An event took place devoted to the human rights situation in Azerbaijan in the context of the European Games, in the representation of the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt in Berlin on June 9. It was a rather strange choice of venue, by the way. Saxony-Anhalt is considered the unofficial capital of German neo-Nazis, and it confirmed this title this year once again. Since January, every Sunday over a hundred young people have marched through the streets of the provincial town of Troeglitz, protesting against the plans of the local authorities to locate 50 refugees from Syria there. As a result, in April this year Nazis set fire to a shelter for refugees in Troeglitz, and bullied local burgomaster Marcus Nitra so much that he was forced to resign, fearing for the safety of his family. The author of these lines was lucky enough to get on a train from Berlin to the regional capital of Magdeburg full of Nazis after a football match a few years ago. When the situation became very tense and Nazis festooned with German crosses began to throw their arms up in a Sieg Heil salute, the train made an unscheduled stop at an intermediate station, where a squadron of the German special forces was waiting for the supporters of the Third Reich.
I would not want any readers to have misconceptions about Germany as a sort of bastion of resurgent fascism. In the end, this country has managed to survive (though not without the help of our grandfathers and the Nuremberg Tribunal) the national catastrophe in the face of Adolf Hitler, and after – to build an existing legal state, to revive its powerful industry and to ensure the welfare of its citizens. But every country has its ugly side, and violent manifestations of neo-Nazism in Saxony-Anhalt is one such problem of German society.
However, the regional office wasn't discussing its own pressing problems on 9 June, it talked about distant Azerbaijan, which volunteered to prepare a feast of sport for Europe and to hold the first European Games in the history of the continent. Is Azerbaijan abusing the European Games? An event with the same name was organized by the Berlin branch of the 'Reporters without Borders' organization. A couple of opposition political émigrés from Azerbaijan (blogger Emin Milli who lives in Berlin and an activist Gulnara Akhundova, who received political asylum in Denmark a year ago ), the head of the Berlin bureau of the German National Olympic Committee, Christian Sachs, and a member of the sports subcommittee of the Bundestag, CDU deputy Eberhard Gienger, were invited to participate in a panel discussion. A couple of dozen people gathered to listen to them – mainly journalists and members of human rights organizations.
At the beginning of the debate Emin Milli erupted with an angry speech, accusing Azerbaijan of intending to use the European Games for political PR. Christian Sachs, in his turn, noted that any country receiving major sporting events uses them for self-praise, including Germany, and he does not see nothing criminal in it. In fact, Chancellor Angela Merkel did it too. When the German national football team won the World Cup in Brazil, the media spread the bundeskantsler's selfie with athletes taken in the locker room. Thus, we can say that Merkel abused the World Cup for her own political PR, going to the locker room and photographing herself with the champions. But there weren't events like 'Reporters Without Borders'. It seems you can take photos with half naked players, but you cannot run along a boulevard with a lit torch.
It's difficult to describe the further course of the debate except as a game of cat and mouse. The human rights activists, like the Holy Inquisition in the Middle Ages, repeatedly tried to pin down apostates Sachs and Gienger, and to compel them to come up with harsh criticism of Azerbaijan. But they used only diplomatic wording, immeasurably strengthening the lure of the assembled audience to anathematize them both. A young man of 30, who introduced himself as an employee of Human Rights Watch, asked the deputy Eberhard Gienger: "You have a choice: to condemn the Azerbaijani government, calling on it to release imprisoned journalists, or not to do this and to become a fool used for the regime's propaganda. What do you choose?" The elderly MP (who in the past was a legendary gymnast, 36-time champion of Germany and Olympic champion in 1976), stating the inadmissibility of such formulations, said that he is going to Azerbaijan to see how the European Games will be held and to evaluate the event from the point of view its appropriateness for German sports in the future.
The blogger Emin Milli during the discussion complained that Azerbaijan does not issue accreditation to some German journalists who want to visit the country to cover the European Games. Millie did not answer the question from the audience about the names of journalists who are not accredited, but promised that he will reveal them in the near future. Christian Sachs, in his turn, said accreditation for 60 German journalists had been requested and all of them have been accredited.
Millie drew attention to the fact that the members of the presidential family also marched with the Olympic torch in their hands. Moreover, this fact insulted the activist so much that he said this as many as three times during the discussions. The blogger also mentioned that Ilham Aliyev's son has the name Heydar, just as the president's father had, perhaps hoping to shock the European audience with the clannish tendencies in the selection of names in the family of the President. He did not said that every second grandson is named after their grandparents in Azerbaijan.
Gulnara Akhundova did not look so bright against the background of the speeches of his more experienced colleague. The fragile, nice girl of 30 years, talking about the human rights situation in Azerbaijan, again and again looked back at the Human Rights Watch's employee. She was continuing her speech under his approving nods. In particular, she spoke about Leyla Yunus, who is 'dying in prison'. However, this diverges dramatically with the assessment of Professor Christian Witt of the German clinic Charite, who personally examined Yunus. But who cares? Yulia Tymoshenko was "dying" in prison for a long time, provoking the sympathy of Europeans, and after a couple of days after her release there was a miraculous healing of the Ukrainian political diva. It's simple. It was necessary to "create" a victim for the media – they did, and if it is necessary to debunk a myth created by their own hands, it is debunked in a minute.
It's amazing how similar scenarios and methods of work of human rights organizations sponsored by the US State Department are, such as Reporters without Borders, and the organizations of media companies aimed against certain countries. During the preparation of Azerbaijan for the Eurovision contest in 2012, human rights activists pinned the favorite of the competition, the Swedish singer Loreen, to the Sing for Democracy campaign. Today it's the year 2015, there are no songs for democracy, but they promote the 'Sport for Rights' campaign with an identical scheme. Only instead of a singer, the organizers are now trying to "recruit" European athletes to convince them to make appropriate calls at a press conference in Baku. Hard work is under way in this direction.
The representative of 'Reporters without Borders' said during the event that Azerbaijan is the second country after Syria where his organization is working and spending money most actively. Is the media situation really better in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and Ukraine, where journalists are killed regularly, than in peaceful Azerbaijan? Obviously, it is not an objective situation and there is a setting of priorities. When the Azerbaijani government says that the West is waging a "dirty smear campaign" against it, it perhaps sounds like Cold War rhetoric. But sometimes it is difficult not to agree with such a formulation.
Over the past few years Azerbaijan has smoothed out nearly all existing agents of Western influence in the country and cut the channels of their financing. A few days ago, the Baku authorities spoke about the actual exclusion of the OSCE from the country. There is a growing chasm of misunderstanding between the West and the Azerbaijani authorities, who stop attempts to influence the political situation with the help of institutions of civil society sponsored by the US and the EU. And they are trying to punish Baku for this disobedience – including in the information space.
