Council of Europe’s CPT releases report on torture, impunity and corruption in Azerbaijan

July 18, 2018 By administrator

CPT releases report , corruption in Azerbaijan

The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has published today reports on six of its visits to Azerbaijan – in 2004, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017, Armenpress reports citing the CoE website.

The CPT’s overall impression of the situation in Azerbaijan is that torture and other forms of physical ill-treatment by the police and other law enforcement agencies, corruption in the whole law enforcement system and impunity remain systemic and endemic.

The Committee has repeatedly observed, most recently during its ad hoc visit in October 2017, that torture and other forms of severe physical ill-treatment of persons detained by the police, other law enforcement agencies and the army remain widespread. “There is a serious problem of impunity (lack of effective investigations) and ineffective legal safeguards for detained persons (access to a lawyer, notification of custody, access to a doctor, information on rights)”, the report says.

The report says despite legislative reforms and efforts to renovate old and build new prisons, there is an ongoing problem of prison overcrowding, poor material conditions, lack of activities (especially for remand and life-sentenced prisoners), inadequate medical care and insufficient and poorly paid prison staff, which make it harder to fight corruption and prevent inter-prisoner violence.

YA’ALON: CORRUPTION IN ISRAEL IS BIGGER THREAT THAN IRAN, HAMAS

December 23, 2017 By administrator

BY GIL HOFFMAN, UDI SHAHAM, DANIEL K. EISENBUD

Thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Saturday night to demand transparency and accountability among elected officials.

In Jerusalem, some 600 people attended the rally at Zion Square, intended to be an alternative “pro” demonstration supporting the country’s institutions, as opposed to the anti-corruption tone of the protest held in Tel Aviv for the third week.

The key speaker at the rally was former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, who criticized the current leadership as corrupt and divisive.

“This is not leadership. Leadership should unite, not divide. Politicians are turning topics such as integrity into ‘Left and Right’ issues,” he said.

Ya’alon then said that in the past, when asked what keeps him awake at night people expected him to say Iran, “But I answered: ‘Corruption.’”

“Corruption causes the common citizen to lose faith in our leadership and in the country’s institutions,” he said. “It is a bigger danger than the Iranian threat, Hezbollah, Hamas or ISIS.”

Commentators from the right including Education Minister Naftali Bennett, noted the participation of one protester who was walking around holding a cardboard model of a guillotine.

”The guillotine [that was used] tonight in Rothschild avenue [in Tel Aviv] is a call to murder prime minister Netanyahu [presented] alongside derogatory remarks against Zionism, the left protest in Rothschild crossed all the red lines.”

Attendees at the rally waved Israeli flags, and held signs reading: “We deserve clean politics,” and “Rule of law is not a matter of Left and Right.”

Protesters chanted: “Not Left and not Right – we are walking straight,” as well as, “Corruption is dangerous, we support the country.”

One of the main organizers of the rally, journalist Yoaz Hendel, stressed that it was not against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but in favor of rule of law in Israel.

“I am not against Netanyahu, he has many advantages and great experience. I am here for the State of Israel. You can say whatever you want about my interests… [But] I am here because of how I was brought up.”

You cannot live at peace with a “divide and conquer” method of government, he said, with the fact that our political leaders do not find it important to set an example, to display humility, or to aspire to be a model society.

It was reported that politicians from the coalition have received threats not to attend the rally, which was portrayed as an “anti-Netanyahu” demonstration.

MK Merav Ben-Ari (Kulanu), who attended the event, told The Jerusalem Post that she was there to express support for the Supreme Court, the Israel Police and other institutions “that were under attack recently.”

“We are here to show that we are for the rule of law. Even among the Right, there are people who think that there are things that should improve, and there is criticism against those institutions, but there are also good things in them,” she said.

“The fact that so many people came out today – with short notice and with pressure against them – shows their devotion to the country,” Ben-Ari said.

At the same time, a smaller protest was held by supporters of the Left at the capital’s Paris Square, across from the Prime Minister’s Residence.

COALITION CHAIRMAN David Amsalem started his tenure with a surprising statement on Saturday, telling the Bar Association in Eilat: “A prime minister of the State of Israel who has been indicted for bribery cannot serve as prime minister.”

Amsalem balanced out what he said by adding that he did not believe the investigation of the prime minister in the “expensive gifts affair,” known as Case 1000, is legitimate.

“I think that in a reasonable democratic regime that is logical and balanced, you don’t investigate a prime minister who received cigars from a friend,” he said. “It is absurd and it creates a slippery slope. Tomorrow, why don’t we arrest and question a prime minister if he received a few pieces of chocolate? After all, the law is the same for a penny and a fortune.”

Zionist Union faction chairman Yoel Hasson said: “Any indictment of a prime minister is grave and should prevent him from continuing to serve. A country cannot be run from the bench of the accused in court.”

Amsalem responded to the uproar over his statement by writing on Twitter, “I am sorry to disappoint the Left and the press but this is my point of view: The police recommendations have no legal or public weight. From my perspective, bribery is receiving envelopes with forbidden money, not cigars from a personal friend. So the [hypothetical] indictment that I spoke about is not relevant at all to the prime minister.”

Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg, who has sparred with Amsalem repeatedly at the Knesset, said he had no right to redefine bribery to meet his political needs.

A Midgam poll broadcasted on Channel 2 Saturday night found that 63% of Israelis believe Netanyahu must quit if police recommend charges of breach of trust and fraud, lesser crimes than bribery. The poll of 504 respondents representing a statistical sample of the population found that 27% believe Netanyahu would not have to quit, and 10% did not know or did not have an answer. The poll had a 4.4% margin of error.

Asked if the allegations are justified or a witch-hunt, 59% said justified, 27% said witch-hunt and 14% said they did not know.

ON TEL AVIV’S Rothschild Boulevard on Saturday night, thousands of protesters convened for a third consecutive week to protest corruption among elected officials.

Holding a bullhorn, Amit Zilberg, 38, a self-professed “centrist attorney,” noted that the anti-corruption movement had gained significant traction nationally, with at least 15 other protests taking place Saturday throughout the country, including in Jerusalem.

“They should be protesting all over the country,” he said, as streams of people continued to congregate at the closed-off section of the upscale boulevard while police oversaw the activity.

“The corruption is everywhere,” he continued. “Here it is too much – every [politician] in every city is corrupt and the opposition is not fighting the right way. They need to fight harder. That’s why tens of thousands are out here to help them keep fighting.”

Ori Betsalel, 64, has participated in all three weekly protests in Tel Aviv despite living in Nahariya, the northernmost coastal city in the country.

“I keep coming because I am disappointed by the corruption,” he said. “There are too many things and they are trying to make rules for themselves to avoid investigations. This is way beyond what I can tolerate.”

Moreover, Betsalel, who attended Saturday night’s protest with his daughter Einat, deemed the level of perceived corruption to be “unprecedented,” and therefore transcending political leanings.

“This is not a question about Right or Left,” he said. “This is a question about almost total corruption.”

Einat, a 34-year-old resident of Jaffa, said the protests are long overdue.

“I’m happy people are finally waking up after sleeping for a long time,” she said. “The public can no longer sleep because they realize that a line has been crossed by the government that made them finally understand that the government is not really for them – that they are for themselves.”

Einat continued: “And more people realize they can do something about it.”

Recalling the unusually large turnout during the 2011 social justice protests in the same area that resulted in “tent cities” for large stretches of Rothschild Boulevard, she said a similarly galvanizing response is under way regarding corruption.

“There is a power sleeping in this country, and when it rises up, it rises with a lot of power,” Betsalel said. “So, I am here to make this power bigger.”

Meanwhile, a few meters away, near where Rothschild begins, a group of roughly seven male and female counterprotesters – protected by metal barriers and police – used megaphones of their own to support the prime minister.

Elad, a 32-year-old hi-tech worker who asked that his last name not be published for fear of reprisal, said the huge adjacent anti-government group of protesters was being unfair to the prime minister.

“They seem to have this urgency to convict Netanyahu without a trial, and that is very not liberal,” he said, adding that he believes the collective anger is strictly politically based.

“Secondly, the police should not be able to recommend indictments of political officials, because 60% [of such recommendations] are thrown in the garbage, and all the while the lives of the people who are being investigated are ruined. They lose their careers, maybe even lose their families.”

Source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Yaalon-Corruption-in-Israel-is-bigger-threat-than-Iran-Hamas-519855?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Turkey’s creative schemes aim to discredit Zarrab case in US

November 28, 2017 By administrator

By Pinar Tremblay

As the world waited to see whether the US trial of Iranian-Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab would actually get underway today in New York after numerous postponements, speculation was growing that Zarrab might be cooperating with prosecutors. The news surely panicked any senior Turkish officials who fear they could be implicated in accepting bribes to facilitate an alleged money-laundering operation.

Zarrab is accused of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars through US financial institutions in a scheme designed to help Iran evade US economic sanctions in 2010-15. He was arrested in March 2016 while traveling in Florida. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has personally asked the US government to release Zarrab, which is raising questions about Erdogan’s possible involvement in the scheme.

As jury selection began today, the judge announced that Zarrab would not be going on trial this week, and that the only defendant would be a Turkish bank official.

The Turkish government, supported by an extensive media apparatus, has found a quite intriguing way to manipulate public opinion regarding the case. Turkish officials’ first and foremost worry is to keep themselves a safe distance from any possible revelations. Of course, shielding Erdogan and his family is of paramount concern.

Turkey’s government is shifting blame onto the Gulen movement, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization responsible for the attempted July 2016 coup in Turkey. Zarrab’s US trial is being presented in Turkey as a US-Gulen economic and political conspiracy against Ankara. Due to the rally-around-the-flag effect of the botched July 15 coup, the government has shifted any criticism coming its way onto the Gulen movement.

Turks who lost trust in their own justice system have shown a deep interest in the Zarrab case and affection for Preet Bharara, who was the US attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. In March 2016, the Turkish government started laying the groundwork for today’s offensive against members of the US justice system. For example, soon after Zarrab was arrested, a photo of Bharara surfaced on the internet that had been digitally altered to imply he was associated with the Gulen movement.

This month, the Istanbul prosecutor’s office said it is investigating Bharara and his successor, Acting US Attorney Joon Kim, claiming documents being used as evidence against Zarrab are of unknown origin and violate international law.

Now that Zarrab has most likely made a plea deal and that Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a deputy chief at Turkiye Halkbank, has become the sole defendant, Turkish eyes are glued to the trial. Atilla was arrested in March and his team of lawyers is paid by Halkbank. Zeyno Erkan, an independent journalist following the case, said that at the pretrial session, the judge warned Atilla his interests might conflict with the banks’ and asked whether he understood the possible repercussions of retaining a defense team paid by Halkbank. Atilla said he was fine with the situation.

However, though Atilla understandably would like a speedy and fair trial, the defense lawyers have been delaying the process: In Ankara corridors, it is agreed that the longer the trial takes, the better for Erdogan and his cohorts.

Another possibility is that Atilla might be working out a plea deal with the US government.

Turkey’s government uses intricate ways to muddy waters. As noted, three methods are particularly noteworthy: distorting evidence, targeting the personalities or motives of journalists or prosecutors, and presenting the trial as a coup against the Turkish economy directly and against Erdogan indirectly.

Distorting the evidence may be the most effective method to manipulate public opinion. Turkish news provides a rather vague and distracting picture of the trial process. For example, since the Nov. 21 pretrial session, the media has focused on a report claiming Atilla had been sworn in without raising his right hand. This just worsens the situation in Ankara where, regardless of their political affiliation, only a few can understand the reasons for the trial. Most are not able to see why America is involved and how American interests were harmed. Several asked Al-Monitor, “Why does the United States care about corruption in Turkey?”

Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for Erdogan’s office, told the French press that Turkey had to engage in trade with Iran because of its energy dependency and labeled the case a “political trial” that aims to tarnish Erdogan’s reputation. Kalin said there are no links between Erdogan and Zarrab. Most important, Kalin said, is that the United States is trying to replicate a case allegedly created by Gulenists in Turkey in 2014.

Zarrab had been arrested in Turkey during the “17-25 December corruption probe” in 2014. That case provided significant clues about Turkey’s evasion of US sanctions against Iran. However, Zarrab was released promptly and treated as a celebrity for supporting the Turkish economy — until his March 2016 arrest in Florida.

Now, in a Nov. 25 piece, columnist Abdurrahman Dilipak asks in the pro-government Yeni Akit, “Are [Gulenists] trying to accomplish what they failed to do in Turkish courts, now through the US justice system?”

The second method of obfuscation — personally targeting journalists and US prosecutors such as Kim and Bharara — has gone quite deep. Inside Turkey as well, outspoken Erdogan supporter Cem Kucuk said on television, “If you are a patriot, you see that this court is shaped against Erdogan and the Turkish nation.” In the meantime, news broke that wives of the police officials who ran the probe in 2014 were taken into custody Nov. 17.

The 2014 corruption cases in Turkey ended abruptly, with the Gulen movement being blamed for generating fake evidence. So why should Turkish officials worry that Zarrab might be found guilty? As the charges against Zarrab had been dropped in Turkey, shouldn’t they also be dropped in the United States? If all the tapes and documents of the Turkish probe were fake, then why does Turkey’s government worry about their origins?

For the third method, Turkey hopes to rouse patriotism by painting the trial as an economic attack. The Turkish lira has lost value against the dollar in international markets as foreign investors flee Turkey. This presents an opportunity to blame it all on the West rather than question the effects of nepotism, corruption or cronyism. Zarrab’s case has generated fears about possible sanctions against the Turkish banking system, which enjoys foreign cash flows because of high interest rates for investors. Media outlets that favor the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) explain the situation as a “US-led economic coup” against Turkey through the Zarrab case.

One senior bureaucrat told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “The case has widened the crack between Erdogan’s inner circle and the top echelons of the AKP. We fear that the state apparatus was bypassed to find a ‘diplomatic solution directly with the United States’ without involving diplomats in this problem. Now that we know for sure Zarrab’s return is not possible, all the state apparatus is expected to rally behind Erdogan. Yet there are serious doubts: Why is Zarrab so important? Not many people can answer this.”

The same senior official also said the Zarrab case is damaging Turkey’s relations with the United States and other countries. He noted, “Our relations with Saudi Arabia are also on the rocks.” The idea that money laundering in Turkey had helped Iran and Hezbollah would anger Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Indeed, that strain might well explain why Erdogan for the first time in his 15 years in national office directly criticized Saudi Arabia. Turkey is paying a high price due to the Zarrab case, and Turks deserve to know the reasons.

Corruption, nepotism obvious under Erdogan

August 16, 2017 By administrator

Erdogan corruption By Pinar Tremblay

Turkey recently appointed 37 new ambassadors, and this lineup has some atypical players: Five of them are not career diplomats and two are headscarved women. The latter caught the public’s attention.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has altered Turkey’s longtime tradition of appointing career diplomats, enabling the government to nominate “outside” civilians without any sort of confirmation process.

The issue is not necessarily about the women’s headscarves but rather about their family connections. The ambassador to Kuwait, Ayse Sayan Koytak, is the older sister of Turkey’s Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Kaya. Kaya’s younger sister, Sumeyye Sayan, made the news in April as an AKP member of the Istanbul City Municipality. Reports connected Sayan to firms that won multiple tenders from the municipality to provide “psychological support services” totaling a hefty yearly income of 2 million Turkish liras ($565,000). The opposition charged that this was unethical, as Sayan is a municipality official.

The second person who wears a headscarf is Merve Kavakci. In 1999, Kavakci was not allowed to take her elected seat in the Turkish parliament because of a secular ban on headscarves. She also lost her citizenship, as she had become a dual US-Turkish citizen without informing authorities. Kavakci regained her Turkish citizenship this year and is now the ambassador to Malaysia. Kavakci’s younger sister has been an AKP lawmaker since 2015.

With the nomination of these two women, the importance of family ties in building a career in Turkish politics and bureaucracy has become a topic of discussion. A rhetorical but bitter question in Ankara among opposition figures is: What is the probability of becoming an ambassador if your sibling is from the AKP?

On Transparency International’s 2013 Corruption Perception Index, Turkey ranked 53rd among 175 countries — the lower the number, the better. In 2016, it fell to 75th place among 176 countries.

In 2016, according to Transparency International findings and the polling of 2,000 people by the research firm Ipsos Group, 55% of the respondents believed corruption had increased in Turkey in the previous two years, and 60% were not hopeful that the corruption would decrease in the next two years. The most devastating finding of the detailed research is that more young respondents, compared with older respondents, think it is acceptable for a government employee to accept gifts and money. For ages 18-24, 29% said it is normal, whereas for those above 65, 11% believe such gifts are acceptable. The poll also showed that respondents with less education showed less concern about corruption than more-educated participants. Most people surveyed failed to comprehend that political corruption is stealing from their incomes. To the contrary, the general understanding goes as follows: “Yes, there are some corrupt government employees, but this the reality of Turkey. Whoever comes to power will be corrupt. At least the AKP provides services.”

The Turkish public’s acquiescence doesn’t mean people are oblivious to institutional corruption. Survey participants ranked institutions related to education, land acquisition, municipalities and health as the most troubled.

Indeed, we can see the effects of corruption and a lack of accountability in three primary areas.

First is the growth of discretionary funds. From the time now-President Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister in 2003 until 2016, discretionary funds have grown by a factor of 17. In the first six months of 2017, opposition newspapers reported Erdogan’s and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim’s record-breaking spending. Their unaudited spending reached 1.7 billion Turkish liras ($481 million). These funds are growing without oversight, behind a veil of secrecy. As parliament’s powers are significantly curtailed, we can only expect this sort of spending to increase.

The second area of corruption and lack of accountability is the incredible extent of cronyism seen in two areas: hiring at government agencies and bribing of government officials. Since the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, the government has been diligently purging staff from all agencies it believes might be connected. The Gulen movement has been accused of engineering high test scores on written government and military entrance exams by stealing the questions and answers for their members. There also are allegations that Alevis, Kurds and secular Turks are systematically discriminated against when they seek government jobs. One of the opposition’s main concerns is that the large number of positions left vacant by the purge are being filled by members of religious orders or by family members of the AKP elite. Competition among top AKP members to secure lucrative government positions for their family members is intense. That links to the issue of bribery. Many government employees, including lawmakers, live beyond their financial means. The common complaint is that the salaries of even the top officials are not sufficient to buy a decent house or pay for education or health care for their families. So a system that leaves behind little trace of corruption has been established. Wealthy businesspeople provide payments directly to officials in exchange for getting their business deals worked out smoothly. The most obvious cases are in the media sector.

The third area of corruption and lack of accountability is that of turning state agencies into vessels to pay off loyalists. For example, Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) has been making the news for its lavish spending on private production companies. On Aug. 8, taxes for smartphones and tablets were increased to 10% of the sale price to contribute to TRT’s budget. From 2015 to 2016, TRT’s employee count dropped by 280 workers, but its annual employment costs increased 79 million Turkish liras. Despite employing more than 6,000 people, it still outsources programming, paying more than 753 million Turkish liras in 2016. One worker at a sitcom production agency told Al-Monitor, “We do not make much money really. The money is supposedly paid to our company, but then we have to pay off government people. These are mostly pro-government academics or journalists who are hired as consultants to the show.”

Perhaps the bigger the amount of money involved, the less need to hide any family connections involved. Germany’s Siemens recently won the tender for a $1 billion wind-power project in Turkey with its consortium partners Turkerler and Kalyon, both Turkish companies. Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, Erdogan’s son-in-law, happily announced the deal, as the Kalyon Group is linked to Albayrak’s brother.

Another recent allegation from the opposition is that Istanbul Municipality’s “i-taxi” project (recording the voices and images of passengers) is estimated to deliver 200 million Turkish liras of annual revenue. Part of this money will allegedly be delivered to a programming company that belongs to an AKP lawmaker’s son.

If one uses an internet search engine to look up “corruption in state institutions” in Turkish, several of the top hits lead to discussions about whether such corruption is permissible in Islam. Most of the online discussions reflect that it is seen as not only an acceptable system, but also an efficient one. “Getting things done” is the justification for siphoning money from the state.

How long can such a system be sustained? As long as political corruption is not seen as illicit or harmful to individuals’ livelihood, the system will endure.

Tremblay is a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse and a visiting scholar of political science at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She is a columnist for Turkish news outlet T24. Her articles have appeared in Time, New

PACE and Azerbaijan: 56 NGOs appeal to investigate corruption allegations against MPs

April 23, 2017 By administrator

The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, together with other 55 prominent human rights and civil society organizations, has jointly signed an appeal to conduct a thorough and fair investigation on the corruption claims, related to the work of PACE on Azerbaijan, the Forum said in a released statement on Friday.

According to the source, the concern mainly stems from a recent report European Stability Initiative (ESI) issued in December 2016, denouncing the bribes offered by representatives of the Azerbaijani government to several PACE members in order to influence their work.

Recently, the PACE Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki presented to the Assembly Bureau a draft proposal suggesting possible ways to conduct an external and independent investigation. This, however, was not favourably welcomed and no agreement was reached on its implementation.
Also, according to the press office of the PACE, the Assembly President Pedro Agramunt commented that the Sawicki report was not admissible in the suggested draft, while denying the contribution of civil society organisations in the process.

The inappropriate conduct of PACE members had already been pointed out during the January PACE session by Mehman Huseynov – the chairman of Azerbaijani NGO the Institute for Reporters Freedom and Safety -, who is now facing serious consequences for speaking up about corruption among PACE members.

For the above-mentioned reasons, the group of civil society organisations calls for a fair, accurate and independent investigation on such matters. More specifically, the appeal is directed to the PACE Bureau, requesting a plenary debate of the Sawicki proposal at the next PACE session (24th-28th April) and a system of civil society supervision, to ensure impartiality.

The statement also urges all members of the Assembly to support an appropriate investigation and therefore to sign the Declaration on the Parliamentary Assembly Integrity introduced in January 2017, as well as the Secretary General of the Council of Europe to make a very strong statement against corruption in the Parliamentary Assembly and, more broadly, in the Council of Europe.

Romanian to the Street, Socialists Gov’t repeal corruption decree

February 5, 2017 By administrator

In an emergency meeting, Romania has repealed a controversial corruption decree. The law set off nationwide protests and would have watered down anti-corruption authorities’ power.

Romania has formally repealed a controversial corruption decree on Sunday. A day earlier, Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said the government planned to withdraw the corruption decree, which sparked the country’s biggest protests since the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989.

The decree decriminalized abuse-of-power offenses involving sums below 200,000 lei (44,000 euros/$48,000), potentially benefiting dozens of political figures from all parties – not least the head of the ruling Social Democrats (PSD). Liviu Dragnea, viewed as the real power behind Grindeanu’s month-old government, stands accused of using his political influence to secure state salaries for two people working at his party headquarters between 2006 and 2013. His conviction on electoral fraud charges barred him from seeking office himself.

On Friday, up to 250,000 people demonstrated across Romania against the law. More than 300,000 people took to the streets of Romania on Saturday – the fifth straight day of protest against the decree. Demonstrators marched through the streets of the capital, Bucharest, to the parliament building, where they formed a human chain.

‘Can’t be divided’

At a news conference Saturday, Grindeanu said he would seek “a legal way to make sure it does not take effect.” He added: “I do not want to divide Romania. It can’t be divided in two.”

Romania joined the European Union in 2007 but remains subject to a monitoring mechanism for cooperation to determine whether it meets the bloc’s standards. The country still has not reached the benchmark in judiciary reforms and in the fight against corruption. However, anti-corruption efforts in the past years have led to more than 1,000 convictions for graft – including that of a former prime minister.

Grindeanu’s government took over in early January, following the triumph of the PSD and its liberal junior partner, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats.

mkg/sms (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)

Council of Europe urged to investigate Azerbaijan bribery allegations

February 2, 2017 By administrator

A woman sits by a sculpture of a snail near the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan. Photograph: Jamie Squire/Getty Images for BEGOC

(Theguardian) Parliamentary assembly accused of turning blind eye to corruption after claims that ex-member was paid €2.4m to rig election,

One of Europe’s most venerable human rights bodies has been warned it risks falling into irrelevance unless it sets up a robust investigation into allegations of vote-rigging in favour of Azerbaijan’s authoritarian regime.

The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace) has been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption, after allegations that a former senior member was paid €2.39m (£2.06m) to engineer votes to protect the kleptocratic regime of Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev.

Pieter Omtzigt, a centre-right Dutch parliamentarian, is urging Pace leaders to launch a “deep, thorough investigation by an independent panel” that makes its findings public.

“We see a lot of suspicious outcomes of votes and procedures on Azerbaijan,” Omtzigt told the Guardian. The Dutch Christian Democrat is the co-author of a resolution calling for an urgent investigation and overhaul of the assembly’s code of conduct.

The Council of Europe, which was created in 1949 to protect democracy and promote the rule of law, has 47 members including Russia and Turkey. Azerbaijan joined in 2001, but observers have long raised questions about the parliamentary assembly’s weak response to ballot-box stuffing and human rights violations in the oil-rich country.

Human rights groups have blamed “caviar diplomacy”, gifts of gold, silver, silk carpets and the regional fishy delicacy, which are showered on visiting dignitaries to the capital, Baku.

The latest allegations are centred on Italian politician Luca Volontè, the former chair of the centre-right group in the parliamentary assembly. He is being investigated by the Milan public prosecutor’s office for allegedly accepting €2.39m in bribes, in exchange for working for Azerbaijan in the parliamentary assembly. Human rights groups allege he played a key role in orchestrating the defeat of a highly critical report on the abuse of political prisoners in Azerbaijan in 2013. Volontè denies any wrongdoing.

The allegations, which were aired by Italian public broadcaster RAI in November 2016, have plunged the parliamentary body into turmoil.

Many senior parliamentarians have warned that failure to carry out an independent investigation would erode the credibility of the human rights body, which was inspired by Winston Churchill, and sends election monitors to every corner of Europe. “It is not credible if you tell other countries to be open and transparent if you do not investigate credible allegations of vote-rigging,” Omtzigt said.

One fifth of Pace’s 324 parliamentarians have signed Omtzigt’s resolution, which states that “recent, serious and credible allegations of grave misconduct” risk undermining public confidence in the assembly. The signatories are a cross-party coalition, drawn from 25 countries, including the UK, France, Germany, the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries, Greece and Ukraine.

Mogens Jensen, a Danish politician who leads the socialists in the parliamentary assembly, has also warned that the body’s credibility is at stake. The allegations were a “great threat to the assembly’s reputation and reliability” he told parliamentarians last week, adding his voice to a chorus of calls for action.

Gerald Knaus, the chairman of the European Stability Initiative, a thinktank specialising in south-eastern Europe and the Caucasus, said the Council of Europe’s parliamentary leaders had failed to ask questions about “open and obvious” suspicions of corruption, which had been circulating in the corridors of the Strasbourg assembly.

The rosy picture of Azerbaijan’s elections painted by monitors from Pace should have raised questions years ago, Knaus said.

“We have had election observers from the Council of Europe in 2010, 2013 and again in 2015. Each time these elected parliamentarians came away saying the sun was shining, when everyone else said it was raining. Each time they say the elections were free and fair … and each time the long-term observer election experts from the OSCE and ODIHR, say there were major problems.”

Knaus said the assembly’s leaders had shown an “astonishing amount of indifference”. The Council of Europe “is an institution we need more than ever given all the attacks on core human rights in Europe,” he continued. “If Europe fails to defend these principles what hope is there for anywhere else in the world.”

The head of Pace, Spanish centre-right senator Pedro Agramunt, last week agreed to set up an independent investigation to “shed light on hidden practices that favour corruption”. He had initially resisted the inquiry, blaming fellow parliamentarians for “a campaign to discredit political opponents by means of slurs, intimidation and coercion”.

But Agramunt made an abrupt U-turn in favour of an investigation on Friday, after strongly-worded complaints from a dozen countries, including Switzerland, Belgium, the Baltic and Nordic states.

Knaus said the key question now was the terms of reference of the investigation, which will be presented to Agramunt in early March. “There is no reason to be confident about the caviar coalition,” he said, referring to perceived Azeri government interest groups in the parliamentary assembly. But he voiced hope that MPs could help ensure a credible inquiry.

The Pace president was not immediately available for comment.

The parliamentary assembly leader also faces pressure from the secretary general of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, who has said there can be “zero tolerance on corruption” when asked about the allegations by Transparency International.

Jagland’s spokesman said the secretary general had raised concerns internally within the Council of Europe, but could not confirm whether he had spoken to Agramunt. The spokesman added: “He has deemed and still deems this a matter for the parliamentary assembly.”

Under Jagland, the Council of Europe launched an investigation into Azerbaijan’s compliance with the European convention on human rights in 2015, the first such inquiry into a member country in more than a quarter of a century.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/feb/01/council-of-europe-urged-investigate-azerbaijan-bribery-allegations?CMP=share_btn_tw

U.S. envoy Mills: 4-day war showed effect of corruption on national security

February 2, 2017 By administrator

The public discourse during and after the four-day war in April highlighted the corrosive effect corruption can have on national security and brought the issue into the public spotlight, U.S. ambassador to Armenia Richard M. Mills said in his remarks to American Chamber of Commerce of Armenia on Wednesday, February 1.

Azerbaijan on April 2, 2016 launched an overt military offensive against Nagorno Karabakh, which claimed hundreds of lives on both sides. Armenian and Azerbaijani defense officials reached an agreement on the cessation of hostilities on April 5 in Moscow.

According to the ambassador, the lack of a resolution to Nagorno-Karabakh fuels corruption because it keeps Armenia’s borders closed and, when borders are closed, he said it is easier for powerful business people and others to control economic markets and close off competition.

“While the link between corruption and economic development, and between corruption and rule of law, have always been apparent, recently we’ve seen more discussion in Armenia about how corruption can impact and threaten national security,” Mills said.

“The government must strengthen and empower public institutions at all levels and send a clear message from on high that corruption will not be tolerated and that no one is above the law. Absent this message, no truly transformative change can occur.

“First, I suggest that the government strengthen the independent role and responsibilities of the Ethics Commission on High Ranking Officials. I applaud the government’s recent step in this direction. Significant changes have been made to the Administrative Violations Code and Criminal Code, providing for fines, criminal sentences, and limitations on holding government positions for 3 years for individuals who submit false income declarations. But more needs to be done. One fix would be for the Government to make clear that the launching of an investigation into possible corrupt activities by a government official does not require specific evidence of an actual bribe paid or a favor given, but could be triggered by a prosecutor’s assessment that the assets declared by a government official are so great as to trigger reasonable grounds of suspicion. Armenian media has done a very good job of analyzing ethics declarations and identifying instances where officials declare assets that are 40, 50 or one hundred times greater than their government salaries, but there was no indication of follow up by the Government.

“And I respectfully suggest that the government consider establishing a fully independent anti-corruption body with full investigative and prosecutorial authority. This was a specific recommendation by Mr. Peter Ainsworth, the Senior Anticorruption Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice whom the Embassy brought to Armenia twice in the last year for consultations with government and civil society. This seems a propitious time for the government to consider this suggestion, as we understand the Prime Minister is currently deciding how to restructure the existing Anti-Corruption Council and formalize the connections and lines of authority between the Anti-Corruption Council and other bodies with anti-corruption mandates.”

Azerbaijan: serious suspicions of corruption on European politicians

December 28, 2016 By administrator

In its edition of 22 December the Spanish site Valencia Plaza reported suspicions of corruption by Azerbaijan on Senator Pedro Agramunt, which is nothing less than the president under the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. This article is based on the second report of the ESI (European Stability Initiative) dedicated to the diplomacy of caviar. This document, published on December 17, 2016, is extremely detailed. He places this elected member in a list of 5 European parliamentarians suspected of corruption. One of them has already admitted to illegally receiving more than two million Euros to “give advice on agricultural matters” to the Aliyev regime. Questioned by Valencia Plaza, Pedro Agramunt for his part denied any involvement.

The system of corruption, which uses all sorts of means (cash, silk mats, smartphones, MacBooks, prostitutes, etc.) aims, according to the ESI report, to improve the image of Azerbaijan in Within the Council of Europe. The work of this NGO benefits from the collaboration of prosecutors from different countries who are working on the possible relationship of a number of politicians with this alleged plot. The Italian MEP Luca Volonté (Christian Democratic Party) was denounced as being at the center of a network supporting the Baku regime in PACE, whose puppeteers are according to the report of the ESI Two Azerbaijani parliamentarians: Elkhan Suleymanov (lobbyist in the European Union, before being elected to the PACE) and Muslum Mamadov, who later joined the latter. Their actions were allegedly financed by the Eydar Aliyev Foundation, named after the former Azerbaijani president.

During his investigation, the Italian police were able to establish that Luca Volonté perceived through two structures, including the association Novae Terrae (an ultra-religious and homophobic association) founded and the company LVG (Luca Giuseppe Volonte) registered In milan under the name of his wife, a hidden salary of 30,000 euros per month, in addition to an initial payment of 100,000 euros. The investigation carried out by the Italian courts has proved that between 2012 and 2014 more than 2.4 million Euros were passed through his hands. The money came from Baku. It transited through Estonia and Latvia, and was distributed through a network of companies based in Bimingham and the Marshall Islands.

According to elements exploited by the Italian police, it appears that Pedro Agramunt is one of the main accomplices of Will, without sufficient evidence to make these suspicions lead to an indictment.

But in a report published in 2013 and titled “Senator Valencia guardian of Azerbaijan or why Pedro Agramun should resign”, ESI listed the different trips of the Spanish politician in Azerbaijan and his various efforts to present an image Favor of that State. A task facilitated by his responsibilities. He was between 2013 and 2016 president of the group “European People’s Party” (now a majority party) and since January 2016 is the fourth Spanish president of the Council of Europe … He was also four times observer of the ” EU in Azerbaijan and was the rapporteur for the monitoring of the country.

The ESI report quotes, besides the name of Agramunt, that of the following parliamentarians: the Spanish Jordi Xuclà the British Michael Hancock and Robert Walker, the Polish Tadeusz Iwinski and the Italian Luigi Vitali. But none is directly accused. The ESI calls on prosecutors’ offices in France, Spain, Germany and other countries to speak with their Italian colleagues and to cooperate on the investigation of suspicious behavior during this period. Also that the transaction between Suleymanov and Volonte be placed on the agenda of the next PACE plenary session at the end of January 2017.

Armenia among countries with worst corruption problems: report

November 16, 2016 By administrator

Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine are seen as having the most severecorruption problems, according to a new report by Transparency International.

The report is based on answers of 60.000 respondents from 42 European and Central Asian country.

24% of the Armenian respondents gave a positive answer as to whether they or any member of their household have made an unofficial payment or gift when using certain services over the past 12 months.

The services include the road police, public agencies issuing official documents, the civil courts, public education (primary or secondary), public education (vocation), public medical care, public agencies in charge of unemployment benefits or any other public agencies in charge of other social security benefits.

A key way for citizens to help stop corruption is by stepping forward and speaking out when they see or experience corruption in their lives. Disclosures by whistleblowers and citizens are one of the most effective ways to uncover and address corruption and other malpractice.

Reporting rates are particularly low in Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus, where fewer than one in 10 of those who had paid a bribe subsequently reported it. TI decided to explore the barriers that prevent more people from coming forward to report corruption, seeking to help devise strategies to overcome them.

Citizens in France and Portugal are the most likely to think that it is socially acceptable to report a case of corruption (74 per cent and 78 per cent respectively), with around three quarters or more agreeing; while in Montenegro, Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Armenia, Russia and Bosnia & Herzegovina people are far less likely to agree (from 10 to 17 per cent), the report says.