Azerbaijan is named a country with consolidated authoritarian regime in “Nations in Transit 2016” report published by Freedom House.
With a score of 6.86 Azerbaijan is at the very bottom of the Nations in Transit scale.
Freedom House indicates 15 countries of the former Soviet Union, among them Azerbaijan, that are now consolidated authoritarian regimes at the very bottom of the Nations in Transit scale, with Democracy Scores approaching the worst-possible 7.00.
Over 224 million people live in these countries, accounting for 77% of the population of the former Soviet Union and 55% of the total population of the Nations in Transit coverage area. The rulers of the seven countries (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan) have enriched themselves and their families – and in some cases may be laying the groundwork for hereditary rule.
The report says Azerbaijan continued a crackdown that began in the summer of 2014, marked in 2015 by the sentencing of the country’s most prominent investigative journalist, Khadija Ismayilova, to seven and a half years in prison.
Freedom House experts present the facts about Aliyev’s family that “controls assets worth more than $3 billion in at least eight major Azerbaijani banks, in addition to stakes in the telecommunications, construction, transportation, mining, gas, and oil sectors.” It is mentioned that Aliyev’s children own real estate in Dubai worth about $75 million.
“Heydar alone bought nine waterfront mansions in Dubai totaling $44 million in 2010, when he was just 11 years old,” the report says. Meanwhile, Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva own or are closely connected to at least six five-star hotels in Baku, as well as two mountain resorts.
