While the government has maintained a deeply cautious stance, coverage of the war in the state-controlled media has shown a clear, albeit implicit, pro-Ukraine stance.
A new government investigation has brought arrests and official recognition of many more victims. But it remains unclear why the Tartar case, which alleged widespread spying in the military, was launched in the first place.
To many in Azerbaijan, it appeared that the new agreement was aimed at ensuring their country’s loyalty to Russia during the attack on Ukraine. Officials said the timing was just a coincidence.
Baku already held the record in 2010, before losing it to Tajikistan less than a year later. Now it is aiming to again one-up the current record holder in Saudi Arabia.
The government is promising to resettle residents displaced in the 1990s into “smart villages.” But the timeline for that resettlement keeps slipping as reports of worker mistreatment have emerged.
The Ministry of Culture issued a new statement responding to international criticism of an earlier announcement that it intended to “remove” Armenian “forgeries” from churches on its territory.
The minister of culture said that a working group will be set up to identify what he called “Armenian forgery” from churches, putting into practice a pseudoscientific theory that denies the churches’ Armenian origin.
The dark circumstances around the attempted murder of the mayor of Azerbaijan’s second city have yet to be uncovered, and many seemingly uninvolved people continue to await justice.
The long-announced trips have been eagerly awaited by Azerbaijanis displaced from the region three decades ago. But restrictions on the tours have led to some discontent.
It is aimed at making university more accessible. But there are several catches, and student advocates argue that it would be better to eliminate tuition altogether.
For the most part, pro-government forces did not sympathize with the protests, but they also didn’t like the idea of Russia and Armenia getting involved in suppressing them.
A official working group has been created with the promise of a fair investigation into the “Tartar case,” as Baku signals that it intends to take the allegations of wide-scale torture more seriously.
The government is again registering new political parties and saying it wants pluralism. But the parties who are cooperating are being mocked as “bus opposition.”
The government is heavily publicizing the concept, which could increase the economic efficiency of rural communities but also place them under greater central control.
The government had been silent since the investigation into massive corruption was released. Now Ilham Aliyev says “some forces in the West” are behind it.
