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Caucasus Year in Review Part I: Georgia and Armenia
Georgia 2011 was the year when former Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze put the finishing touches on her long campaign to discredit former Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze. Nino Burjanadze...
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Caucasus Year in Review, Part II: Azerbaijan
For Azerbaijan’s political and human rights landscape, 2011 was a year of tumult, small triumphs, and anguish. I’ve written a great deal on topics this year such as the arrests and imprisonment of...
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Jabbar Savalan released from prison!
Jabbar Savalan (credit: Turkhan Karimov) News out of Baku courtesy of Radio Free Europe and the viral Azerbaijan rumor mill is that Jabbar Savalan was released from prison today (26 December) in a...
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Azerbaijan: Fallout from Tagi Murder, New Internet Protest Movement, and an...
Rafiq Tagi. Credit: APA.AZ There is no real progress to report on the investigation into the murder of Rafiq Tagi, although as I mentioned shortly after his death, a number of theories—some of them...
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Car Bomb Defused in Tbilisi, Israeli Embassy Target
Georgian authorities report today that a bomb planted in the car of an employee of the Israeli embassy was defused by police. The employee was, according to Georgian TV news station Rustavi 2, a...
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South Ossetian Presidential Candidate Hospitalized After Police Raid, May...
Alla Djioyeva (photo: RFE/RL) After being hospitalized last Thursday under mysterious circumstances, the winner of November’s South Ossetian presidential election had, as of yesterday, told the press...
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Sudden, Violent Demonstration Erupts in Northern Azerbaijan
Rioters burn building in Quba, Azerbaijan (credit: CNN iReport) Thousands of protesters took to the streets early today in the northern Azeri city of Quba in what became a scene of violence as police...
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Azeri Journalist Alleges Blackmail Attempt
Khadija Ismayilova (credit: RFE/RL, Courtesy Image) Azerbaijan’s best-known journalist (who also happens to be Azerbaijan’s best journalist, period) alleged yesterday that she is being victimized in a...
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Azerbaijan: Blackmail Video Made Public, Possible Imminent Release of...
Khadija Ismayilova, left center, shaking hands (credit: RFE/RL Dragan Milojevic) It was bound to happen, although I prayed that it wouldn’t. But at least one web site in Azerbaijan has now released...
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UPDATE: Peaceful Activists Arrested, Amnesty International Reports Torture Fears
From left to right: Etibar Salmanli, Jamal Ali, Natig Kamilov at the protest on March 17 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Credit: Free Photoreporters Union The sanctioned peaceful protest that took place in...
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Baku Protests Foreign Policy’s Assertion of Airbase Access for Israel
Presidents Shimon Peres (left) and Ilham Aliyev in Baku, Azerbaijan in 2009. Credit: AFP It’s just so hard to launch an international bash these days. Everyone’s a critic. Just ask Azerbaijan....
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Peace Activist Threatened in Armenia, Azerbaijani Film Festival Cancelled
Georgi Vanyan. Photo: Onnik Krikorian When I first met Georgi Vanyan back in 2009, I couldn’t hide my excitement. For me that middle-aged man who smoked one cigarette after another and had sadness...
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Georgian Elections Again an International Affair
President Mikheil Saakashvili and Jean-Paul Costa enter the European Court of Human Rights, 2008 (credit: Michel Christen / © Council of Europe) Nestled among gorgeous mountains, blessed with exotic...
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Prisoner of the Mountains (1996)
The conflict between Russia and the territory of Chechnya is the backdrop for this film. In it two Russian soldiers are taken away to a Chechen village after their group is ambushed. The reason they...
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Nagorno-Karabakh: Expect Status Quo in 2013-14
The “frozen conflict” of Nagorno-Karabakh may not melt down anytime soon because of the involvement of multitude of interests. Two decades of international community administered talks between Armenia...
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