Author: Anna Tamamian

Voice of America 

In an exclusive interview with Current Time reporter, Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismailova touched upon the noisy corruption scandal which involves the Aliyev family.

In recent decades, Baku, outwardly, reminds of a western city, where the desire to quickly overcome European integration challenges is noticeable.

There are many similar buildings in the central part of Baku where some street names are written only in English.

Though, all this is only an outward impression. In fact, Azerbaijan is among the most corrupt countries in the world where there is no freedom of speech and media, and any manifestation of critical thinking is punished with imprisonment.

Continuing the traditions of his father Heydar Aliyev, Ilham also prefers to keep the levers of power and almost everything under the control of his family.

After the referendum held in 2016, the post of Vice President  was added in Azerbaijan which Ilham Aliyev conveyed his wife Mihriban Aliyeva, and their eldest daughter was appointed as the director of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

“Since 2008, due to the large flow of foreign investments, about 130 billion dollars was invested in Azerbaijan, but it is not known how the money was spent,” said investigative journalist Khadija Ismailova.

Khadija Ismailova, former Azeri correspondent of Azerbaijani service the radio Freedom,  is perhaps the only investigative journalist in Azerbaijan who managed to reveal the details of the state scale scandalous corruption history with the participation of Aliyev family.

“It turns out that the oil boom started in here and ended, but nothing has changed in our country,” said Ismailova.

It should be reminded that the Azerbaijani authorities had never reacted to the facts presented in the articles of Khadija, but in autumn 2015, Khadija was sentenced to 7.5 years’ imprisonment on charges of tax avoidance, illegal entrepreneurial activity, and abuse of office,

As a result of harsh criticism and pressure by many international human rights organizations and activists against the verdict, imposed on these political motives, in 2016, after six-month imprisonment, Khadija was released.

“I have investigated the details of the activities of the businessmen belonging to the Aliyev family, and I can say that all these companies have one common thing: they are all badly guided… There has been no case in Azerbaijan, disclosed by us, that the Prosecutor General’s Office investigated. There has been no such case. We have discovered that offshore companies linked with British companies also belong to Aliyev’s daughters. When this story came to the surface, negatively affecting the income and reputation of those companies, the Aliev family decided to sell them. And whom did they sell them again? To the Government… And it turns out that we – citizens, had to pay for it again… The family works here, but they have created such a system that nobody in this country, no one, except them, can afford to make big money. And not only large amounts of money, but in general, to make any money. It’s like a game called Tables, when closing and holding all your positions, you do not have any opportunity to move. Because starting from that moment, when people begin to move freely, that is, to earn enough money and live a good life, they will start to raise other issues … this is what our government does not wish,” Investigative journalist Khadija Ismailova told a correspondent of The Current Time.

The latest investigation by the British magazine The Guardian, in which Khadija also took part, revealed a secret bank account owned by the government of Azerbaijan, with $ 3 billion used to bribe high-ranking European politicians.

Ali Hasanov, Aliyev’s advisor, called the publication of The Guardian as “poisonous”, adding that the initiators are British secret services, the Armenian Diaspora, and the United States of America.

On October 12, Armenia marks the National Day of fight against Smoking. Armenia has joined the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which aims to protect current and future generations from the effects of tobacco and exposure to smoking.

Sociologist Aharon Adibekyan is the guest of “A1 +, and the topic is fight against smoking.

Does the sociologist share the view that intensifying the fight against smoking change the situation?

“International track-record shows that the rise in prices, the ban on selling cigarettes to minors, and if an employer hires a smoker he will reduce his salary; that is not-smoking becomes economically quite useful”.