Azerbaijan must admit the guilt for Armenian pogroms

Konstantin News

These January days, Armenians around the world remember the victims of the Armenian pogroms in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, 29 years ago.  For a whole week, from January 13 to 19, 1990, the Azerbaijani authorities organized and carried out mass pogroms of the Armenian population of the city. About a quarter of a million local Armenians were subjected to violence and deportation only because of their national identity, as a result there is no Armenian left in Baku now. 

The immovable and movable property of thousands of Armenians was looted and taken away. According to estimates of various international organizations, about 500 Armenians became victims of the violence.

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European Court ruling provides some justice for journalist who faced sex tape ordeal

Konstantin News, Re-Post

Today’s European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgment in favour of an Azerbaijani journalist who faced a sex-tape smear campaign after investigating government corruption exposes the ongoing crackdown on freedom of expression in the country, Amnesty International said.

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Demands Mount For Hunger-Striking Azerbaijani Blogger’s Release Amid New Charges

Konstantin News, Re-Post

An Azerbaijani media-rights group has added its name to the list of organizations urging the government to release a hunger-striking blogger who was targeted with a new charge just weeks before his expected release from prison.

Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Human Rights Watch (HRW), and other watchdog groups, and The Washington Post’s editorial board have also demanded that 26-year-old Mehman Huseynov be freed.

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Editor of Basta.info site is accused

Konstantin News

Mustafa Hajibeyli, editor-in-chief of the bastainfo.com website, was summoned to the Baku prosecutor”s office as a witness in connection with a lawsuit. However, today he was transferred to the status of the accused. He is charged under the following Articles of the Criminal Code: 281.2 (appeals against the state), 309.2 (abuse of office) and 313 (official forgery).

“According to the accusation, I allegedly made anti-state appeals, deliberately misleading the public and spreading false information,” said Hajibeyli in an interview with Turan.

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Boomerang law. After all, life does not end tomorrow

Konstantin Meydan TV, My Thoughs

Chingiz Sultansoy “So I remembered this pain”

The former deputy of the Milli Majlis, the former head of the Press Service of the Ministry of Defense of the Azerbaijan Republic, Eldar Sabiroglu, published his Facebook status on his son’s page. He told how his son is being tortured in custody. His son Rufat Safarov has been deprived of his freedom for the third year. At the end of 2015, the investigator of the Zardab district prosecutor’s office, R.Safarov, made a bold and sensational statement about corruption and lawlessness in law enforcement, then resigned and was soon arrested, of course. The authorities do not forgive such statements.

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Political émigré who returned home to visit critically ill father arrested on drug-related charges (updated)

Konstantin Meydan TV, News

Azad Hasanov, Musavat party member and political exile living in Lithuania, has been arrested during a short return to his home country and charged with drug trafficking.

According to his lawyer, Osman Kazimov, the Khatai District Court sentenced him to four months in detention on drug-related charges. Under Article 234.4.3 (illegal manufacturing, purchase, storage, transportation, transfer or selling of sale of drugs), Hasanov faces between five and twelve years in prison.

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OCCRP names Aliyev “Person of the Year”

Konstantin News

Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan, has won the first ever Organized Crime and Corruption Person of the Year bestowed by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). The award is given for the person who figured prominently in 2012 on stories on crime and corruption in its coverage area.  Aliyev was chosen because of new revelations this year about how his family had taken large shares in lucrative industries including the telecom, minerals and construction industries often through government related deals.

The award is chosen by the 60 reporters and 15 news organizations that make up the OCCRP consortium. Runners-up included Albanian drug lord Naser Kelmendi, President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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THE AZERBAIJANI LAUNDROMAT ONE YEAR ON: HAS JUSTICE BEEN SERVED?

Konstantin News

In September last year, a massive leak of bank records from 2012 to 2014 showed that the ruling elite of Azerbaijan ran a US$2.9 billion slush fund and an international money laundering scheme. Part of the money was used to help whitewash Azerbaijan’s international image, which had been rightly tainted due to grave human rights violations. European politicians, who took money to talk up Azerbaijan were complicit, along with European financial institutions that enabled the scheme.

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