FALSE MIRROR

The US authorities are concerned again. The State Department, as always, is concerned about the human rights situation in the world, including in Azerbaijan. This position is reflected in another annual State Department report released last week. The section devoted to Azerbaijan says that there are serious problems in ensuring human rights.

Baku, to put it mildly, does not really share the position of American colleagues.

"In this report, the United States, as always, expressed its prejudice against processes taking place in our country," said the deputy head of the Azerbaijani presidential administration and head of the foreign relations department, Novruz Mammadov.

According to him, the bias of US policy towards Azerbaijan is observed in the Karabakh issue too. The deputy head wonders why the United States still does not want to assess the Xocali genocide. "The official spokesperson for the State Department, Madam Psaki, ignored journalists' question about the Xocali genocide. But US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Morningstar, for some reason, said when asked why the mediator states do not recognize Armenia as an aggressor: "We cannot engage in insults. We cannot call Armenia or Azerbaijan an aggressor, as it will make the mediators' mission almost impossible."

"This is Washington's position on the Karabakh issue. So we do not have to get used to this biased position of Washington. And the current report is from the same series, too," Mammadov said.

He stressed that today the situation is unstable in more than 50 countries and 10 countries are gripped by war and chaos. "These processes are happening for a reason, and there is external interference in all of them," the representative of the presidential administration concluded.

Recall that a short while ago the US authorities expressed concern about the new amendments to the law of the Azerbaijan Republic on non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which the US Ambassador to OSCE Daniel Baer expressed at a meeting of the Permanent Council in Vienna.

The law, which Washington believes will further limit funding for NGOs, was passed by parliament and approved by the president late last year. Baer said that the amendments further restricted space for a free and independent civil society and run counter to the obligations of Azerbaijan to the OSCE.

The head of the press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, Elman Abdullayev, said that the amendments to the law on NGOs were prepared based on the European Convention on Human Rights, in accordance with the Constitution of Azerbaijan, as well as the country's commitments within the framework of the OSCE and the Council of Europe. The additions and changes were put up for public debate by representatives of NGOs, the Milli Maclis of the Azerbaijan Republic, the Ministry of Justice and international organizations. Abdullayev noted that the main purpose of these additions and changes is to increase transparency in the activities of NGOs, especially in their financing, eliminate elements of corruption and strengthen the role of NGOs as structures serving the development of civil society. The Azerbaijani side, according to the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, strengthened the legal framework and increased transparency in the activities of organizations whereas in the US statement one can see bias and attempts to exert political pressure.

Azerbaijan's official reaction to these two questions shows that Baku is not happy with periodic interference in the internal affairs of the country. But does the US have the legal and moral right to do so when the human rights situation is not rosy in the States themselves.

Logan's "gag"

President Barack Obama once called the United States an exceptional state. He certainly did not mean that rank-and-file Americans who have no diplomatic immunity are not allowed to deal with the authorities of other countries.

The US president has a "gag", by which he can silence any citizen who afforded an "incorrect" statement while interacting with foreign nationals. This "gag" is the Logan Act. Passed in 1799, the law prohibits US citizens to engage in independent "foreign policy" relations with officials of other states, describing these actions as criminal acts, for which one can get up to ten years in prison. And to get such a term you do not necessarily have to give the enemy a state secret or help him in time of war - it is enough to establish unauthorized contact with any foreign official.

The Logan Act is quite a strong deterrent. In the summer of 2013, Russia was visited by the famous American social activist and co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage, Brian Brown. In addition, he addressed the State Duma supporting the initiative of Russian deputies to protect children and families. No criticism of the United States at all was heard from the mouth of Brown. Despite this, after returning to his homeland, Brown's speech in Russia was described as a betrayal. A political consultant and former adviser to the US president, Fred Karger, accused Brown of violating the Logan Act.

Here is another interesting point. The international organization Reporters without Borders conducted monitoring of the situation of freedom of expression in 180 countries, and the United States ended up in ... 46th place on the list. United States citizens find it more and more difficult to express their thoughts openly than citizens of Jamaica, Costa Rica, Namibia, Ghana, South Africa, El Salvador, etc.

According to the authors of the report: "Countries proud of their democracy and the rule of law are, in fact, far from being an example to follow. Freedom of speech is too often sacrificed for a broad and rigid understanding of national security."

According to Reporters without Borders, the Obama administration is taking more and more stringent measures against sources of information leakage - in five years, the Department of Justice initiated more lawsuits than under any other president in America.

"We have to be honest"

Of course, the report by the Reporters without Borders is not a commandment or the law of God. Many experts often suspect this organization of opacity and bias. But the question is different: Why is the United States, which is not even in the top thirty countries complying with freedom of speech, concerned about the situation in other countries?

And what about the persecution of journalists in the US? From a very long list of names and cases, we will highlight only some of the most notable ones: according to a court ruling, The New York Times reporter James Risen is forced to testify against former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling. The latter provided the newspaper with information about a secret US operation against Iran's nuclear programme.

Also we cannot but mention the arrest of independent journalist Barrett Brown. He published information on the private intelligence and research company Statfor, which is referred to as the "shadow CIA".

Another noteworthy fact is the scandal that broke out after it became known that US secret services had wiretapped Associated Press news agency offices in major cities of the country without court approval.

Pressure from the security services increased after the 11 September attacks. Laws such as the USA Patriotic Act (2001), the Terrorist Surveillance Act (2006) and Protect America Act (2007) were adopted without delay. With the above-mentioned laws, the US government was able to manipulate the freedom of its citizens as it pleases.

These are just a few examples of the situation of freedom of expression and NGOs in a country that teaches the world democracy.

"In the report, the US State Department avoided mention of its own problems in the field of human rights," says a report on human rights in the world prepared in China. In particular, it notes that the secret programme of the US National Security Agency to collect data on the Internet and PRISM telephone networks "seriously violates human rights".

China has repeatedly tried to start debates on human rights in the United States on various platforms, and each time the State Department said that it was "an intrusion into the internal policy of the country". At the same time, the US president's national security adviser Susan Rice said openly and eloquently: "The United States can violate human rights and the basic obligations of democracy when it comes to national security. We must be honest ..." Comments, as we see, are irrelevant...