"Provocateur without borders"
By Trend
The pot calling the kettle black...if we apply this to the
representatives of some international NGOs, one can easily
determine the main kind of their activity. Something these
defenders of democracy scream about all over the world is something
they find worthy of doing themselves.
For example, Robert Menard has been holding the post of the
secretary general of the Reporters Without Borders organization. At
present, he is the mayor of the southern city of Beziers, France.
Menard was strongly criticized after answering the questions of the
Mots Croisées (Crossword) program presenter. Menard in particular
said that upon his order the statistics on Muslim children are
gathered, and according to those statistics, some 64 percent of
school students in Beziers practice Islam. That is "too much",
according to Menard.
It should be stressed that Menard has Nazi inclinations. He was
elected mayor of the city from the French far-right nationalist
party "National Front". It is not accidental that German Finance
Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called the party "fascist" in October
2014.
France-2 TV channel called Menard a "provocateur without
borders".
"While passing from the right camp to the left one, this
provocateur is engaged in various provocations," said the TV
channel episode
(http://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-magazine/france-2/complement-d-enquete/video-robert-menard-provocateur-sans-frontieres_958083.html).
It should be noted that Robert Menard is not for the first time
having problems with the law. A few years ago, as the French media
reported, Menard, being the head of the Reporters Without Borders,
confessed that the RWB’s budget is replenished mainly with help of
the “American organizations closely related to the US foreign
policy.”
Among those organizations standing behind the RWB there are the
Open Society Foundation of the billionaire George Soros, the US
Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED).
The RWB’s complete unwillingness to notice the problems with
freedom of speech, “where it is not necessary”, may have another,
more prosaic explanation. This human rights organization, on a par
with such structures as the Freedom House, Human Rights Watch and
Amnesty International, indirectly exists with help of the funds
allocated by the US Department of State.
An article by John Cherian in the Indian magazine Frontline said
that RWB “is reputed to have strong links with Western intelligence
agencies” and “Cuba has accused Robert Menard, the head of the
group, of having links with the CIA”.
The organization, formally meant to defend the freedom of
expression, has become a conventional weapon of information and
psychological war, and the implementation of Washington’s political
plans.
This organization systematically and regularly criticizes the
Azerbaijani government, accusing it of violating the freedom of
speech and expression, despite of the fact that Robert Menard was
received by the country’s President Ilham Aliyev in 2006.
The Reporters Without Borders included the names of 12 allegedly
arrested Azerbaijani journalists in its 2014 report in order to
present Azerbaijan alongside with China and Iran as a country where
the freedom of speech is suppressed. Apparently, the fascist and
Islamophobic heritage of Menard are still the basic principles of
this organization.
The combination of these principles with the interests of certain
circles in the US makes the statements of this organization very
biased, and sometimes even disgusting.
Another example of the Islamophobic position of this organization
can be seen in its attitude towards Turkey.
In the index of the Reporters Without Borders, Turkey ranked 154th
among 180 countries. Despite the subsequent changes, the country’s
rating hasn’t changed since 2012.
Some legislative packages approved by the government and decrease
in the number of the arrested journalists were not taken into
account when determining the country’s rating in 2014. Accordingly,
“no progress” was indicated.
On one hand, it deprives the country of incentive to work hard to
improve its ranking in international indexes, and also creates a
wrong impression about the real state of things.
In addition, the RWB arranged yet another provocation in 2002
against Turkey and called the then Chief of the General Staff
Huseyin Kivrikoglu a “predator of the media” and put up his huge
portrait on the ground of a railway station in Paris.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey stepped in indicating
that Robert Menard’s appearance in the country is undesirable. The
Turkish Interior Ministry said that “all air, water and land routes
to Turkey are closed for Menard.”
But what’s most important is that such characters as Menard and
organizations like Reporters Without Borders never try to deal with
the problems right in front of them. For example, Huffington Post,
influential US newspaper some time ago wrote that Menard is
“thoroughly corrupt” and “the press freedom index published
annually by RWB was compiled according to taste of specific
sponsors for a certain fee.”
Ironically, such corrupt, racist individuals and organizations that
have gone far in the most sensational scandals, are trying to
establish a rating of Azerbaijan and show it as an example of
“non-democracy”.
---
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz