U.S. Silent About Azerbaijan's Forthcoming Snap Elections
The United States this week refrained from offering any comment on Azerbaijan's forthcoming snap presidential elections which are scheduled to take place on February 7, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
"I just don’t have any comment on the internal elections inside Azerbaijan," State Department's spokesperson Matthew Miller told a Thursday briefing when asked for the second time in a week.
"I just don’t have any comment on it," Miller pushed back when pressed by TURAN if the U.S. thought the elections, and concerns around it, weren't "significant enough".
The OSCE ODIHR Election Observation Mission on Wednesday released its interim report on Azerbaijan's upcoming elections saying that each of the participating candidates, along with the current president, have "openly supported the president in the recent past."
The report highlights that the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression, freedom of the media, and the right to access information, however the restrictions are not sufficiently defined.
Politics
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The court records from the trial of Teymur Kerimov, the head of the YouTube channel Kanal-11, were falsified, the declaration distributed by Kerimov's colleagues. “The court documents are distorted. They misrepresented the testimony of citizens. For instance, the victim Leila Almaszadeh stated in court that she had no complaints against me. In court, she said, “Teymur did not ask me for money and did not receive any money from me.” However, the court protocol states that she is complaining about me and demands the removal of illegally recorded videos,” writes Kerimov.
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As a result of measures taken by the Nizami, Garadag, and Binagadi district prosecutors’ offices in Baku, the funds obtained by several agricultural product exporters have been returned to the country.
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Presidents of Azerbaijan and Ukraine met at the Economic Forum in Davos on 22 January.
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Ten international human rights organizations have called on members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to confirm the termination of Azerbaijan's powers in the structure and establish clear criteria for their restoration.
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