What is behind the lowering of the status of the OSCE mission?
Addressing the OSCE Permanent Council on the lowering of the status of the office of the organization in Azerbaijan generates a lot of questions to which there are no answers.
First of all, the OSCE countries, and more specifically the West and the United States opposed the idea of Baku, which made no secret that it wants to minimize the interference in its internal affairs. Official Baku feared of the presence of the OSCE mission, which monitored the situation, organized roundtables, and funded various projects for government agencies, civil society, and media.
All this intensified during the election period and turned into a headache for the authorities, who have been forced to respond to criticism of violations of democracy.
From now on, all of this will be less. In any case, Baku expects that restricting the powers of the office will lead down to this.
So far no comments for this have been made, but it is clear that Washington has agreed to this in exchange for something. The question is, what is it?
Although the decision will come into effect on January 1, it is quite symptomatic and talks about the continuation of the trend of the tightening of foreign presence in the country. Restrictions for broadcasting Radio Liberty and The Voice of America, the ban on the U.S. National Democratic Institute (NDI) and other steps are the links of one chain.
Successive steps of the authorities are to apply the experience of Russia to declare foreign agents all those who receive support from foreign donors, further tightening the legislation on NGOs.
All this does not bode well for civil society in Azerbaijan. Here the most important thing is not the policy of the authorities, which has not changed for 18 years. The saddest thing is the position of the West, which continues to retreat from democratic values under the pressure of the oil and pipeline interests.
Similarly, the United States acted in Iran before the Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s of the last century. -02B-
Politics
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On February 13, the Appeal Court did not satisfy the defense's appeal against the decision of the Khatai Court regarding the arrest of journalist Shahnaz Beylargizi. According to the lawyer, the journalist herself did not participate in the trial due to poor health. The defense intends to submit a petition to replace the arrest with house arrest.
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Azerbaijan will limit 'Sputnik Azerbaijan' and 'BBC News Azərbaycanca' editorial offices. This was reported by the country's pro-government media on 13 February, citing an informed source.
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