Unlawful Killing, Torture, Arbitrary Interference With Privacy: U.S. Rights Report Reflects Significant Abuses In Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan has significant human rights issues, including unlawful and arbitrary killings, torture, arbitrary interference with privacy, politically motivated reprisal against individuals outside the country, restriction on freedom of expression and the press, the Biden Administration announced Tuesday in its first annual review of how the world's governments treat their people, TURAN's U.S. correspondent reports.

"The trend lines on human rights [globally] continue to move in the wrong direction," Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters when introducing the "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2020".

He highlighted abuses in Belarus, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, among others, in his remarks, pledging that the administration will "continue to look for innovative ways to partner with Congress to shine a light on abuses and hold perpetrators to account."

This year's reports, which evaluate the practices of roughly 200 countries and territories, "are important, but of course they're not enough. We will use a broad range of other tools to stop abuses and hold perpetrators to account," he promised. "And we will find ways to incentivize countries to take positive steps toward respecting human rights, such as through trade benefits and development aid."

The Biden-Harris administration, he said, will "also redouble our efforts to support journalists, human rights defenders, anti-corruption activists, labor union organizers, and other advocates around the world who put everything on the line to defend human rights."

"The Khashoggi Ban – which we created after the period covered by this year's human rights reports – gives us an additional tool to hold accountable officials who harm journalists, activists, or other perceived dissidents by revoking or restricting visas to them or their family members", he said.

On Azerbaijan, the U.S. report highlights significant human rights issues, such as political prisoners, corruption, pervasive problems with the independence of the judiciary, violence against journalists, the criminalization of libel and slander, harassment and incarceration of journalists on questionable charges, and blocking of websites, among other concerns.

"From May 15 [2020] through the morning of May 19, the news websites Turan.az and its affiliate Contact.az experienced a massive cyberattack and were blocked twice. The attack took place after the websites published articles criticizing the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic," reads the report.

According to the authors, significant human rights issues connected with the Nagorno-Karabakh armed conflict included unlawful killings, civilian casualties, and inhuman treatment.

"The government [of Azerbaijan] did not prosecute or punish most officials who committed human rights abuses; impunity remained a problem."

(Full version of Azerbaijan country report can be found here)

The 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices is the 45th such report that the authors have presented to the U.S. Congress. The State Department is required by law to report annually on the status of internationally recognized human and worker rights in all countries that are members of the UN.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington, D.C.