Armenian News – NEWS.am presents the abridged version of the article by Jules Boykoff published in the British newspaper The Guardian:  

“As Azerbaijan prepares to host the first ever European Games, the backdrop is a crackdown. From 12 June, Baku will host a mini-Olympics for top athletes from the 50 member nations of the European Olympic Committees. By selecting Azerbaijan – a state that openly crushes dissent and censors journalism – European sport chiefs have magnified the Olympic movement’s worst elements: high-priced gigantism, censorship and political repression. In doing so, they give Azerbaijan’s autocratic president Ilham Aliyev precisely what he craves: favourable publicity on the world stage.

Father-son duo Heydar and Ilham Aliyev have ruled Azerbaijan since 1993. Soon after the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, Heydar Aliyev consolidated power, overseeing the “bloodiest phase” of the clash with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh disputed territory and facing perennial allegations of political corruption and ballot-box stuffing. The Brezhnev appointee turned western-friendly strongman yielded the presidency to his son Ilham Aliyev in 2003. It has been a dynasty that is devastating for anyone venting dissent.

Baku 2015 comes with opulence and shimmer, but behind the glitzy scrim, it’s not pretty. Targeted political repression is rampant. As games preparations rev up, around 80 political prisoners languish in Azerbaijani prisons. Many more rights activists and journalists have suffered harassment, travel bans and threats.

Team GB is sending to Baku its largest delegation of athletes since the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, but the most influential Briton on hand will be Simon Clegg. Clegg is the former head of the British Olympic Association who’s currently ramping up pro-Azerbaijan propaganda as the Baku 2015 organising committee chief operating officer. He’s the two-legged embodiment of Upton Sinclair’s maxim that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

European leaders have been far too willing to tolerate Aliyev’s intolerance. But it’s not too late to take a principled stand. European governments should send a message by boycotting the European Games. This would deprive Aliyev of grin-and-grip photo-ops, the golden grist of tyranny. Enough of the obsequious backslappery. The repression in Baku slices mightily against the spirit of the Olympic charter. Now is not the time for selective morality.”