Aliyev can conduct seminars of dictatorship – Washington Post’s reaction to abduction of Azerbaijani journalist in Tbilisi

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. American Washington Post has referred to the abduction of oppositionist Azerbaijani journalist in Tbilisi on May 29 and secretly transferring him to Baku, criticizing the dictatorial policy of the Azerbaijani president and the inadequate reaction of the international community.

ARMENPRESS reports the periodical first recalls that on May 29 Mukhtarli disappeared and appeared a day later in an Azerbaijani jail. “Mr.Aliyev easily took his strongman methods into the heart of another country, Georgia. The European Parliament passed a condemnation, but otherwise this kind of behavior has not drawn the sharp international censure it deserves. In a brief statement, the State Department saidit was “disturbed by the reported abduction.” Such timidity may confirm to Mr. Aliyev that the United States under President Trump doesn’t really care when human rights and the rule of law are trampled abroad. We know that dictators like to trade methods and tactics with each other: clamping shut overseas-based nongovernmental organizations, warning of “foreign agents” lurking around every tree, smothering free speech online. Mr. Aliyev may have been reading up on China’s experience snatching dissidents across frontiers with impunity. Mr.Aliyev is so well practiced in the illiberal toolkit that for all we know, he may be teaching the dictatorship seminar himself these days”, writes the periodical.

The periodical adds that another reason this affair stinks is the murky role of Georgia. Was a nation with European Union and democratic aspirations complicit in Azerbaijan’s cross-border abduction? Georgia’s authorities denied being involved and promised an investigation, but so farvery littlehas been produced. Georgia ought to come clean as soon as possible about the abduction, and Azerbaijan must free Mr. Mukhtarli, the victim of an involuntary forced march across an international frontier. It would also be nice if more governments denounced Mr. Aliyev’s nasty tricks. It might restrain tyrants’ reach.