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BAKU. March 20, 2013: On March 20, Azerbaijan celebrates its biggest national holiday - Novruz. Novruz – the holiday of Spring and the New Year - is among the biggest and most ancient holiday in many nationsof East. Originating in ancient Zoroastrian times, the spring equinox, about March 20-21, was regarded as the first day of the New Year, and the holiday came to symbolize the soil’s awakening and its readiness to produce the harvest.

According to ancient oriental popular beliefs, the human being was created of four elements - air, fire, water and earth. These elements are reflected in the Novruz attributes and rituals.

PRAGUE. March 5, 2013: The Homo Homini Award is given annually by the Czech human rights organization People in Need to an individual in recognition of a dedication to the promotion of human rights, democracy and non-violent solutions to political conflicts.

The award will be handed during the opening ceremony of the One World human rights documentary film festival in Prague on 4 March 2013.

Intigam Aliyev is a prominent human rights lawyer and the president of the Legal Education Society, an independent Azerbaijani non-governmental organisation, founded in 1998 and aimed at achieving the development of legal consciousness and legal culture in the society of Azerbaijan.

WASHINGTON. November 26, 2012. Azerbaijani-Americans for Democracy (AZAD) will be hosting a new discussion forum on Azerbaijan on December 19, 2012 in Washington, DC. The event is titled “Azerbaijan’s Untapped Potential for the West: Engaging Azerbaijani Society as a US Ally”.

A former US Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Richard Kauzlarich, and a well-known expert on Russia and foremer Soviet Union, David Satter, will be the guest speakers. The forum will look at Azerbaijan’s potential as a US ally beyond the current energy and security context. Opportunities stemming from engaging Azerbaijani people and securing pro-Western orientation of the broader society will be the main focus of the discussion.

GENEVA. November 19, 2012. Yesterday, the organization of Azerbaijanis in Europe, “International Association of Rights and Justice”, has held a protest rally in front of the offices of “SOCAR Trading S.A.”, subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company SOCAR. The participants accused “SOCAR Trading S.A.” in lack of transparency and money laundering by providing transfers of oil revenues to offshore accounts of corrupt officials.

WASHINGTON, DC. August 13, 2012: BLACKMAIL AND CORRUPTION IN AZERBAIJAN: KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA’S HUNT FOR THE TRUTH AND THE PRICE SHE PAYS TO INFORM THE PUBLIC

“It was accidental that I became a journalist,” explains Khadija Ismayilova, a well-known Azerbaijani radio reporter who received international attention when she was blackmailed and publicly defamed earlier this year. “One day, they didn’t have anyone to send to a news conference and they sent me. I came back with a story and…they liked it,” she said. At the time, Ismayilova was working as a translator at the offices of a newspaper in Baku. She was young and trying to help her family by earning extra income. Gradually, Ismayilova traded her job as a translator for one as a reporter. In her early years of the profession, Ismayilova said, “I was not as serious and outspoken.”

Everything changed in 2005, when prominent investigative journalistElmar Huseynov was murdered near his home in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku.

BAKU. May 28, 2012: Today, Public Chamber of the Azerbaijani opposition commemorated anniversary of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, the first parliamentary democracy among the countries with predominantly Muslim population. The heritage of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic (1918-1920) is treated as a low-key event by the Azerbaijani government which has clear authoritarian orientation. As a result, the declaration of the first independent state under the name of Azerbaijan is celebrated mostly as an opposition event. Today, the Public Chamber visited the monument to Mahammad Amin Rasulzade, the founding leader of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, at Novkhani, a suburban Baku village, where Rasulzade was born (Azerireport).

BAKU. May 27, 2012: Sweden's Loreen won the Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan on Sunday before an international TV audience of 100 million, days after angering Azeri authorities by meeting rights activists critical of the host country's human rights record.

Opposition groups have used the Eurovision spotlight, intended by Azerbaijan to promote the country as a destination for tourism and business, to demand democracy and the resignation of the government. 

BAKU. March 19, 2012: This year spring will arrive in Azerbaijan on March 20 at 09:14 a.m. Novruz – the holiday of Spring and the New Year - is among the most ancient and favorite in the East. Originating in ancient Zoroastrian times, the spring equinox, about March 20-21, was regarded as the first day of the New Year, and the holiday came to symbolize the soil’s awakening and its readiness to produce the harvest.  According to ancient oriental popular beliefs, the human being was created of four elements - air, fire, water and earth. These elements are reflected in the Novruz attributes and rituals.

BAKU. January 31, 2012: Today, the Public Chamber of the Azerbaijani opposition and a number of civic and youth organizations held a mass action to commemorate 128th anniversary of Mahammad Amin Rasulzadeh, the leader of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic (1918-20). The activity took place at the monument to Rasulzade in Novkhani, his hometown in the suburbs of Baku. Click here for video

WASHINGTON, DC. January 26, 2012: Yesterday, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) hosted a forum titled "What to Do With Pseudo-Democracies: Case of Azerbaijan." Hikmat Hajizade, president of FAR Center, an Azerbaijani think-tank organization, made a presentation on Azerbaijan. In his presentation Hikmat Hajizade discussed how the Azerbaijani government spent millions of dollars each year to support social institutions, which were purposefully dysfunctional. Azerbaijani parliament which acts like a rubber-stamp to the Azerbaijani president’s decisions, the Central Election Commission which oversees fraudulent election process, courts which fail to act independently and serve as a mockery to the principle of the rule of law, dysfunctional municipalities, dysfunctional Ombudsman’s Office and many similar institutions were discussed as examples to pseudo-democratic institutions. Hikmat Hajizade’s presentation made a point that these institutions had no value for the democratic development of the country and that their only function was to serve as a democratic veil for the anti-democratic nature of Azerbaijani political system.