World's best airport in a country with best camouflage skills

So The Jakarta Post published this list of 13 best airports in the world. It is awesome to see Azerbaijan's new international airport featured on the list, and I am not surprised our media outlets picked up on the story.

What is however interesting is that how Azernews does not mention much about tourism stats or the point Jakarta Post makes about the importance of airports:

According to Citylab, airports play a crucial role in economic development as it moves people. The number of passengers and flights is said to be related to economic output, wages and income. Fortunately, more and more airports are being upgraded and modernized, giving comfort to passengers and supporting a country's economy.

According to the most recent stats, as shared by the Ministry of Culture, a total of 1.8million tourists visited Azerbaijan in 2017. The highest number of tourists are from Russia, followed by Georgia, Iran, Turkey, UAE, and others.   

And yet, our own citizens prefer going to neighboring Georgia for holidays such as New Year. The close distance, lower prices, friendly environment are certainly important in this decision. Even though Azerbaijan Tourism Association disagrees. It is not the low prices that attract Azerbaijani tourists but the closeness of the country. I think we should ask Azerbaijanis who travel there. I am sure price, quality and diversity would certainly have something to do with it. It is also easier to travel to Georgia as there are no visa requirements and although Azerbaijan is working to improve its visa handling through notorious ASAN service we are yet to see the results and impact on the country's tourism industry.

Now back to the discussion of economic development and the role of the airports. Y'all know about levels of corruption in Azerbaijan so who knows how much money was swept under the carpet during the construction of this airport. And since Y'all know all about how "caring" our leadership is towards its people, I don't have to tell you that the only economic development that can be a topic of discussion in Azerbaijan, is the economic wealth of the ruling family and its closest. 

Independence of institutions are nominal and all of the power is vested within the executive. The imitation of the multiparty system has been stellar even though those who are familiar with the country are aware that this is indeed an imitation and tolerance only extends to those parties who are supportive of the regime and its policies. Within such carefully built system, it is not surprising that the country's economy is and its capital is divided among families and the rumors of vibrant economic development are just rumors (or perhaps they are affecting state coffers only while leaving the general public out). 

According to this report, while in developed countries GDP per capita aligns with the average salary level, in Azerbaijan, the GDP per capita is almost 10 times the average salary. 

So while its great that Azerbaijan's international airport made it into the ranking, it would be grand to see the local media cover the economic development aspect with a bit more realistic analysis but then, if Azernews did that, it is likely it won't be around and available to its readers which is the case with a number of other independent and opposition media. But that's another blog entrance. 

Now, while I recommend visiting my beautiful home, I suggest staying away from glitz and glamor that sometimes can be too much and visit the countryside, go hiking in the mountains and enjoy the delicious national cuisine. And bear in mind that there are many hidden stories of struggle, poverty, and corruption on the streets of the City of Winds. 

Azerbaijan: The ultimate battle of words

Originally written for Meydan TV now sharing this on my blog. 

There is an on-going trend for those who are not very familiar (or too familiar) with Azerbaijan. And that is the ultimate battle of words between the government officials and the world that exists outside their 86,600 km²  world. There is the official language which comes down to one general statement and that is there is nothing wrong with this nation of 9.3 million and that everything is just superb.

Then there is the unofficial language, of the invisible ones, of the group of people who are most often end up in jail, even more often intimidated or even more often belittled and humiliated.

But is still within the country boundaries.

Outside of Azerbaijan exists a whole other world. Which not always takes things the way they are. In short, “everything is grand” just wont cut it.

One of these countries, is her Majesty’s England. Famous for its five o’clock tea and delicious scones. But what England also has is an outspoken government, especially when it comes to speaking about the importance of the freedom of speech and human rights. These leaders are not so much liked in Azerbaijan. No caviar involving deals are done with these men and women.

And because caviar won’t do it, there is a special kind of treatment and allergic reaction developed towards such individuals. It is most commonly known as “go-mind-your-own-business” type of reaction.

So it was not at all surprising when one of Azerbaijan’s very own, Elman Abdullayev of the Press Service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, reacted in exactly this manner to the words of the British Minister for Europe, David Lidington.

Just a few days earlier, Lidington condemned the verdict against the human rights activist Hassan Huseynli, adding, how much disappointed was he that Huseynli was sentenced to six years and whose sentence appears to be politically motivated. “In recent years the British Embassy in Baku worked closely with Mr. Huseynli on projects designed to promote social entrepreneurship and strengthen female participation in civil society. Mr Huseynli joins a growing number of civil society activists sentenced to lengthy prison terms. I again call on Azerbaijan to address concerns felt by many about the increasingly worrying trend of detentions and prison sentences which appear to be politically motivated”, read the rest of Lidington’s statement.

And in a manner of tit-for-tat, Press Service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry immediately reacted advising "to refrain from undue interference in the internal affairs of Azerbaijan, and spend their efforts to improve human rights in his [Lidington’s] country."

The icing on the cake was the following statement by Abdullayev saying, “no one in Azerbaijan  is persecuted for his/her political views, and he regards  the words of Lidington as an 'indicator' of  Britain's attitude to the rule of law” adding a myriad of existing issues as  “lack of conditions for free ships, torture, opacity legislatures, mass surveillance of citizens on the Internet and telephone tapping, violation of privacy, slavery, racial discrimination, violation of immigration laws, and etc.”

Does the last part of Abdullayev’s statement imply that there are no cases of torture, crystal clear and transparent legislature, no mass surveillance of citizens online and “0” cases of telephone tapping? Perhaps not so much of racial discrimination in Azerbaijan but what about minorities or religious groups and the tolerance exercised towards these communities?

The last time the world has checked UK ranks 33^rd and Azerbaijan 160^th on the World Press Freedom Index; 36^th vs. 183^rd (don’t have to guess which one is which) on the Freedom House Press Freedom Index; UK is “free” when it comes to Freedom on the Net and Azerbaijan is “party free” (imagine all that surveillance); one gets the picture without further comparisons.

So why the battle? Why poke fingers at ourselves by comments and statements that make little sense and draw only further criticism if not laughter? Wouldn’t it be better to start addressing some of the raised shortcomings rather than dismissing them? Perhaps it is time to accept the truth?

Many of these questions will remain just questions for the time being. Mostly due to the mere fact of negligence, which is widely spread among the government circles in Azerbaijan. And to the dismay of the many who see the reality different from Azerbaijani authorities the battle will go on.

Joint Statement of Civil Society Delegates to the 2013 Internet Governance Forum

See the original statement. 

 

Freedom House led a delegation of civil society leaders and online activists from around the world to Bali, Indonesia for the 8th Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the UN's flagship conference for discussing global Internet policy. Following the IGF, 17 organizations and individuals signed on to a joint statement to highlight the concerns they raised throughout the Forum, and to offer recommendations to governments, internet companies, and international organizations on how to better protect internet freedoms. This statement was delivered to the Forum during the Open Mic session on the final day by Bouziane Zaid.

We, the undersigned representatives of a group of civil society leaders worldwide who attended and participated in the 2013 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) on October 22-25 in Bali, Indonesia as part of the Freedom House delegation, make this statement at the meeting’s conclusion to highlight a number of opinions we expressed and concerns we raised throughout the Forum.

The 2013 IGF provided a valuable space for the members of our group to engage with other stakeholder groups, through the Forum’s sessions and also through side meetings and consultations with representatives of governments, businesses, the technical community, multilateral bodies, and civil society organizations from all over the world. We urge all stakeholders to continue to engage and participate in future IGFs, to strengthen the Forum’s multistakeholder process, and to uphold the principles of openness, transparency, and inclusiveness. Without the IGF, there is no comparable venue for civil society to directly raise its perspective and concerns with leaders in the government, the private sector, and the technical community.

We share the sentiment with the vast majority of IGF participants that the Internet governance process can and should be improved, but stress the importance of upholding and strengthening the multistakeholder approach to ensure that the internet remains open, global, secure and resilient. In calling for more efforts to promote, protect, and advocate for human rights online, our group has underscored broad principles and recommendations, such as:

1. All laws, policies, regulations, terms of service, user agreements, and other measures to govern the internet must adhere to international standards of human rights, including but not limited to Article 19 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, guaranteeing the right to freedom of expression; Article 12, guaranteeing the right to privacy; and Article 20, guaranteeing the right to free association. As an important step, states and other stakeholders must look to Human Rights Council Resolution 20/8 – adopted by consensus in July 2012 – affirming “that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression,” and pledging to explore further “how the Internet can be an important tool for development and for exercising human rights.” This applies to ending illicit online surveillance by any government. To be legitimate and lawful, any surveillance must be limited, targeted, used to deter or investigate criminalized activity, and subject to independent judicial oversight.

2. Consistency across the many spaces for discussion around Internet governance issues – including those spaces clustered around regional, sub-regional, national, linguistic, and other groupings –  is crucial to ensure the principles of openness, transparency, and inclusiveness are upheld in all venues. This is not multistakeholderism for multistakeholderism’s sake, but rather recognizing the need to represent all voices, perspectives and interests in setting standards, norms, and policies that affect the internet, both locally and globally. The term multistakeholder is overused and applied to a wide range of events, groups and processes. Various international organizations, as well as national governments, must make it a top priority to replace lipservice to multistakeholderism with genuine efforts to bring all stakeholders to the table on equal footing.

3. Transparency and accountability are crucial next steps in the internet governance discussion, and need to be fully implemented by all stakeholder groups. Businesses are beginning to recognize transparency reports as serving their users and their corporate social responsibilities, as well as their bottom-line interests. Governments likewise should ensure that their policies and practices are fully transparent as a means of preserving their legitimacy, credibility, and moral authority with their own citizens and the international community. In instances of content censorship, surveillance, shutting down or deliberate slowing down of networks, and other methods of internet control, these two stakeholder groups must work independently and together to divulge details about these measures and have them open to public debate. In addition, governments should institute strict controls on the export of surveillance and filtering technologies to regimes that have failed to demonstrate a commitment to upholding human rights, while the private sector should take a close look at some of their own practices in this domain. In some countries, bloggers, activists, and other internet users are subject to beatings, imprisonment, and even murder when they post information critical of the authorities.

We thank the government of Indonesia for its warm hospitality and dedicated efforts in successfully hosting the 8th annual meeting of the Global IGF. Despite the confusion during the summer over whether the event would be held in Bali, we were able to convene our delegation of civil society advocates, activists and academics from more than 18 countries. However, three of our colleagues had to cancel their attendance owing to visa issues. The letter granting certain registered participants permission to obtain visas upon arrival in Indonesia came too late, was rejected by airline officials, and was not extended to participants from all countries. For future IGFs, it would be preferable to announce the visa on arrival special procedure well in advance and officially notify the appropriate channels.

Thank you.

Signatories:

- Freedom House
- The Unwanted Witness, Uganda
- Jorge Luis Sierra, México
- Damir Gainutdinov, Russian Federation, AGORA Association
- Nighat Dad, Pakistan, Digital Rights Foundation
- Artem Goriainov, Kyrgyzstan, Public Foundation “Civil Initiative on Internet Policy”
- Giang Dang, Vietnam
- Fatima Cambronero, Argentina, AGEIA DENSI Argentina
- Michelle Fong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong In-Media
- Dalia Haj-Omar, Sudan, GIRIFNA
- Bouziane Zaid, Morocco
- Syahredzan Johan, Malaysia
- Juned Sonido, Philippines
- Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (MIDO)
- Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM)
- Mahmood Enayat, United Kingdom, Small Media
- Abeer Alnajjar, Jordan
- Arzu Geybullayeva, Azerbaijan

Happy Women's Day in a not so happy world

I come from an ex- Soviet country. March 8th, was a big thing back home. In fact, it still is. I think its a holiday even. But when I think of women at home and women all around the world, there is not much happiness that I see out there waiting for them. At home, women are subject to domestic violence, speaking of gender equality makes one automatically a feminist and overall respect for women only comes when she becomes a mother and reaches the age of 60 or 70. 

We also have this heavy burden of something called honor and though perhaps not as severe as it is in Turkey (where honor killings is a popular practice) there are cases of violence against women or punishment for simply lets say crossing paths with a young boy.

The other day, as I was strolling down the streets of Baku, I witnessed how a young man (somewhere around in his 20s) was slapping his female friend (probably his wife). There were three men who passed by, but no one said anything. I stopped, watched him for a while, scream and shout at her (I thought my presence there, would make him stop but I was wrong) when I finally asked him why is he beating her up? He was taken by a surprise. "She betrayed me" was his first response. "I work day and night, for her and yet she lies to me" he then added, to which crying young woman lifted her head and said it wasn't true. I tried explaining to him that this is not right, and that he should apologize and they should try talking. He listened carefully, but I don't know what happened next. I watched him walk away but what happened later, nobody knows. 

And so on the day like today, thinking of that young woman sitting on the ground, crying, I wish and hope for no violence against women, equality and respect, and support to women all around the world. We all are born equal in this world, and we should all fight (men including) violence against women and demand equal rights for women. Happy Women's Day!

Map: Which countries police the Internet the most?

Came across this map thanks to a user on Twitter showing Google take- down requests by country across the world. Looks like Turkey is in the lead with Azerbaijan showing only two requests.

Psychopathic traits and dictators

I am (and sometimes its hard to confess ehm ehm) a big Hunger Games fan. Not only have I read all of the books in one go (literally) I bought this unofficial guide to the books and the story couple months back. And there was one thing that I have been meaning to share on this blog from that book that I really liked but haven't done until now. So here you go.

On p. 130 of the book, the author shares a "Psychopathic Traits, President Snow and his Gamemakers" table, which is a fascinating discovery for me personally especially when most of the traits if not all of them are applicable in reality to most of the authoritarian rulers and their devoted network around the world today. 

I am going to share some of them here with you:

 

This makes pretty much all of the dictators (like the President Snow himself though fictional) psychopaths, which makes me wonder, is it curable? From what I have read so far, looks like its a bit of a difficult process, if not controversial. So, what does that leave us with?                         

One statue for one renovated park

Over the last few years, one of the most bizarre attempts of Azerbaijan government has been "planting" statues of late President, Heydar Aliyev in various corners of the world for each renovated park the country invested in. Stretching from Serbia, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Romania, to Georgia, the host of the next monument is Mexico. Yes, Mexico City. Apparently, Azerbaijani government invested $5million in a renovation of two parks there.

Here you can find the map prepared by the Radio Liberty Azerbaijani service. 

View Heydər Əliyevin heykəlləri in a larger map

The website is asking to send photographs of monuments of Aliyev Senior elsewhere if anyone comes across them. 

Out of curiosity- USD5million is not a small amount. Have we renovated everywhere in Azerbaijan that we are investing in renovation projects across the world? Do all our remote villages have infrastructure the people need? Do they have electricity every day? And gas? Do they have running water? And what about their salaries? Or quality of life? Its apparent that another show off is more important than any of the above? But to say that its a gift from the people of Azerbaijan to the people of Mexico is going too far- I am positive none of the Azerbaijani people knew about the allocated money nor about the park so why on earth would Azerbaijani Ambassador to Mexico say this? An average Azerbaijani spends more of his/her time working, and trying to make ends meet needs rather than think of how he/she could show their appreciation to the people of the country across the ocean. 

Maybe I am mistaken. Maybe our people do think this way. Maybe thats all they think about in fact. I wonder which will next country be? China? Venezuela? Syria?

'The World of Social Media'

Egypt, the World Supports You

A video posted on YouTube sends out a message of peace and freedom and support for Egypt. Spread the word, support Egypt.