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  • Freedom House: No country reacts as aggressive as Azerbaijan to repo

    Freedom House: No country reacts as aggressive as Azerbaijan to
    reports of organization

    17:03 01/02/2014 >> REGION


    No country in the world reacts to the report of Freedom House in such
    an aggressive manner as the Azerbaijani authorities do, Arch
    Puddington, the Vice President of the American Human Rights
    Organization Freedom House said in an interview with Azerbaijani News
    Agency Turan in connection with the recent accusations of the official
    Baku.

    According to him it is not the first time that Azerbaijan reacts to
    the reports in a wrong way. Instead of discussing the issues
    highlighted by the Human Rights Organization, the authorities in
    politically unfair and unconvincing way attack Freedom House by
    organizing spam attacks on it.

    To the question why the government of Azerbaijan reacts to Freedom
    House Puddington answered that this is not the only organization that
    gives a very critical assessment of the situation of democracy and
    human rights in Azerbaijan, so perhaps the government of Azerbaijan
    acts in the same manner with other organizations as well. "They are
    obviously unhappy with our estimates and reports. I don't know why but
    they think that the availability of the reports in the press that
    contradict the reality and an online campaign against us would affect
    our analysis. Anyway it will not affect."

    Puddington states that if we look back at the historical period
    between the years of 1995, 1998 and 2000, Freedom House gave
    Azerbaijan much better estimates than the country receives today.

    "Thus, we were not biased by Azerbaijan in 2000 when we ranked
    Azerbaijan as partially free country as we had expectations that the
    adherence to the standards of Human Rights could be improved in the
    country," the Human Rights Defender said noting that the situation
    worsened in the last decade.

    "I don't know what it is. I know that Azerbaijan has energy resources
    and this is the reason why it is addressed diplomatically,
    specifically because it is an energy giant. In this regard our reports
    have less impact on Azerbaijan than they could have on the countries
    without energy resources. However, I also think that the leadership of
    Azerbaijan certainly would like to see their country recognized if not
    as a great power but at least a respected member of international
    diplomatic and economic sphere. Perhaps our reports in regard to this
    irritate them," Puddington noted.

    To the question about the inclusion of Nagorno Karabakh into the list
    of "partially free" countries the Human Rights Defender said that
    their organization gives individual assessment also to the areas which
    are not recognized as sovereign countries such as the West Bank , Gaza
    Strip , Palestine , Western Sahara , South Ossetia, Abkhazia
    Transnistria , Tibet and others.

    Puddington stated that the organization doesn't single out Nagorno
    Karabakh and doesn't try to punish Azerbaijan.

    "We don't have pro-Armenian or pro-Azerbaijani bias. We assess the
    Nagorno Karabakh because it is a disputed territory. This is a
    territory the status of which is not decided yet and which is not
    controlled either by Azerbaijan or by Armenia. Our analysts considered
    that the situation in Nagorno Karabakh is such that it can be
    evaluated as "partially free" and that is why we gave that estimate,"
    Puddington said.

    He also referred to the release of a call record by Azerbaijani Media
    where the director of Azerbaijani News Agency Turan Mehman Aliyev
    speaks with the alleged representative of the Freedom House some
    Evgeni who called from Ukraine to tell that they are ready "to make
    the changes" in Azerbaijan.

    "Evgeni doesn't work at Freedom House. We don't know anyone by that
    name. And of course there was no phone call to Azerbaijan from the
    official saying that we are ready to aim at Azerbaijan. This is a
    primitive fable devised by Azerbaijani authorities," Puddington
    declared.

    Note that according to the Freedom House report "Freedom in the World
    2014" Armenia and the Nagorno Karabakh Republic are ranked as
    "partially free" countries, while Azerbaijan is noted by the
    organization among the countries that recorded a significant decline
    in freedom.


    Source: Panorama.am

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