Specific organizations that financed them are also named. For example, Qafqazinfo.az reports as new facts revealed “in the case of the head of the Institute for Democratic Initiatives Akif Gurbanov, founder of Toplum TV Alesker Mammadli, founding member of the III Republic platform Ruslan Izzatli, and persons detained with them”, that these persons had direct links with Internews, USAID, the Prague Civil Society Center, NESEHNUTI, People in Need (Czech Republic), as well as the Platform Verification international organization, the OCCRP project, and received grant funds from them.
“They received financial resources for ‘grant projects’ carried out in an illegal form from accounts opened in foreign banks. Funds transferred by various foreign ‘donors’ to accounts opened with Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank of Germany, US Citibank, Raiffeisen Bank International of Austria, UniCredit Bank Czech of the Czech Republic and TBK Group of Georgia were cashed in ATMs in Georgia. To avoid arousing suspicion, the money was brought to Azerbaijan in batches.”
We will not elaborate on what exactly the detainees are guilty of, since the guilt is established by the court, and we adhere to the presumption of innocence, but it should be noted that Article 26, Paragraph 5 of the Law “On Media” of the Republic of Azerbaijan states the following: “A media entity cannot be financed by natural or legal persons of foreign countries that are not its founders (participants in ownership), their branches and representative offices, legal persons established by these persons in the Republic of Azerbaijan, and state agencies of foreign countries.”
Meanwhile, proceeding from this particular case, we would like to speculate on the notion of “democracy” invoked by the developed countries of the world in their attempts to dictate their conditions to states like Azerbaijan.
We do not undertake to acquit or accuse the detained journalists; once again, this is for the court to determine, but this fact is important for us as a reference point for the possibility of discussing what democracy is, as referred to by journalists who publish certain reports and talk about freedom of speech, and why the foreign agents laws adopted by certain countries annoy the United States or European countries, which often refer to it to speak of the lack of democracy in a particular country.
You will agree that this is not a simple issue, because we all want to live in a developed and democratic country, while we also do not want to be subjected to any external pressure in our development, that is, we do not want to become a toy in the hands of others. But how do we strike that golden mean?
To begin with, what exactly is a foreign agents law? Oddly enough, it was first adopted in the United States in 1938.
In March 2023, Forbes published a rather curious article on the subject, with Russian lawyer Maxim Krupsky explaining which countries adopted this law and when, and why. “The difference between the Russian and American versions of the ‘foreign agent’ legislation is indeed quite vast, both in terms of regulatory language and enforcement,” he explains. “One of the key differences, perhaps, is that FARA (US Foreign Agents Registration Act) requires proof of the existence of actions of a potential foreign agent at the order, request or under the direction of a foreign principal and pursuit of political activities in its interests, which, in fact, forms the very fact of agent (intermediary, representative) activities.”
That is, in most other countries, a similar law is adopted without the requirement of such evidence. And this is the key point and the main difference between the American act and other countries’ similarly named laws.
This is where we can step in and say that this law is administered and enforced by the US Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) and the Department of Justice, and was adopted to protect America itself from foreign interference. Now imagine how much the US intelligence capabilities have grown since 1938, with its agencies infiltrating the political and social institutions of virtually every country in the world.
Now consider how, in a court of any state, the government agencies that detained a foreign agent can prove that he or she acted “at the order, request, or under the direction of a foreign principal” and was engaged in “political activities for or in the interests of such foreign principal”, if that principal is US intelligence services? To do so, one would need to have the level of intelligence to expose a network of foreign agents linked to US intelligence services. Can many countries claim this capability? Certainly not. That is why foreign agents laws have been passed all over the world without the need for this kind of evidence. That is, if there is evidence that a media outlet or NGO is financed from abroad, then this very fact is proof that this media outlet or NGO can potentially act as, as they say, a destructive element.
It does not matter whether they undermine the foundations of statehood unknowingly or deliberately, but if financial support for this kind of activity comes from abroad, it should at least be reported to the appropriate government agencies. Yes, this is not a mistake, not a typo: “reported”, because there are countries where such activities of the media and NGOs financed by foreign funds are allowed subject to a declaration of sources of income, and there are countries where such activities are prohibited altogether regardless, that is, it is not allowed even if one declares one’s income.
Take Georgia, for example. Things are turbulent there again, as the government is pushing through a foreign agents law, but the president and part of civil society are against it. Perhaps it is just a game and Georgian authorities want to pressure the European Union, as the latter is in no hurry to welcome this country into the community of European countries, although it promised to do so many years ago. What is interesting here is the reaction of the US and Europe to the developments in Georgia. Their position is unambiguous: the foreign agents law should not be adopted, as it restricts freedom of speech and democratic freedoms in Georgia. They have a similar position towards Azerbaijan, and in general towards any other country in the world where such laws are put on the agenda in parliaments.
And here we come very close to the questions of democracy that we wanted to address. Was it democracy when French President Emmanuel Macron toyed with his own nation by promising not to adopt and then going through with the pension laws that sparked months of protests in that country, with cars being set on fire and protesters being seriously injured?
Is there a need for a democracy where American Democrats cannot agree with Republicans on the seemingly basic question of whether to vote together on a bill to provide financial aid to Ukraine, Israel and some other states or to consider the Ukrainian issue separately, which resulted in the bill not being passed for months?
As it stands, the United States is a “democracy”, but hundreds of Ukrainians have been killed because military aid did not reach their country in time. Is it freedom of speech when powerful states can use their agents to turn society against the government and organize riots? Is there a need for a democracy that will teach your child in school to call you not father or mother, but parent No. 1 and parent No. 2? Or decide for your child whether he or she will be a boy or a girl, crippling him or her for life?
Where is the golden mean in matters of democracy and is there one? It appears that in the USA and Europe, which so zealously accuse Azerbaijan of having neither freedom of speech nor democracy, there is no golden mean at all. If so, then every country has the right to the amount of democracy that allows it to develop steadily (without adverse foreign interference), to build civil society (with the priority of open and trusting relations between the society and the government and vice versa). If people make mistakes on the way to this democracy, those will be their own mistakes, which in a healthy society will contribute to future growth anyway. But it is quite another thing to make the same mistakes under outside guidance and funding from the intelligence services of the United States and European countries.
These are tricky questions, aren’t they? Most importantly, they have no definite answers. And if there are no definite answers and no development scenarios, it means every country on its way to a free society, democracy and freedom of speech must follow its own path, without the interference of foreign agents. And for this purpose, it is necessary at least to follow all paragraphs of the laws that are adopted in the country, including the Law “On Media” of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
