When Azerbaijan served as chair of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, it scoffed at the spirit and purpose of the organisation and moved vigorously to squash all forms of free speech at home.

Now that Baku no longer holds the top spot, civil society activists are worrying about what Azerbaijani authorities will do next.At the moment, the country’s jails hold at least 90 political prisoners, almost double the number in Belarus and Russia combined. These prisoners of conscience face a variety of cooked-up charges, including hooliganism, drug possession, tax evasion and treason.

All civil society actors in Azerbaijan currently are grappling with a daunting dilemma: either stop engaging in rights-related activism or pay a high price, in particular face the prospect of criminal prosecution.

Dozens of activists and independent journalists remain behind bars for no reason other than engaging in rights work or tacitly promoting free speech. At the moment, the country’s jails hold at least 90 political prisoners, almost double the number in Belarus and Russia combined. These prisoners of conscience face a variety of cooked-up charges, including hooliganism, drug possession, tax evasion and treason.

Azerbaijan relinquished its Committee of Ministers chairmanship on Nov. 13. Far from softening its repressive behaviour and cleaning up its awful rights record during its six-month tenure, the government stepped up its suppression of internal dissent.

At least 13 activists were arrested and at least 10 others were convicted on politically motivated charges following flawed trials. Authorities rounded up the country’s most senior human rights defenders and other leading activists, including Leyla Yunus, veteran human rights defender and director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, and her husband, the political commentator Arif Yunus.

They also detained Rasul Jafarov, chairman of Azerbaijan’s Human Rights Club, Intigam Aliyev, prominent lawyer and chairman of the Legal Education Society, and the famous opposition journalist Seymur Haziyev.

Some of those detained in recent months have serious health conditions. Yet, authorities keep them locked up, even as they fail to provide any information to suggest that pre-trial detention is warranted. They also have not released any credible evidence that would support the charges against these recent detainees.

In addition to politically motivated arrests, dozens of draconian laws regulating the operations of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have been adopted. The offices of several local and international NGOs were recently raided, their bank accounts frozen and staff interrogated. As a result of increasing pressure, many groups have felt compelled to cease operations.

While the Azerbaijani government has been ruthless in its clampdown, it remains sensitive about its public image, a fact underscored by Baku’s efforts to lavish money on PR in Washington and the EU. Baku’s PR acumen needs to be kept in mind by those who mine for signs of its intentions. Some Western partners have lauded President Ilham Aliyev’s government for releasing four political prisoners in mid-October.

The truth is the release does not change anything, and it is certainly not indicative of a softening of the Aliyev administration’s stance on dissent. It is important to note that before the four were pardoned, they were coerced into acknowledging in writing their “crime,” begging for forgiveness, praising Aliyev, objecting to being called “political prisoners” and denouncing the “anti-Azerbaijan or pro-Armenian activities” of international organizations.

Aliyev’s administration has a habit of using a “revolving door” tactic, releasing few and arresting new political prisoners. Since the October amnesty, at least three more activists have been jailed on bogus charges.

Police accused two of them on hooliganism for “swearing in public place,” and the other faces “narcotics” charges. They all have rejected the accusations, insisting their arrests are retaliation for their rights-related work.

During the Azerbaijani chairmanship, the Council of Europe chose mostly to avert its eyes to Baku’s violations or make toothless statements and merely symbolic criticisms. This head-in-the-sand approach has prompted activists in Baku to question the point of the Council of Europe.

Sadly, Azerbaijan’s refusal to release people imprisoned on politically motivated charges and end its abuses has not affected its relationships with the United States and European Union. Western diplomats tend to prefer backroom diplomacy to public pressure, but, in Azerbaijan’s case, there is absolutely no indication that private talks have had any positive effect.

The international community’s inaction means that the end of the Azerbaijan’s independent human rights community is nearing soon. Unless Aliyev’s government understands that there are serious consequences for its abuses, Baku’s free pass on human rights abuses will continue.

Editor’s note:  Vugar Gojayev is an Azerbaijani researcher and freelance journalist. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Irina was 21 when she first started using drugs. More than 30 years later, having lost her husband, her home and her business to drugs, she is still battling her addiction.

But, like almost all female drug addicts in this former Soviet state, she has faced a desperate struggle not only with her drug problem, but with accessing help in the face of institutionalised and systematic discrimination because of her gender.

“Georgia’s society is very male-dominated,” she told IPS. “And this is reflected in the attitudes to drugs. It’s as if it’s OK for men to use drugs but not women. For women, the stigma of drug use is massive. There are many women who do not join programmes helping them as they would rather not be seen there.”

Women make up 10 per cent of the estimated 40,000 drug users in Georgia, according to research by local NGOs working with drug users.“Georgia’s society is very male-dominated and this is reflected in the attitudes to drugs. It’s as if it’s OK for men to use drugs but not women. For women, the stigma of drug use is massive. There are many women who do not join programmes helping them as they would rather not be seen there” – Irina, now in her 50s, who has been taking drugs for 30 years

However, because of very strong gender stereotyping, women users have very low access to harm reduction services – only 4 percent of needle exchange programme clients are women and the figure is even less for methadone treatment.

Local activists say this startling discrepancy is down to the massive social stigma faced by women drug users.

Dasha Ocheret, Deputy Director for Advocacy at the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (EHRN) told IPS: “In traditional societies, like Georgia’s, there is a much stronger negative attitude to women who use drugs than to men who use drugs. Women are supposed to be wives and mothers, not drug users.”

Many female addicts are scared to access needle exchanges or other harm reduction services because they fear their addiction will become known to their families or the police. Many have found themselves the victims of violence as their own families try to exert control over them once their drug use has been revealed. Others fear their drug use will be reported to the authorities by health workers.

Registered women drug users can have their children taken away while they routinely face violence – over 80 percent of women who use drugs in Georgia experience violence, according to the Georgian Harm Reduction Network– and extortion at the hands of police helping to enforce some of the world’s harshest drug laws. Possession of cannabis, for example, can result in an 11-year jail sentence.

Irina, who admits that she arranges anonymous attendance at an opioid substitution therapy (OST) programme so that as few people as possible can see her there, told IPS that she had herself been assaulted by a police officer and that police automatically viewed all female drug users as “criminals”.

But those who do want to access such services face further barriers because of their gender.

Free methadone substitution programmes in the country are extremely limited and because levels of financial autonomy among women in Georgia are low, other similar programmes are too expensive for many female addicts.

Discrimination is not uncommon among health service workers. Although some say that they have been treated by very sympathetic doctors, other female drug users have complained of abuse and denigration by medical staff and in some cases being denied health care because of their drug use.

Pregnant women are discouraged from accessing OST, despite it being shown to be safe in pregnancy and resulting in better health outcomes for both mother and child.

Eka Iakobishvili, EHRN’s Human Rights Programme Manager, told IPS: “Pregnant women don’t have access to certain services – they are strongly advised by doctors and health care workers to abort a baby rather than get methadone substitution treatment because they are told the treatment will harm the baby.”

While some may then undergo abortions, others will not, instead continuing dangerous drug use and the potential risk of contracting HIV/AIDS which could then be passed on to their child.

Meanwhile, those harm reduction services accessible by women are not gender-sensitive, according to campaigners, who say that female drug users need access to centres and programmes run and attended only by women.

Irina told IPS: “On some [harm reduction] programmes, the male drug users there will abuse the women drug users for taking drugs. This puts a lot of women off attending these programmes.”

She said that she had asked for a women-only service to be set up at the OST centre she attends but that it had been rejected on the grounds that only a few women were enrolled in it.

Together, these factors mean that many women are unable to access health services and continue dangerous drug-taking behaviour, sharing needles and injecting home-made drug cocktails made up of anything, including disinfectants and petrol mixed with over the counter medicines.

But there is hope that the situation may be about to change, at least to some degree, as local and international groups press to have the problem addressed.

At the end of July, CEDAW (UN Commission on Elimination of Discrimination against Women) released a set of recommendations for the Georgian government to ensure that women obtain proper access to harm reduction services after local NGOs submitted reports on the levels of discrimination they face.

These include, among others, specific calls for the government to carry out nationwide studies to establish the exact number of women who use drugs, including while pregnant, to help draw up a strategic plan to tackle the problem, and to provide gender-sensitive and evidence-based harm reduction services for women who use drugs.

The government has yet to react publicly to the recommendations but local campaigners have said they are speaking to government departments about them and are preparing to follow up with them on the recommendations.

Tea Kordzadze, Project Manager at the Georgian Harm Reduction Network in Tibilisi, told IPS: “We are hoping that at least some of the recommendations will be implemented.”

The Georgian government has been keen to show the country is ready to embrace Western values and bring its legislation and standards into line with European nations in recent years as it looks to create closer ties to the European Union. Rights activists say that this could come into play when the government considers the recommendations.

Iakobishvili said: “These are of course just recommendations and the government is not obliged at all to accept or implement any of them. But, having said that, Georgia does care what other countries and big international rights organisations like Amnesty International and so on say about the country.”

Irina told IPS that only outside pressure would bring any real change. “The European Union, the Council of Europe and other international bodies need to put pressure on the Georgian government to make sure that the recommendations don’t remain on paper only.”

But, she added, “in any case, the recommendations alone won’t be enough. The whole attitude in society to women drug users is very negative. It has to be changed.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The Azerbaijan government crackdown on civil society has worsened in recent months, human rights campaigners are warning, and activists are increasingly falling victim to official efforts to limit dissent.

Human Rights Watch, the global watchdog, is calling for an end to what it refers to as harassment and oppressive tactics against the prominent human rights activist Leyla Yunus and her husband, Arif Yunusov. The group says it is now up to the international community to step up pressure on the Azerbaijan government.“Mirgadirov and the Yunuses are the voices that the Azerbaijani government doesn’t want to be heard." -- Rachel Denber

“Azerbaijan’s international partners, in particular fellow members of the Council of Europe, should make clear that continued harassment of human rights defenders, and the Yunuses in particular, will affect their relationships with Azerbaijan’s government,” the U.S.-based watchdog group said.

The call was particularly aimed at President Francois Hollande of France, who is scheduled to visit Azerbaijan on May 11 and 12. Campaigners are urging President Hollande to insist on seeing the Yunuses and to signal that their freedom is of significant importance to French-Azerbaijani relations.

Concern is also being expressed for the plight of Rauf Mirgadirov, an Azerbaijani journalist accused of spying for Armenia. He’s been in prison since late last month, awaiting trial.

Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, called the charges against Mirgadirov “bogus”.

“Mirgadirov is a man who has been for many years a strong critique of the Azerbaijani government, and the Azerbaijani authorities, who are known for having a longstanding pattern of bogus allegations, were just looking for a pretext to put him behind bars,” Denber told IPS.

“Mirgadirov and the Yunuses are the voices that the Azerbaijani government doesn’t want to be heard. But the outrageous facts of their scandalous treatment have to be exposed to the public and addressed immediately.”

Azerbaijan will soon be taking over the rotating chairmanship of Europe’s foremost human rights body, the Council of Europe. Human Rights Watch is also calling on the body’s secretary-general, Thorbjorn Jagland, to express urgent concern about the treatment of the Yunuses and Mirgadirov, as well as other civic activists and journalists that have fallen victims of the regime in recent months.

“No government should be allowed to get away with targeting human rights defenders while it’s seeking to boost its international prestige,” Denber said in a brief.

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The warnings come just days after an annual private-sector U.S.-Azerbaijan convention took place here in Washington. There, the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan, Richard Morningstar, called the detention of the Yunuses a “mistake”.

In follow-up comments to IPS, State Department officials expressed “deep concern” about the human rights situation in Azerbaijan, and said that they are “closely following the situation”. The U.S. Embassy in Baku, they said, has been in “direct touch” with the Yunuses.

“As with the Rauf Mirgadirov case, we are disturbed that the actions taken by the Azerbaijani government against Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunusov appear to be related to their participation in people-to-people efforts aimed at building confidence and facilitating a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.”

Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto independent but unrecognised state, which is internationally seen as part of Azerbaijan. However, the area remains populated by significant numbers of ethnic Armenians.

The Yunuses’ detention occurred at about the same time as the U.S.-Azerbaijan Convention took place here in Washington. The event is seen by some as a public-relations show for energy-rich Azerbaijan, with significant participation by the country’s influential oil and gas industry.

Leyla Yunus’s brother-in-law, Ramis Yunus, a long-time Washington-area resident and a columnist for a number of Azerbaijani and Russian language media outlets, was not allowed to attend the convention after his family members were detained in Azerbaijan.

Although attempts by IPS to contact Ramis Yunis proved unsuccessful by deadline, he was quoted in local media stating that he had hoped to ask U.S. legislators whether their priority lay with human rights or oil.

“They call it the ‘U.S.-Azerbaijan Convention’, organised by ‘friends of Azerbaijan’,” Ramis Yunus was quoted as saying. “I am both a U.S. citizen and an Azerbaijani citizen. But why I am treated as an enemy here?”

This year’s U.S.-Azerbaijan Convention celebrated two decades of bilateral ties following Azeri independence from the Soviet Union.

Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute, who spoke at the convention, told IPS the event’s goals are “to further the conversation between American policy-makers and Azerbaijani counter-parts.”

Vatanka continued: “Such efforts are important in introducing Azerbaijan’s agenda to policy-makers here in Washington.”

Track-two crackdown

Leyla Yunus is the director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, a group formed in 1995 that focused on combating politically motivated prosecutions, violence against women and unlawful house evictions. Since then, the group has also been involved in the projects targeted at rebuilding the relationship between Armenia and Azerbaijan around the unresolved conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Leyla and Arif Yunusov were detained by Azerbaijan’s government earlier last week as they were boarding a plane to Doha, where they planned to attend an international conference. Leyla Yunus’s detention is visibly related to their work on building dialogue with Armenians and her relationship with Mirgadirov, the journalist.

Mirgadirov has been involved in track-two diplomacy between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, having taken part in meetings in Armenia aimed at improving the relationship between the two countries. Leyla Yunus and the Institute for Peace and Democracy have also been involved in organising some of these projects.

Human Rights Watch cites media reports from in which the Azerbaijani officials state that the Yunuses are considered witnesses to a criminal investigation. The officials also assert that the Yunuses had previously disregarded an attempt to be served with an interrogation summons, and had not responded to phone calls asking them to appear for questioning.

Yunus’s lawyer confirmed to Human Rights Watch that a government official delivered such a summons on Apr. 24. Leyla Yunus refused, however, explaining that she had not received adequate notice.

“Azerbaijan has a long history of using bogus charges to imprison its critics, including on treason charges,” Human Rights Watch states.

New technologies make it easier than ever for spy agencies to invade privacy. In the photo, students at the Campus Tecnológico in Guatemala. Credit: Danilo Valladares/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Oct 3 2013 (IPS)

Governments of countries that engage in large-scale electronic espionage, like the United States, and companies that develop spying software could theoretically face legal action for violating the Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention, adopted in Budapest in 2001 and in force since 2004, is the first international treaty seeking to address Internet and computer crime, and has a provision that aims to protect the right of privacy of data communication from unauthorised interception.

The treaty, also known as the Budapest Convention, requires member states to criminalise four kinds of conduct against confidentiality or the integrity and availability of computer systems or data: illegal access, illegal interception, data and system interference, and misuse of devices for the purpose of committing these offences.

These are precisely the practices engaged in by the U.S., British and other governments, according to documents leaked to the media in June by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden.

Cyber surveillance “violates the Convention, and perpetrators can be sued” under the Cybercrime Convention Committee, Lorena Pichardo, a law school professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), told IPS.

The Convention was adopted by the Council of Europe, which was set up to promote democracy and protect human rights and the rule of law in Europe. But the treaty has also been signed by non-member states, like Canada, the United States and Japan. The United States ratified it in 2006.

So far, 51 states have signed the Convention and 40 have ratified it.

It is possible to file a complaint with the Cybercrime Convention Committee, but any action taken is based on the national laws that its members must approve in order to live up to the Convention. Complainants can also turn to the European Court of Human Rights.

A complaint “can be successful, but it would be partial, because among the countries that are party to the Convention, there are interests at stake. The law can be bent and accommodated to national legislation,” Enoc Gutiérrez, a professor of information and communications technology (ICT) at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, told IPS.

In a 2012 study that analysed Mexican, U.S. and EU laws, Gutiérrez and his colleagues Lucio Ordóñez and Víctor Saucedo argued the need for special legislation and a special court on computer crime.

The problem is that the Convention does not take into account that cybercrimes can include espionage by a state. The general impression is that when a government seeks cross-border access to computer data, it is doing so to investigate crimes and pursue criminals.

Article 32b of the Budapest Convention introduced an exception to the principle of territorial sovereignty:

“A Party may, without the authorisation of another Party [..] access or receive, through a computer system in its territory, stored computer data located in another Party, if the Party obtains the lawful and voluntary consent of the person who has the lawful authority to disclose the data to the Party through that computer system.”

The Cybercrimes Convention Committee held its ninth full session Jun. 4-5 – one day before the Guardian and the Washington Post published the first leaks by Snowden. In the meeting, the Committee did not debate anything related to cyber espionage.

But in a recent report, the Committee’s ad hoc sub-group on jurisdiction and transborder access to data said that new developments, such as cloud storage of data and the activities of law enforcement authorities, made it necessary to revise the reach of article 32b.

“Current practices regarding direct law enforcement access to data as well as access via Internet service providers and other private sector entities…illustrate that law enforcement authorities of many States access data stored on computers in other States in order to secure electronic evidence. Such practices frequently go beyond the limited possibilities foreseen in Article 32b and the Budapest Convention in general,” the sub-group says.

This poses risks to human rights, they warn.

“Personal data are increasingly stored by private entities, including cloud service providers. Access by law enforcement to, or the disclosure to law enforcement authorities of personal data stored in a foreign jurisdiction by such private sector entities may violate data protection regulations,” they add.

The NSA and other intelligence agencies use software that enables them to intercept private communications around the world.

Mexico, for example, acquired software from U.S. and European companies to monitor telephone calls, email, chats, Internet browsing histories and social networks.

Of the at least 95 corporations that develop and distribute this kind of software worldwide, 32 are in the U.S., 17 are British and the rest come from some two dozen other nations, according to confidential documents from intelligence contractors published by Wikileaks in December 2011.

The list mentions 78 different products, including Trojan viruses, audio transmitters, audio and video recorders, and tracking tools.

“Any technology with such a huge potential for the violation of fundamental rights should be the focus of the highest level of legal protection, especially if it’s in the hands of private corporations that operate according to purely business objectives,” two officials from Spain’s Interior Ministry, Miguel Ángel Castellano and Pedro David Santamaría, wrote in a December 2012 article, “El control del ciberespacio por parte de gobiernos y empresas” (“Control of cyberspace by governments and companies”).

Pichardo, the law professor, said national legislation tends to take precedence in cases that invoke international principles.

“If we already have a charge of espionage, the serious problem of asking for data from other states is redundant,” she said.

Gutiérrez believes the existing international legal frameworks do not protect citizens, and specific laws are necessary. His studies focus on how to move from ICTs to technologies of learning and communication.

“When citizens are active in a social network like Facebook, by the simple act of accepting the terms of the contract they are saying their information can be shared with banks or government institutions,” he said. “They steal information from us and we don’t even realise it.”

Democratisation activists in Azerbaijan are increasingly pessimistic about what they describe as the West’s lack of support for reform and the protection of basic rights in the energy-rich South Caucasus country.

The soured mood follows a new wave of arrests of youth activists, the closure of the Western-funded Free Thought University, an alternative education centre, and a scandal over offshore companies reportedly linked to President Ilham Aliyev’s family."The understanding that changes have to come from the inside is growing." -- Baku-based blogger Ali Novruzov

Although the arrests and university closure have sparked statements of concern from international human rights activists and Western governments, the alleged offshore activities have not.

An October 2012 decision by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) not to adopt a resolution calling for the release of alleged Azerbaijani political prisoners, along with a report about Baku’s alleged use of “caviar diplomacy” to woo PACE deputies added to the unease.

Government critics charge that the lack of forceful responses from Western governments and organisations – including the United States, the European Union as well as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human-rights monitor — undermines their role as a catalyst for democratic change.

“It is clear that there is little, if any, support for the Azerbaijani pro-democracy movement in the West,” charged Murad Gassanly, director of the London-based Azerbaijan Democratic Association-UK, a pro-opposition pressure group. “The U.S. and Europe have considerable interest in preserving the status quo in Azerbaijan.”

Oil fields and gas pipelines to Europe explain that position in part, as do discussions about withdrawing North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops from Afghanistan via Azerbaijan, he added.

“All this means that Western capitals are not keen to antagonise Aliyev in this presidential election year and perhaps even beyond that, in the 2015 parliamentary elections.”

One of the Aliyev administration’s most vocal critics, formerly jailed blogger Emin Milli, went a step further, recently claiming on Facebook that the “[s]ilence of [the] international community at this moment is a crime!”

An opposition leader, however, cautions that Azerbaijani activists’ “idealistic approach to politics” is a source of their disappointment in the West.

“It is naïve to expect that the international community will solve the democratisation problems of Azerbaijan,” commented Erkin Gadirli, a leader of the Republican Alternative (REAL) group. “Each country tries to satisfy its own interests, then the interests of its allies and only then, all remaining issues.”

During a Mar. 13-14 visit to Baku, the British Foreign Office’s permanent undersecretary, Simon Fraser, the senior policy advisor to British Foreign Minister William Hague, gave a sense of how the United Kingdom views this issue.

In comments at the Azerbaijani Diplomatic Academy, Fraser claimed that the British government has always supported human rights in Azerbaijan, but added that “the UK has also other joint interests with Azerbaijan, including the economy and energy sectors.”

Such a duality of interests should come as no surprise, underlined longtime opposition leader Ali Kerimli, head of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan.

“I’ve said it many times … they [Western governments] have their own interests and follow their own policies,” Kerimli said. “Therefore, we should rely on our own resources … in order not to get disappointed later.”

Ironically, President Aliyev also recently called for self-reliance in political affairs. At an Apr. 14 cabinet meeting, Aliyev repeated the familiar theme that Azerbaijanis “know better how to rule our country.” and “do not want interference [by foreign powers].”

Where opposition to the government is concerned, Baku-based blogger Ali Novruzov, an activist for the OL youth group and former coordinator of the Free Thought University, believes that self-reliance already has begun.

Organisers of recent unsanctioned protests in Baku against the non-combat deaths of Azerbaijani soldiers, or the January crackdown on protesters in the regional town of Ismayilli targeted locals rather than the international community with their message, noted Novruzov, whose OL group was among the events’ participants. A Facebook-based campaign was organised to raise funds to pay the fines of those protesters detained, he added.

“It means that the understanding that changes have to come from the inside is growing,” Novruzov said.

Some political analysts reject the notion that the West isn’t responding to civil or human-rights crackdowns. An Apr. 17-18 visit to Baku by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Melia “sent several important messages to the Azerbaijani government concerning democratisation issues,” noted political analyst Elkhan Shahinoglu, head of the Atlas research centre, a Baku-based think-tank.

Nonetheless, the investigation of the National Democratic Institute, a Washington, DC-based democratisation entity, and the loss of radio frequencies for the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America signaled that Washington has “restricted levers with which to pressure Baku,” Shahinoglu added.

Disappointment with the West for its perceived passiveness toward alleged government abuses does not necessarily mean that reform activists are now looking elsewhere for inspiration.

“Most of the youth organisations and opposition parties aim for integration into Europe and the West,” Novruzov said. “The purpose is to achieve democratic change in Azerbaijan and it is not going to change.”

*This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.