How Oleksii Honcharenko defended Aliyev's regime at PACE and how other delegates responded
At the end of June, during its summer session, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) held a debate and adopted a resolution entitled "Silencing of Critical Voices in Azerbaijan".
What is happening in Azerbaijan today goes far beyond ordinary repression.
The process can reasonably be described as politicide - the systematic destruction of institutions of civic self-government, the dismantling of the country's political elite, the erosion of constitutional state institutions and the deliberate elimination of opportunities for free public expression.
These concerns were widely raised during the PACE debate. Yet only one member of the Assembly defended the Azerbaijani government and openly justified the actions of President Ilham Aliyev: Ukrainian MP Oleksii Honcharenko.
Read more about the situation in Azerbaijan and Honcharenko's intervention in the article by Ganimat Zahid, editor-in-chief of the exiled newspaper Azadliq: Defending dictatorship: How Honcharenko surprised PACE as Azerbaijan's chief advocate.
According to the author, the arguments advanced by Honcharenko closely mirror those that the Azerbaijani authorities have used for at least fifteen years to justify their crackdown on civil society.
The central argument is geography.
Honcharenko argued that, because Azerbaijan borders Russia and Iran, it should be judged differently from other Council of Europe member states: "Azerbaijan's neighbours are the Russian Empire and Iran. This is a pragmatic approach, but it is simply the reality: Azerbaijan is on the right side according to the only criterion that matters today."
Accordingly, he suggested that the Aliyev regime's widespread human rights violations should effectively be overlooked.
The leader of PACE's Socialists, Democrats and Greens Group, Frank Schwabe, along with several other delegates, challenged Honcharenko's position and expressed surprise that he was so openly advocating what they viewed as double standards.
For the author, the Ukrainian MP's speech immediately recalled the "caviar diplomacy" scandal – the large-scale bribery scheme through which Azerbaijani officials allegedly sought to influence PACE members to oppose resolutions critical of Azerbaijan.
The issue of bribery was also raised in response to Honcharenko's speech by Austrian parliamentarian Dominik Oberhofer.
Geography, the fact of living next to a powerful and aggressive state such as Russia, may explain certain political decisions, the author argues, but it cannot justify them.
Above all, geography cannot justify the destruction of democracy.
When Azerbaijan voluntarily joined the Council of Europe in 2001 and accepted its obligations, Russia was already on its northern border and Iran on its southern one. Azerbaijan's geography has not changed since then.
The author also notes an important contradiction: those in Azerbaijan who invoke geography to justify suppressing their own society have no difficulty cooperating with Russia whenever it serves their interests.
Fortunately, the "geography argument" failed to convince the Assembly.
Several parliamentarians, including Frank Schwabe and Dominik Oberhofer, responded directly to Honcharenko, arguing that imprisoning nearly 400 political prisoners is not a matter of geopolitical circumstances but a clear violation of the Council of Europe's fundamental principles.
Schwabe also referred to the reported torture in prison of opposition leader Ali Karimli, allegedly in retaliation for giving an interview to the French press.
Honcharenko's second argument was that keeping Azerbaijan within the Council of Europe serves the interests of the Azerbaijani people.
But, the author asks, can defending a dictatorship truly be regarded as serving the interests of the Azerbaijani people?
According to the article, one of the defining characteristics of Ilham Aliyev, who inherited the presidency from his father, and of the political system he created has been systemic corruption, which has evolved into the regime's primary method of governance.