Protest campaign against Booking.com begins in Europe over Karabakh issue
By Rashid Shirinov
The European Azerbaijanis (EuroAz.nl) organization, based in the Netherlands, has launched a protest campaign against booking hotels in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh through the Booking.com website.
The co-chairman of the organization, blogger Emil Aliyev, said this to Report on November 23. He noted that bloggers from several countries have also joined the campaign.
“At present, it is possible to book a hotel room in Nagorno-Karabakh through the Booking.com website. We decided to protest against this by launching a campaign and sending letters with protests mainly in English and French to the website e-mail,” the blogger said.
Some time ago, after a serious protest from Azerbaijan’s Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture and Tourism, Booking.com ceased making illegal hotel reservations in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenian armed forces. However, the Netherlands-based website has recently renewed the illegal hotel bookings in the occupied lands.
Currently, the two Azerbaijani ministries carry out coordinated relevant measures in connection with the issue, and Azerbaijan’s Embassy in the Netherlands has also received instructions.
Azerbaijan takes necessary measures against those, who are engaged in illegal business or economic activity in the country’s territories occupied by Armenia. Moreover, unauthorized visits to Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied regions of Azerbaijan are considered illegal and individuals who pay such visits are included in the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s “black list”.
The ministry has today shared an infographic titled “Illegal economic and other activities in the Armenia-occupied territories of Azerbaijan.” The infographic can be reached at http://www.mfa.gov.az/folder/media/Infoqram.pdf
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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