Diplomats in Azerbaijan were indifferent to human rights poll

The embassies of the EU countries in Azerbaijan have revealed no due interest in the action of the South-Caucasian human rights network aimed to draw attention to human rights activists' problems. This was stated to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Tatiana Kryuchkina, a representative of the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS). According to her story, only the embassy of Italy and representative office of the European Commission have officially answered to the questionnaires about the work conducted in this direction.

The answers of these diplomatic missions emphasize that human rights topics are "in the focus of their attention." As to the problems of human rights activists as such, according to Ms Kryuchkina, the measures include only occasional accompaniments by diplomats of human rights activists in their tours over Azerbaijan and participation in their actions.

Officials of some other embassies, although leaving the questionnaires unanswered, orally expressed similar opinions, the source said.

In his turn, Emin Guseinov, director of the IRFS, explained the embassies' passiveness in reacting to the action of human rights activists by "bureaucratic procedures of their diplomatic service." Probably, they have to coordinate their actions in the context of such non-standard situation with their higher instances, he believes.

In Mr Guseinov's opinion, actually, the European structures have understanding of the fact that in recent years, in the post-Soviet space, and in the countries of Southern Caucasus in particular, human rights activists found themselves under threat. "Two years ago, the office of Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner of the Council of Europe on Human Rights, even started drafting some additional mechanisms towards defending human rights activists. Several conferences with participation of human rights activists from the regions were held; however, later the works in this direction were stopped," said Mr Guseinov.

On the other hand, he continued, very often diplomatic missions, in particular those in Azerbaijan, prefer not to advertise too broadly their actions towards promotion of democracy and defence of human rights, afraid of having problems with the government.

The director of the IRFS has noted that the authorities of Azerbaijan are irritated by criticism of the situation with human rights, regarding it as "interference into country's internal affairs."