Azerbaijan: Important political events of 2021

On March 12, a joint meeting of the Milli Majlis Committee on Legal Policy and State Building and the Committee on Human Rights discussed the addition of a new article — 523-1 “Engaging in Begging” — to the Code of Administrative Offenses. If adopted, begging would be removed from the category of vagrancy and classified as a separate administrative offense, with specific administrative sanctions applied.

On March 2, President Ilham Aliyev inspected a new fleet of municipal garbage trucks assembled at the Ganja Automobile Plant in the courtyard of the Baku Expo Center. Seventy vehicles, each with a capacity of 22 cubic meters and built on chassis supplied by the Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ), will be distributed to 58 cities and districts across the country.

Azerbaijan’s human rights commissioner on Monday renewed a call for the international community to formally recognize the 1992 Khojaly killings as genocide, urging a legal assessment under international humanitarian and human rights law.

Many have seen the documentary film "The Endless Corridor" — a journalistic investigation into the Khojaly tragedy. According to the official version, the authors of the film are Lithuanians led by producer Andrius Brokas. However, this is not the case at all. The script for this film was written by Azerbaijanis, and most of the directing, producing and part of the filming was also done by them.