Tag Archives: rights and freedoms

Germany punishes MP for taking Azerbaijani money

JAN. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — Karin Strenz, a German MP from the ruling Christian Democratic Party, has become the first parliamentarian to be punished by his/her home country for taking cash and gifts from Azerbaijan between 2012-14, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

HRW said that on Jan. 18 Germany’s Bundestag had ruled that Ms Strenz had broken parliamentary rules in a “cash-for-lobbying” scandal that has been dubbed by anti-corruption campaigners as the “Azerbaijani Laundromat”. Ms Strenz faces a fine of up to $68,000. She has also faced calls from within the Christian Democratic Party to resign.

But, critically for HRW, Ms Strenz is the only one of 16 members of the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe (PACE) to be punished by their national parliaments since being thrown out of PACE for taking the gifts and cash in exchange for defending Azerbaijan’s human rights record.

In a statement, Hugh Williamson, HRW’s director for Europe and Central Asia, said: “This is the most shocking aspect…Let’s hope politicians in Spain, Belgium, and other parliaments hit by the scandal will quickly follow the Bundestag’s lead. It’s about standing up for human rights in Azerbaijan, and in Europe as a whole.”

Last year, PACE published a report that described a patronage and influence network set up by Azerbaijan to help it steer debates in the Assembly where people were openly criticising Baku’s human rights record.

Over the past decade, Azerbaijan has jailed dozens of opposition activists and journalists for financial crimes and drug smuggling, charges that many have said have been fabricated.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is sensitive to criticism from Europe, particularly because, at the time, he had been trying to secure a major gas supply deal.

The PACE report in 2018 said that Italian Luca Volonte was at the centre of the 2.4m euro corruption scandal to buy support in the Assembly for Azerbaijan.

He is being investigated in Italy for corruption, although a court in Milan cleared him of money laundering February 2018.

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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Uzbekistan extradites ex-BTA banker to Kazakhstan

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JAN. 28 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan extradited Kazakh Artur Trofimov, a former executive at BTA Bank, to Kazakhstan for suspected money laundering and embezzlement. BTA Bank was a bank that the Kazakh government had to buy in 2008/9 to rescue it from bankruptcy. Its former chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov, is currently in Paris after appealing against an extradition order. A French judge agreed with his argument that he was at risk of torture if he was returned to Kazakhstan. Since fleeing Kazakhstan in 2009, Ablyazov has turned himself into the leading critic of Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Azerbaijan extradites Gulenist to Turkey

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JAN. 30 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan extradited to Turkey another alleged Gulenist, the group the Turkish government accuses of an attempted coup in 2016. Turkish media named the alleged Gulenist as Ibrahim E, the editor of a Gulen newspaper in Baku. Turkey has been applying pressure to its neighbours to extradite suspected Gulenist, followers of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen. Azerbaijan, a strong Turkish ally, has been quick to acquiesce to Turkey’s demands. Others, such as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, where Gulenists set up universities and schools in the post-Soviet 1990s, have been less keen.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Armenian politician dies during prison hunger strike

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JAN. 26 (The Conway Bulletin) — Mher Yegiazarian, 51, an Armenian politician, died in a pre-trail detention centre in Yerevan 52 days after going on hunger strike. Police had arrested Yegiazarian, vice-president of the small Armenian Eagles: United Armenia party, on Dec. 4 and charged him with extorting $10,000. He denied the charges and when on a hunger strike to protest them.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Tajik court gives exiled journalist prison sentence

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JAN. 12 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Khujand, north Tajikistan, sentenced journalist Khayrullo Mirsaidov to eight months in prison in absentia for breaking the conditions of his earlier release from prison by fleeing the country. Mr Mirsaidov left Tajikistan shortly after a court released him from prison in August 2018. He had been given a 12-year prison sentence earlier in 2018 for various financial crimes but was released after international pressure. Mr Mirsaidov said the charges had been fabricated after he complained of corruption.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

Azerbaijani journalists join hunger strike

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JAN. 15 (The Conway Bulletin) — Several Azerbaijani opposition activists and journalists, including award-winning investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, joined jailed blogger Mehmen Huseynov in a hunger strike. Huseynov, 26, was jailed for defamation in 2017. He had been nearing the end of his jail sentence when the authorities said that that they were charging him with attacking a prison officer. The charges could add seven years to his sentence. Huseynov and his supporters have said the charges have been fabricated to silence him. Azerbaijan is already considered to have a poor record for human and media rights. The added attention of the hunger strike will further dent its reputation.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

European human rights court fines Azerbaijan

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JAN. 10 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Azerbaijan to pay journalist Khadija Ismayilova 16,750 euros compensation for failing to investigate a 2012 blackmail campaign against her that hinged around an online sex video.

The ruling damages Azerbaijan’s already-poor reputation for media rights just as it prepares to become a major gas supplier to Europe.

Azerbaijan “had had a duty to investigate. However, there had been significant flaws and delays in the investigation, even though there had been obvious leads,” the ECHR said in a statement.

The ECHR, though, stopped short of blaming the Azerbaijani government for the blackmail. “It had not been possible to establish ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that the State itself had been responsible for the very serious invasion of Ms Ismayilova’s privacy,” it said.

Her supporters said the government tried to intimidate Ms Ismayilova, one of Azerbaijan’s most high-profile journalists, because she had been investigating corruption claims against Azerbaijani Pres. Ilham Aliyev.

When it failed, her supporters said, officials fabricated evidence that she had been involved with corruption. She served 537 days in prison, being released in May 2016. Azerbaijani officials have not commented.

This year, Azerbaijan is expected to start pumping gas from its Caspian Sea fields to Europe along the so-called Southern Gas Corridor.

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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019

Imam flees Uzbekistan after opposing headscarf ban

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DEC. 20 (The Conway Bulletin) – Fazliddin Parpiyev, an imam at a Tashkent mosque, said that he had fled Uzbekistan after the security services questioned him over his statements earlier this year that a headscarf ban in schools should be lifted). Imam Parpiyev did not say where he had fled to but his statements will embarrass President Shavkat Mirziyoyev who has said that he wants to build a more inclusive society.

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>>This story was first published in issue 395 of The Conway Bulletin on Dec. 23 2018

Kazakh court jails three men in Ablyazov linked case

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DEC. 21 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Almaty sent three men — Kenzhebek Abishev, Oralbek Omirov, and Almat Zhumaghulov — to jail on terrorism-related charges after finding them guilty of promoting banned political movement Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan, set up by exiled opposition leader Mukhtar Ablyazov. Free speech activists have said the trial was politically motivated. Last month, during the trial Zhumaghulov and Omirov had also slashed their forearms in protest.

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>>This story was first published in issue 395 of The Conway Bulletin on Dec. 23 2018

Nazarbayev hosts Congress of World Leaders

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ALMATY/Oct. 10/11 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev hosted the sixth edition of the Congress of World Religious and Traditional leaders in the Palace of Peace and Accord in Astana. Mr Nazarbayev’s decorators have said that he has concocted the Congress to try and burnish his self-styled image as a bringer of peace to the world. It was first held in 2003 and takes place every three years. Kazakhstan is officially a secular country although its population is predominantly Muslim.

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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018