The arrest of Anar Mammadli, winner of the Vaclav Havel Prize for the Protection of Human Rights, makes it impossible for Azerbaijan to return to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Azerbaijan cannot return there either now or in January of next year, – wrote Frank Schwab, the head of the German parliamentary delegation to the PACE, on the personal page of the social network X (former Twitter). During the winter session of the PACE, Schwab took the initiative to deprive the parliamentary delegation of Azerbaijan from voting rights. The conference froze the powers of the Azerbaijani delegation for one year.
It is difficult to say on what basis the head of the German delegation to the PACE voiced such a “final” view. Anar Mammadli was abducted by special police forces in one of the central streets of Baku yesterday. Relatives learned only the next day, and from unofficial sources, that he spent the night in the detention cell of the Baku Khatai district police. Yesterday evening, the police searched the apartments of Mamedli and his parents. According to reports, “a large amount of foreign currency was discovered” in his apartment.
The US State Department reacted quite harshly to Mamedli’s arrest. “We demand the government of Azerbaijan to immediately release all illegally detained persons,” said the official representative of the State Department. This is, perhaps, the first case when the USA officially declares that there are persons “held illegally” in Azerbaijan and simply demands that they be “released immediately”.
It is assumed that a number of EU member states will join the United States in criticizing the ongoing and growing illegalities in Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan has partner countries in Europe, among which, it seems, Hungary remains the first “violin”. Italy is also a lobbyist for Azerbaijan’s energy projects, and has serious military-technical cooperation with Baku. Of course, economic, energy, communication interests are decisive in politics, but there is another side of the problem. if the PACE, the European Parliament and other structures give way to the “whims” of Azerbaijan and turn a blind eye to the dictatorship, won’t the value system around which Europe is united be undermined?
Aliyev already complains that the European Investment Bank has excluded the financing of extractive energy projects from its portfolio, and the buyers do not guarantee that they will not give up Azerbaijani gas after five or ten years, if there is a more affordable offer on the market. This is an implicit acknowledgment that the EU is implementing a policy. Meanwhile, Aliyev’s plan was that “energy determines politics”. Accordingly, Europe “had to accept the realities as they are”.
Of course, it is too early to say that Europe does not “accept the realities” of Azerbaijan. But when the head of the German parliamentary delegation to the PACE, represented by Chancellor Scholz’s political team, firmly declares that Azerbaijan’s return to the PACE “has become impossible” – then at least discussions about the Aliyev dictatorship have started or are starting in European political circles. What will they give? In practice, most likely little. But in big politics, “little” is very relative. It became known that the French ambassador to Baku, invited to Paris for consultations, returned and resumed his duties. According to some sources, the French company Total energy “will leave Azerbaijan in the near future”.
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