Azernews.Az

Azerbaijani foreign ministry has criticized Amnesty International’s report that lambasted the country’s human rights record, saying it questions the rights group’s impartiality.

Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev said that as always, Amnesty International adheres to an unfair stance toward Azerbaijan and that the views expressed in the report are a far cry from reality.

"Azerbaijan has achieved great success in the post-independence period, but none of that was mentioned in the report," Abdullayev said. "It appears that authors of the report had set out a goal beforehand to subject Azerbaijan to baseless criticism."

Amnesty International’s report, issued on Wednesday, said the international community must not turn a blind eye to what it called human rights violations in Azerbaijan. The report cited an alleged clampdown on dissent since protests erupted in March and claimed freedoms suppressed in Azerbaijan detail a wave of intimidation and arrests around protests against corruption and the increasing suppression of independent media, non-governmental organizations and opposition parties.

Hundreds of people gathered in the streets of the capital Baku in March and April this year demanding democratic reforms and greater respect for human rights. Amnesty International alleged the Azerbaijani authorities responded by banning the protests and harassing and arresting bloggers and activists.