Leyla Yunus To Politicians Of West: Wasn't It Enough Of Assad? Wasn't It Enough Of Syria?

The West must stop supporting dictators in the post-Soviet states.

Azerbaijani human rights activist, the director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, the former political prisoner Leyla Yunus stated in her comments on the blocking of the Charter-97 website in Belarus:

– There is nothing extraordinary about the fact that the independent website Charter-97, which is not under Lukashenka's control, is blocked. The actions of all dictators, despots, authoritarian leaders are identical. Regardless of location, time and space. They are afraid of thoughts, of words. But even Leo Tolstoy wrote that a word is an act. They are not so much afraid of armed resistance, which is always inevitable in such countries sooner or later, they are afraid of words, thoughts! This is what they want to eliminate,so that the people were like a herd, like a field, which they walked through and left not a single spikelet. Therefore, in their opinion, independent media, newspapers, Internet sites, radio, television, on no account should exist.

In early 2013, the campaign of burning out everything started in Azerbaijan, and now all the Radio Svoboda offices are closed, there is no newspaper Svoboda that we published during the collapse of the Soviet Union and registered in 1989. But also, as in Belarus, we had two independent TV channels in France and Germany, and they were also blocked.

I think, first of all, we need to unite our efforts, we should show solidarity in the fight against dictators. Secondly, we need to address international human rights organizations around the world. The most terrible thing is dictatorship. Dictatorship deprives the nation of the future.

When I speak in Europe, I always say: there is such a huge number of refugees from Syria. Isn't it enough for you? How could you support Assad, Mubarak and other despots of the Arab world for so long? And now you support the despots of the former Soviet states.

We need to join our forces, and make all the actions of Lukashenka, Aliyev, Putin, which violate international law, become widely known. It is necessary to unite both our sites and our voices. It is necessary to ensure that Western politicians are ashamed to shake dictators' hands which are stained in blood. It must be tough in our demand to comply with all norms of international law.

For our and your freedom!