Jamil Hasanli: "Regression of democracy is also because the West retreated from its principles"

The leader of the National Council of Democratic Forces Jamil Hasanli, who was recently awarded  the International  Democracy Prize named after Ion Ratiu, responded to the questions of the Washington correspondent of Turan.

This award was established in honor of the Romanian Democrat Ion Ratiu, and has been  awarded previously  to the known person - Adam Michnik (Poland, 2009), Aung San Suu Kyi (Mbyanma 2012), Mustafa Nayen (Ukraine 2014), and etc.

Hasanli confirmed reports that the Azerbaijani Embassy and the lobby of the official Baku in Washington tried to interfere with the awards ceremony at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

According to him, the embassy staff and lobbyist groups have tried to dissuade the invited guests not to go to the event, but their attempts were in vain.

"This is not a Baku - to disrupt the event, shut the door, turn off the light,"  said Hasanli.

According to him,  the talk is not only about the  attempts to dissuade Americans - put pressure on the Azerbaijani Diaspora. Hasanli noted that one of the main problems of Azerbaijan in the field of human rights is the prosecution of citizens for political reasons. According to him, to date, there are  100 political prisoners in the country, and he can say with certainty about the falsification of criminal cases against them, because he was personally convinced of this,  attending the court proceedings.

Do the Western countries  provide support in the protection of the rights of political prisoners?

Responding  this question Hasanli said that the issue should be considered in two planes.

Thus, international human rights organizations pay great attention to the protection of human rights and the issue of political prisoners in Azerbaijan, appeal  to the government, trying to influence the situation.

At the same time, this is not true for  the countries that have a moral responsibility for the situation with democracy and human rights.

They prefer to work with the authoritarian power of Azerbaijan in an atmosphere of  "collaboration" and "discuss anything behind closed doors." According to him, this "cooperation strategy" did not give significant results. "The retreat of the West, including the United States in matters of democracy and human rights from their principles, hurt their authority in the public opinion,"  said Hasanli. Some initiatives  of Western structures have failed.

A Joint Working Group on Human Rights  founded in 2014 at the initiative of the Council of Europe  only engaged in simulated problem-solving, and ultimately the Council of Europe had to refuse to participate in it. It took 10 months after the visit of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland,  who proposed the creation of a working group on human rights, but so far nothing  has been done in this direction.

"Unfortunately, our people in the period of the Soviet Union, which we criticize in terms of human rights,  were better protected than they are now. Now the opportunities for citizens to prove  their innocence in court is practically reduced to zero," said Hasanli.

In his view, a regression of democracy in Azerbaijan is connected not only with the strengthening of the authoritarian nature of Aliyev regime, but also a retreat from Western democratic principles.

One example of this are the parliamentary elections on November 1st. Despite the fact that the Azerbaijani authorities did not allow ODIHR observers to the elections, the United States declared their readiness to cooperate with the new composition of the Milli Majlis formed on the basis of fraud.

As for the release of Leyla and Arif Yunusov, in the opinion of Hasanli, the activities for the restoration of the rights of every activist personally is not effective, because it will require a lot of time.  There is need to  raise  specifically and explicitly the issue of the release of all political prisoners.

Hasanli drew attention to the fact that the couple Yunus  were freed only  after in jail  they were on the verge of death from disease. Hasanli condemned the repression of the PFPA, which is at the forefront of the struggle for democracy in Azerbaijan. Currently, more than 10 APFP activists are in prison on trumped-up and politically motivated charges.

Hasanli supports the idea of ​​imposing sanctions against violators of human rights in Azerbaijan - judges, prosecutors, investigators, people, stamp dates investigation expert opinion. First of all, we are talking about not granting them American and Schengen visas.

Perhaps they did not even travel to the United States, but it is necessary to draw attention to it, public censure, it may force others to think about. Hasanli pointed to the facts of specialization, even in matters of extradition fabricated results of examinations.

In particular, Hasanli gave the example of a medical expert Jeyhun Allahverdiyev.  He usedto give a conclusion  that caused the basis for the arrest of the chief editor of "Azadlig" newspaper Ganimat Zahid, then wrote a false report on the beating of  the  IRFS Director Emin Huseynov, falsified conclusions of the examination in the case on the beating of journalist Agil Khalil.

The same expert in 2013 "exceeded his authority"  and gave expert opinion that Hasanli  was unable to work as president.

Finally, now that he had given the fabricated  conclusion  on criminal penalties for Hasanli’s daughter, Gunel. "This man  has specialized  on giving falsified results of examinations. Must there must a punishment for him or not?" summed up Gasanli.-06D--