An article published in the New York Times on January 11, entitled “The Two Faces of Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev” looks at the continuing crackdown on independent media, human rights activists and civil society organizations in Azerbaijan. Geneva-based journalist Vicken Cheterian commented on CivilNet about the situation in that country and the region. Cheterian, who is also the author of “From Perestroika to Rainbow Revolutions: Reform and Revolution after Socialism,” said that what is happening in Azerbaijan is a total war on all kinds of opposition activities.
“The regime wants to silence any kind of opposition among all circles from opposition parties, to human rights activists and independent media,” says Cheterian. “This was not the case before. There was Soviet style state censorship during Heydar Aliyev’s period, as well as during Elchibey’s period. But in the late 90’s this censorship was done away with. There was an unofficial censorship, but there was much more freedom than today. What is happening now is a complete eradication of any kind of free expression, from human rights to media freedoms and all.”
Answering CivilNet’s question about Europe’s inaction towards Azerbaijan’s repressive policies, Cheterian stated that Azerbaijan is not on European radars and it means only oil for them.
“What the Aliyev regime is doing is destroying all those who it identifies as ‘pro-Western’ within its own society. This is being done at a time when Azerbaijan knows that the West will not intervene in its defence, but at the same time Ilham Aliyev is afraid of a kind of ‘rose revolution’ in Azerbaijan. Simultaneously, Aliyev is afraid of the West and at the same time he thinks that the West is powerless, and as a result he can silence the media and human rights circles,” says the Geneva based analyst.
According to Cheterian, Azerbaijan is in a very schizophrenic situation. On one hand it really wants to be present in the West, by spending a lot of money to promote itself culturally or through the media. It wants to be seen as civilized and European. But at the same time it accuses pro-Western institutions and Western funded projects in Azerbaijan to be centers of espionage, of being collaborators with foreign countries to undermine Azerbaijani image, interests, and so on.. On the other hand it also expresses fear besides showing force and power. “Ilham Aliyev is afraid, otherwise there is no explanation for this massive attack against journalists and human rights lawyers. It is either his fear of seeing a ‘rose revolution’ or an ‘Arab spring’ type of event taking place in Azerbaijan, or afraid that the oil income is collapsing and this could cause social unrest within the country,” he added.
Considering what is happening in Turkey and Russia, Azerbaijan is in the lead with a number of other countries in these repressions. Cheterian thinks that this puts Armenia in a difficult situation too. That’s why Armenia should be closely associated with Georgia instead, whose standards are closer to Armenia than of Azerbaijan’s.
