Human Rights Watch has taken a look at the human rights situation in the South Caucasus and is not impressed by what it found. Army brutality in Armenia, IDP evictions in Georgia and roughshod treatment of media in Azerbaijan make for some bleak paragraphs in the watchdog’s 2011 world report.
Nor is a largely indifferent international community doing much to make matters better worldwide, the group said. While key Western powers such as the EU and the US can have an influence on human rights problem areas, the New York-based organization charged that they are instead settling for a “Façade of Action.”
[Human Rights Watch receives financing from the Open Society Foundations. EurasiaNet.org is financed by the Open Society Institute, a separate part of the Open Society Foundations network.]
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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