil grip over its energy supplies and its mischievousness towards using it in exchange for political gains (as if this was a big secret). 

Now that EU finally realized Russia is evil (it took a while, and an invasion of not one but territories of two countries) its turning into alternatives. Among them is Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iraq and Iran. A question comes to mind: so when Russia is evil and using its energy as a political tool, none of these countries considered for diversification aren't?! Azerbaijan isn't one of these? 

Does this mean an end to rights defenders work and pleas to hold the authorities of Azerbaijan responsible? Shall we forget about our political prisoners because the focus is now on European citizens and their need to stay warm over winter?    

Internet Governance Forum without Internet

Yes, perhaps this is the first thing that comes to mind when I look back at the last few days of IGF2012 held in Baku, Azerbaijan. You would think this of all things would be organized and provided but no. Frankly, not surprised, after hearing from local staff that "we didn't consider Azerbaijani translation for the opening session" (yes, the OPENING session of the conference) or "there wont be any internet today" when I inquired about not working WiFi. 

But thats just logistical impressions. Putting aside all the incredible people I have met not to mention old faces that I have missed while being away, there has been some other highlights that I would love to share here. Like what was said by a representative from the GONGO Azer Hesret "not everything is bad in Azerbaijan, not everything is black in Azerbaijan" during a Joint Open Forum: EBU, CoE, UNESCO, OSCE: Safety of online media actors after Eynulla Fatullayev made a short speech listing many issues in Azerbaijan that do not necessarily make it look good. The strange thing is, pretty much all statements made during the forum by someone from the government or pro- government institution all focused on making counter statements rather than ask questions and address issues with all the representatives. I guess, no one (from the government, pro- government) really understood the point of this forum apart from proving something to the international audience who is already well aware of the reality on the ground.

And then there were some great quotes from work sessions I attended:

Freedom first before we start talking about regulation, Lee Hebberd 

We recognize the power of the Internet, its the oxygen for many people, Lee Hebberd

There is Democracy 2.0 but there is also Autocracy 2.0, Emin Milli

Governments have to make changes themselves, they know the rules, but often they don't respect them

Freedom of speech should be as normal as eating and drinking, EU Parliament representative

Whatever rights exist and guaranteed offline, should be guaranteed online, Lionel Veer

So these are my impressions so far in brief. Will write more once I have more time to reflect. 

Parliament for sale part 2- why there is no reaction from our very own parliament

A reaction on Facebook from a friend of mine, prompted me to write another post on this video scandal. And its a good point- why none of our so called democratically elected parliament members said anything about Guler Ahmadova's video? Why none of them came forward to say for instance that this is not true about the rest of them, that they haven't paid for their seats, or that they have been democratically elected, or that this is a terrible thing to happen and a disgrace to their reputation as the country's executive body... 

Here is probably why:

- Milli Majlis [MM] has been stripped of its many powers a very long time ago and is afraid to put in practice any of the powers it still posses;

- MM is merely a stamping machine approving everything sent in from "above";

- MM is not democratically elected body;

- MM members are afraid for their seats and mandates;

- As of 2010 MM consists of ruling party members;

and so on and so forth...

Azerbaijani police ready to protect Eurovision in full fashion (updated)

This is the full security Azerbaijani government is promising the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) during Eurovision song contest. Keep silent EBU because Eurovision as you say is not politicized and the police protecting you is not politicized at all, especially in a country like Azerbaijan. 

Source: http://on.fb.me/KWdKBF

Updated May 16th:
And here is a video (read the full story here) from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFEL) of May 14th.

Why new media and social networks are only tools

This has been argued by many, so I wont be telling something completely new here. And yes, I do therefore agree with Evgeny Morozov too and his "Net Delusion: the dark side of internet freedom" book. 

I would say that by now, many would agree that especially in dictatorial regimes, social media can and is used by these very regimes to "retaliate" its own activists for the sake of "greater good".

But I wont be going into too many details with my personal thoughts on this this time and would like to share here instead an interesting post from Rationalinsurgent's blog titled "Regimes can exploit social media too" that pretty much sums it up perfectly. And here is even a teaser for you from that post:

Authoritarian regimes are crafty. They have lots of resources at their disposal, and they think strategically about the best way to use those resources to restore "calm" (read: maintain power).

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber- Dissidents

I have been meaning to upload this great report for a while now but since Turkey banned blogger.com and you can only access it through bypass proxies and changing your DNS servers, its been rather frustrating keeping my blog updated recently. 

This "Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber Activists" is a useful guide book for all those who want to make sure that they are safe and secured from a number of different actors and most importantly their authoritarian governments (yes, there are still many countries in the world that are authoritarian, and Azerbaijan is just one of them). Prepared by the Reporters Without Borders, this handbook looks at terminology of today's online community and its residents, guidelines for how to set up and run blogs, ethics especially for those bloggers who write of news in their countries and become sources of valuable information for external actors, and much more. 

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber- Dissidents