[governance] Azerbaijan

[Jeremy Malcolm]

This evening, Izumi and I raised civil society's concerns about the selection of Azerbaijan as the next host country for the IGF, with Thomas Steizer, Assistant Secretary-General at UN DESA, and his deputy Vyacheslav Cherkasov.  They indicated to us that the human rights concerns had been raised with Azerbaijan ahead of the IGF, and that assurances had been made that the freedoms of those attending the 2012 IGF would be upheld, not only for foreign delegates but also for locals (and specifically including Armenians).  The host country agreement contains specific provisions on these points.  (I asked for a copy of it, but it seemed that could be a problem.)

We also discussed the issue of cost.  Thomas responded that he would take this issue up with the prospective hosts and ask them whether low-cost accommodation could be provided for IGF delegates.  I will follow up with him by email to remind him of his commitment to do this.  (Of course, this would do nothing to ease the cost of air travel.)

Given our immediate lack of an alternative host country to propose, there seemed to be little we could do to avoid the selection of Azerbaijan as host country for 2012.  For 2013, Indonesia has offered to host.

On a sour note, someone had been spreading rumours that civil society had been planning a demonstration to protest against the selection of Azerbaijan, which I assured Chengetai (though I'm not sure whether he believed me) were baseless.

-- 
Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Project Coordinator
Consumers International
Kuala Lumpur Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
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