Azerbaijan in OSCE conference spotlight over human rights violationsSeptember 22, 2015 - 17:23 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Azerbaijan was in the spotlight of OSCE's Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) that kicked off Monday, September 21 in Warsaw, Contact.az reports. The Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) of the OSCE participating states is Europe's largest annual human rights and democracy conference. It is organized every year by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) as a platform for 57 OSCE participating states, Partners for Co-operation, OSCE structures, civil society, international organizations and other relevant actors to take stock of the implementation of the OSCE human dimension commitments, discuss associated challenges, share good practices and make recommendations for further improvement. In view of its violations of Fundamental Human and Civil Rights and Freedoms and Obligations, Azerbaijan was thoroughly discussed at the conference. Azerbaijan also became the only country, against which an international group of civic activists held a protest in the courtroom, wearing T-shirts with photos of political prisoners. At the meeting, the official representative of Azerbaijan and a number of pro-government NGO leaders characterized the criticism as “biased,” citing human rights abuses in Western Europe and the United States. They noted, in particular, the intolerance towards migrants and pressure on journalists. Although European politicians focused on a large-scale refugee influx from the Middle East and Asia to EU, more attention was paid to the human dimension of overriding principles: freedom of expression and freedom of information and the press. Earlier, Azerbaijan suspended inter-parliamentary cooperation with the European Union, following a recently adopted resolution urging the country to free political prisoners. Top stories Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive. In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million). The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot". The earthquake caused a temporary blackout, damaged many buildings and closed a number of rural roads. Partner news | Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. Ucom launches network modernization efforts in few regions of Armenia In particular, on March 28, the legacy Mobile Switching Subsystem will be replaced with a new one. |