Why Western decision makers cannot be silent anymore

A few days ago, I had the privilege to speak at UNHRC. Here is the full transcript from that event.

***

I last spoke here in Geneva, three months ago. And while I wish I could share with you the news about progress achieved on the ground since then, I cannot. 

Independent voices are still being muzzled while their families are used as bates by the local police to submit them into a state of desperateness- to force them into silence. 

Not all give into the intimidation. 

One of these brave individuals is Gunel Movlud, talented journalist, working for a dissident media outlet Meydan TV. She has seen it all- her parents disowning her and then her two brothers getting arrested, both being charged with drug possession. 

After their arrest, Movlud wrote:

 The arrest of my two brothers left my parents who are both battling with their health to death. Yes, I am afraid, of my family, my child, of my family getting ruined this way, of my life, of the life of my relatives. They can do anything. I am afraid and fear is absolutely normal. But I will continue my work even if I am afraid. This is not a sign of some bravery. It is just I cannot see myself live a different life. Those who cannot keep silent will continue to speak up. With love to all people with dignity! 

On December 22, 2015, one of her brothers was sentenced to one year in jail based on article 234.1 of the criminal code- possession of drugs. He left behind three kids, and two sick parents, one suffering from diabetes, the other form cancer. 

Just a few days ago, on March 7th, it was the three-year anniversary of 8 young men- at the time between 16 and 28 years of age- unjustly arrested, tried in a theater court, and then sentenced to jail to times ranging from 6 to 8 years. These young men were members of N!DA civic movement, a promising youth movement engaged in education, awareness raising, and grass roots youth development. These men were arrested shortly after the group organized a peaceful rally in 2013, demanding the government to investigate suspicious deaths of conscripts. 

Following their sentence, Khadija Ismayil, whom many of you here know and who herself is currently in jail serving 7.5 year sentence, wrote, 

Found guilty of being bright, intelligent, brave and honest.

Since their original arrest and sentence, four members of the movement were released, the rest remain in jail. 

And yes while I as a rights defender, and as a friend, should be happy that some of them were freed I cannot enjoy the joy and simply be thankful. Because these men should not have been sent to jail to begin with. But they did spend their treasured time inside, with criminals, subject to torture, intimidation, and humiliation of many kinds. And all of this was possible because the government of Azerbaijan wanted so, and the rest of us were unable to do anything to change this. 

There is nothing to be happy about. 

There is only a feel of shame and frustration that the government is getting away with these power games. 

I am not happy, because my friend Rashadat, who is one of the originally detained N!DA members, cannot reunite with his wife and his 3year old son because this right was taken away from him by some judge who was too busy implementing government orders to sentence my friend to 8 years and unaware of the damage this would have on Rashadat as well as his family. 

Just today (March 11), the appeal of Leyla and Arif Yunus to leave the country for medical treatment was denied. Following the court decision Leyla Yunus said, 

I am thankful to President Aliyev for releasing us from prison. We are alive but we also are not receiving any treatment. We can die any moment. 

This is why, I believe that the time for quiet diplomacy is over, the time to pat the government of Azerbaijan on its shoulder and congratulate the government each time one or two political prisoners are released is over. 

We have all seen it, it only encourages the Aliyev regime to put more people in prison- because at the end of the day, it can have both worlds- muzzled voices at home and international presence. 

Our hope as rights defenders, journalists, activists- is your power to push the right buttons. You have to understand, that each time a positive statement comes out of Europe or America, this is used against us at home as the government boasts about the “international” support it has. 

Most importantly you have to call the bluff of this regime- it has no intentions to improve so long as there is a soft approach to the country. We have country’s brightest, smartest, talented men and women in jail. We have a brain drain. We have an economic crisis. And look at the government- it continues to spend more and it continues to mistreat its people. It is clear that there is no intention to fix or change anything. 

Before my friend, Khadija Ismayil, was arrested she asked for no silent diplomacy. She wanted the government of Azerbaijan to be criticized openly and loudly. She did not give up her freedom, to see us- her friends, her colleagues, and the international community fail at fulfilling her call. 

I think it is time to really show people like Rasul Jafar, Seymur Hezi, Parviz Hashimli, Intigam Aliyev, Anar Mammadli, Ilgar Mammadov, and many others- that their efforts to build a society based on rights and freedoms were not wasted and that we can work together to overcome the division among the countries and their leaderships who are reluctant to act, or raise the criticism up a notch. I thank the Irish mission for their effort in keeping Azerbaijan on their agenda and I ask sincerely, other delegations sitting here today, to join their efforts. 

I ask you to do this, not as a rights defender, or a journalist, or an activist but as an Azerbaijani citizen, desperate to see some hope and see my friends released from jail. 

Thank you!

Azerbaijan on mute

In Azerbaijan, the judicial system is a black hole. Rarely do cases get resolved. The judiciary is a corrupt institution with its judges scoring golden stars by their mere ruthless behavior in courts. And this is more so the case when it comes to Azerbaijan's political prisoners or as many international rights watchdogs call them, prisoners of conscience. 

Having a fair trial as a political prisoner in the country is unimaginable. They make you feel helpless no matter how many lawyers you have, no matter how much evidence there is that proves clearly you are innocent. 

Turns out there is more they can actually do to silence you. 

Recently the Ministry of Justice installed "glass cages" as opposed to normal holding cells installed inside the court rooms. The defendant has a microphone but its control is in the hands of the presiding judge.

And so, when the voice of Khadija Ismayil was "muted" during her preliminary hearing on October 15 it was not at all surprising. The judge clearly was not interested in her commentary and perhaps he was not interested in her case at all. Not only have they silenced her by putting her in jail on bogus charges, preventing her from doing her job as a journalist, but now they are trying to mute her completely, not even let her speak at the court. 

During Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus preliminary hearing which also took place yesterday, their microphone was not even on so the couple had no idea what is being discussed inside the court room at all.

So where is tolerance in that? The tolerance that Mehriban Aliyeva was proudly boasting about just few weeks ago in Paris? Where is democracy in that? The one that President Aliyev talks about all the time? Where is respect for your own citizens?

There isn't one. The government of Azerbaijan has no tolerance or respect for its very own people. It treats them like animals, keeping them on a leash and feeds them propaganda and gets away with it just fine in an unjust system that only benefits those who are ready to suck up and lose their humanness or throw it down the toilet for comforts of life and Aliyev- style security.

Welcome to muted Azerbaijan ladies and gentleman.

Keep calm and stop worrying, President Aliyev will get to the bottom of it

President Aliyev, said he is going to closely follow up the murder of Rasim Aliyev. This is perhaps worst development because now that its president who is personally involved in the case, I fear, there wont be any justice. 

On August 10, Aliyev's aid, Ali Hasanov said "Ilham Aliyev sees the death of the journalist as direct threat and intimidation to freedom of speech and information as well as free press". 

Just for your information, President Aliyev promised to find the perpetrators when another journalist Elmar Huseynov was murdered in 2005 (just two years after Aliyev's election as the country's president). Then in 2011 when yet another journalist, Rafig Tagi died following fatal stabbing no progress was made into his case either. 

I fear President Aliyev's hearty message is a signal of yet another murder case go down in history as mystery. 

But if President Aliyev really wants to solve this mystery all he needs to do is let freedom of press, speech, and information really exist in Azerbaijan and independent journalist do their job without constant threats and beating from the police and thugs. 

Or he should simply ask himself a very basic question - when was the last time he met with independent press and why one of the country's most prominent journalists while following her right to speech freedom and freedom of information is currently on trial. Or why, do we have journalists and bloggers in jail? 

It is time to take responsibility for direct actions. Rasim's murder is the result of President and his aids' irresponsible way of ruling this country amid the atmosphere of fear, intimidation, and mafia like leadership.

Khadija Ismayil vs. President Aliyev: the chronology

The case of Khadija Ismayilova vs President Aliyev: chronology | Create infographics

As 2015 PEN Literary Gala & Free Expression Awards Begins few thoughts about Khadija

As Khadija receives the prestigious 2015 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award today and as she enters 6th month in pre-trial detention, I wanted to share with you an interview I had with her some seven years ago. Back then I didn't know her well. But I heard so much about Khadija that I had to meet her. Here is a little something to think, to get inspired from.

I have edited the interview.

Khadija Ismayilova- Chief of Bureau at Radio Azadliq
16.10.08

Khadija, a young, Azerbaijani woman, is one of the examples of working young women of Azerbaijan, and also keen supporter of democracy and human rights.

Our interview with Khadija took place at the radio’s office.

Khadija, was at the meeting when I came, she was wearing black pants and a pink shirt. She had short black hair and was wearing no make- up. Very friendly in her approach, she told me about her life, her professional career. She had to apologize for not having enough time for a longer interview as she had to get back to her work. It was busy, the presidential elections just took place the day before, and the radio did coverage of the whole day.
 

Background:

Khadija was born in 1976 in Baku to a family of well- educated parents. Her father was a high- ranking governmental official and her mother was an engineer. Both of her parents were from Baku. Her father passed away five years ago, it was a breaking point in her professional career but more about this further down. Khadija is one of the four kids, one brother and three sisters.

“I went to a normal, local school here in the capital. In 1992 I was accepted to Baku State University. It was the first year when the Ministry of Education introduced test based university entrance exams and I was the pilot child. I graduated from the department of Eastern Studies.

I was always a hard- working person. During the same year I started university I began working as a tutor- teaching neighborhood kids. I started working because our family’s economic conditions worsened, my dad was released off his duties with the new government and with three more kids in the family, someone had to help. But that didn’t stop me from going to school. You see it was always very important for my father and mother to educate us, especially my older sister and me. Because we always studied and were not interested in fashion, soap operas, going out, having boyfriends and etc.

Career:

Even while studying at university, Khadija was already interested in journalism.

“I always wrote, even my parents thought I was going to become a philologist but journalism was really what I wanted to do!”

In 1997, Khadija started working as a translator at Avrasya Qazeti (Euroasia Newspaper).

“In four months of my employment at the newspaper, I became a journalist and the director of the newspaper. In between I worked at Hurriyet (Freedom) newspaper. Then my grandmother got sick, so I had take care of her and stay with her at the hospital. So when I came back I was looking for another job (AG: She left Avrasya due to personal reasons)”. 

AG: How did your parents react?
KI: “Well, it wasn’t so much my parents but my brother who reacted. On my first day at work I came home really late, it was almost close to midnight. My brother told me that I wont be going to work the next day and that I should forget about it. But my brother never had a say in things I did, so I went to my dad for the second opinion (smiles). And my dad didn’t say anything negative at all. He was always very supportive”.

After leaving Avroasya, she began working at another newspaper, called Gunaydin as the director of Social department. She stayed there till 1998.

Then there was Uc Noqte (Three Dots), where she worked as the assistant of the director in 1999, Zerkalo newspaper in 2000, followed by Exo.  

“I have an interesting story about Zerkalo. You see in 2000, the director of the newspaper Zerkalo, Rauf Talishinski left with the whole team and I was part that of that team. So Rauf Talishinski created his own newspaper, called Exo. By 2003 the then- objective newspaper Exo, took a stand (pro- government), and this was when I decided to leave”.

After leaving Exo, Khadija, began her work at the Caspian Business News as a the director of the Russian and Azerbaijan department- she was translating the articles. In 2004, she became media program grant manager at IREX and about at the same began writing articles to Eurasia Foundation.

“In 2005, I worked in TACIS project as a PR consultant at the Investment Promotion Fund. And in 2006 I moved to states, to work at the Voice of America as a broadcaster for Azerbaijan service. I stayed with the Voice of America for one and a half years, then came back home.

By the time I returned I already held an invitation to teach at the International Center for Journalist as a Chief trainer. This was in September 2007, in July of 2008 I left teaching position to work as a chief of bureau at the Radio Azadliq”.
 

AG: wasn’t it hard to work in journalism, as I know that its quite gender segregated job here in our country?
KI: “To be honest, it was until my father passed away, about five years ago. Let me explain: there were always rumors (ses-sohbet) about us- female journalists. And so I was always cautious because I never wanted my dad to hear something about me even though it would have been a fake story. But when dad passed away, such things became so insignificant that I totally stopped caring, and once I did that all the rumors stopped as well. As if people understood that I didn’t care anymore and this was when I became bolder and more straight- forward. 

But I think its hard in our society, I mean its hard as a woman, especially if she works. There are so many expectations to fill, so many people to please. I live with my older sister for example. Both of them work but her husband sometimes makes me feel to break something on his head. You see when both of them come from work, he stops working, whereas she continues- cooking, getting the table ready, dishes, the kids’ homework and also her own work. He on the other hand, doesn’t even lift his finger. He expects these things. And when he sees that their child has missed on the homework or something is wrong he blames her for that. Saying that you spend so much time on that internet that you forget about your own family. Even though, the reason why she is on the internet is because she does research for her job since she is the head master on new teaching ways, material and etc.

Women in Azerbaijan are not allowed, those work are employed at lower positions, rarely you see a woman in higher job opposition, they are discriminated and this is sad”.

She apologizes and tells me that she really needs to get back to work.

Aliyev's wonderland and surprises

It is hard to keep track of all the crackdowns in Azerbaijan these days. Its happening all at the same time. And in the meantime, our economy is also on its way to share the faith of Russians. But that wold be the topic for another blog post. 

Just like today for instance as one of the country's prominent investigative reporters, Khadija Ismayil was brought into yet another sham trial held behind the closed doors away from everyone's ears and eyes, Arif Yunus - the husband of rights activist and also jailed Leyla Yunus - sentence was extended by another five months. By that point (August 5, 2015 to be precise) he will be in pretrial detention (and not just any but the worst of the worst - the Ministry of Interior where torture and ill-treatment are notorious) a year to be exact. Who knows whether his pretrial detention will get another extension. By that time European Games would be over, and Aliyev will need yet another new toy, so he will decide whether Yunus might continue getting in his way of playing. 

And coming back to the case of Khadija Ismayil - guess what?! Of course she was not released. After all she is now facing additional charges (surprisingly all the same ones as a dozen or more of other political prisoners are facing at the moment) so in order to get to that part, this case had to close. And close it did, with a fine - 2500Manats for slander. 

Hmm... It is questionable who slandered whom but in Azerbaijan its irrelevant really especially when its judicial system works ALWAYS to the benefit of the accuser, especially if that accuser is full of **** and has not a grain of humanness left in him. So this filth claimed Khadija insulted his dignity (which he doesn't have but hey lets consider for a second that he does).

There is another filth too - but that one, claims Khadija forced him to commit a suicide. Surprisingly (there are awful lot of surprises in Azerbaijan right?!) he was able to survive and thanks to him, Khadija was jailed (based on charges of inciting to suicide). 

And all of this happening around the time when EU Special Representative for Human Rights is in town. I bet there is another surprise coming our way - his visit wont change anything! 

***Correction to the original post where I mentioned Turkoglu (the part about slander) with the part about suicider. But it doesn't make much difference since both are filth and have no dignity as one of them claims to have. 

  

Behind the "belt of happiness" - the many facades of Azerbaijan

Amazing Azerbaijani is a short documentary shedding light on human rights violations, corruption, and recent cases of journalists, activists who were subject to "special" government attention as a result of their work. It also looks at the so-called European values, which have been overstepped by the very same Europeans for the sake of energy security and global war on terrorism. 

Watch and share. There is also a website but it seems to have some kind of problems.

Shame on ... us!

The day when residents of Baku gathered at the Fountain Square to raise their concerns over killings of conscripts during their military service in Azerbaijan, the country's social media presence was alive as ever. In her analysis of #protestbaku Katy Pearce, pointed out to some interesting facts, but what caught my attention was her evaluation of what she referred to as "Group 4"- the pro- government youth groups, and one very popular young gentleman led by Rauf Mardiyev, who is notorious for his outlandish statements and tweets when it comes to anyone who is, well, lets just say not like him and his support network. The day when everyone was using #protestbaku, he initiated another hashtag #Khadijautan ("shame on Khadija"). Now the readers of this blog, already might be familiar with the name Khadija Ismayil. She is a well known and well respected journalists from Baku, woman of courage and strength. It would not be an exaggeration to add a woman of inspiration. 

#Khadijautan was aimed solely at Khadija, accusing her for accusing dead conscript's mother in bargaining. She explained herself in the following Facebook status update: 

I wrote "there is a need for mothers in this country who don't bargain over their son's dead bodies"[...].

As Rauf and others were busy throwing dirt at Khadija, none of them, bothered to say anything about the wicked military service of our country. Is it because they consider it impeccable? So who should carry this shame? Certainly not Khadija and thousands of Baku residents, were right there, on the streets, demanding an end to deaths of Azerbaijani soldiers, resignation and final resolution to this situation. This wasn't the first time that a conscript lost his live. 

So whose shame is it at the end? Surely its our shame to share if we are talking about shame in general. It is ours to share because it is our country, our soldiers and our government's ill treatment of its citizens, young boys who are sent to complete their military services but who are mistreated. It is our shame for not taking action earlier. Its easy to shame someone, but shouldn't we start from shaming ourselves? Doesn't everything begin from our individual selves? It is shame indeed. But it our shame to share and deal with so all those biased critiques please grow up and take some responsibility ...

'Sex and blackmail in Azerbaijan'

Hear more about corruption, blackmail and repressive Aliyev family in this video by Al Jazeera Stream.

It blew me away when the representative of official Azerbaijan said "let it go" while referring to Khadija Ismayilova's case. I wonder if she would have said the same if a similar sex tape and scandal surrounded her and her life.

I will stop here and let you make your own decision.

Blackmailing at its best- the case of Khadija Ismayil (UPDATED see links below)

While I am posting this days after the letter is sent, I still wanted to share this important document, signed by MEPs at the European Parliament, addressing the recent blackmailing scandal against well known Azerbaijani investigative journalist, Khadija Ismayil.

Khadija received a package at her home address in Baku on the International Women's Day (surely this was no coincidence but further attempt to humiliate this person). The package contained photos of intimate nature and a threat note with inappropriate language- if Khadija was not to immediately give an end to her work as a journalist she was to face heavy consequences.

Here is the full letter addressing this incident and the reaction of the Parliament.

With Eurovision so close, such threats only illustrate Azerbaijan's attitude to "ensuring" freedom of expression in this country. It should come as no surprise, but perhaps, this would give those who advocate for Azerbaijan being a true democracy a gist of what is going on beneath the glitz and glam of it all. But then again... It all depends on who is judging...

European Parliament Letter to the President of Azerbaijan

Amnesty International "Azerbaijan: Secret sex video used to smear investigative journalist"
Global Voices Online "Azerbaijan: Investigative Journalist Defiant After Blackmail Threat"
The Independent "Sex video used to blackmail Azerbaijani journalist"