Europe's Bending Of Law Exposes Its Double Standards Towards Human Rights

(MENAFN- AzerNews) EDITORIAL

Those who speak a language of threat to Azerbaijan know that itis time to put an end to these bad habits. Since Azerbaijan hassucceeded in guaranteeing its territorial integrity andsovereignty, this method is no longer useful.

However, it seems that President Ilham Aliyev's message to theworld about this has not yet reached some people engaged inpolitical affairs. Although the head of the European StabilityInitiative (ESI), Gerald Knaus, claims that he is closelyinterested in human rights issues and has experience in this field,his views on Azerbaijan do not correspond with his backgroundinformation. Knaus called on the PACE rapporteurs to take stepsrelated to the release of the political prisoners allegedly'imprisoned' in Azerbaijan. However, the European activistapproached the issue one-sidedly.

First of all, those who are interested in freedom of speech andhuman rights in Azerbaijan can familiarise themselves with thesituation in the country. Along with state-owned mediaorganisations, opposition media subjects also operate freely inAzerbaijan. As for politicians and journalists, they are notsubjected to pressure, but conditions are created for them.

In our days, the topic of freedom of speech and politicalpersecution has become the most convenient tool for a smearcampaign against the countries they want to slander in thecountries of the European Union. After its victory in the SecondGarabagh War, Azerbaijan was subjected to a storm of slander andpersecution. Undoubtedly, this campaign, carried out with theorganisational support of the Armenian lobby, is fully compatiblewith the financial interests of representatives of some so-calledhuman rights organisations in Europe. For this reason, Mr. GeraldKnaus forgot the statistical data until 2020 when talking abouthuman rights in Azerbaijan.

If he has forgotten, then we will remind him:

First of all, since the 1990s, the fact that more than onemillion Azerbaijanis were forcibly expelled from their lands andbecame refugees is considered a tragedy in the world. However, theCouncil of Europe is indifferent to human rights and even tries toignore the issue.

The delegation of Azerbaijan represented in PACE tried to saythese things in the last winter session. However, some politicianswho found comfort in the financial support of the Armenian lobbytried to prevent this.

How is it that PACE and the Committee of Ministers wantAzerbaijan to remain a member state of the organisation but do notwant to hear the right voice of Azerbaijan for this? Do the'political prisoners' they talk about really bother them somuch?

Let's make this clear:

Until the Patriotic War, Azerbaijan agreed to all the demandsand proposals of the Council of Europe. This led to the solution ofthe Garabagh problem in favour of Armenia. Both the Human RightsCommission of the Council of Europe, PACE, and the Minsk Group ofthe OSCE were trying to freeze the conflict by drawing a veil overthe realities. The fate of more than one million refugees andinnocent citizens killed in Garabagh was completely out of theirinterest. But when the geopolitical processes changed, allrecognised and unrecognised organisations in Europe stood up anddirected their black propaganda against Azerbaijan under the guiseof the independent media-but working for Western forces in fact so-called media subjects, financed by various secret sources,suddenly became active and began to increase their pressure on thestate. Even with information consisting of blackmail and lies,those media outlets started to grist to the enemy's mill bypublishing anti-Azerbaijan information.

Azerbaijan is well aware of who and which organisations receivefinancial support for such media subjects that only deal in money they wanted the prosperity of the country, why do they intervenein Azerbaijan's internal issues and broadcast anti-Azerbaijaniinformation instead of exposing the atrocities committed by theArmenians in Garabagh, mine problems, as well as anti-Azerbaijaniforces?

Azerbaijan does not have any obligations towards politicians andorganisations that act on such double standards. If we are talkingabout the law, then all parties must comply with the legal normsand at least not interfere in the internal affairs ofAzerbaijan.

As for Gerald Knaus's posts about Azerbaijan, looking at hissocial media page, it is immediately clear that Azerbaijan isspecifically targeted. Because spotlighting Azerbaijan amid so manyproblems in the world means nothing but a purposeful step.

In my opinion, Knaus completely forgot about the politicalrepression and persecution in Armenia, including the unfinishedcriminal facts. It should be recalled that the Helsinki Committee'sannual statement on human rights contains hundreds of documentsrelated to the facts of political persecution and death in Armenia prisoners arrested in Armenia are tortured and evenbrutally killed.

In addition, the Human Rights Commission of the Council ofEurope can make a statement about the Azerbaijani journalist whowas subjected to pressure in France. Also, the people who werebeaten by the police in anti-government protests in Paris and othercities have at least the same rights as everyone else. It is theduty of activists like Gerald Knaus to see it and take a look atthis, at least...

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