Azerbaijan

A former Soviet satellite, it is now a secular Republic. For the Nagorno-Karabakh War, see also under Armenia above. Several military coups after communism collapsed, and then the presidency of Heydar Aliyev since 1994, the leader when it was under Soviet rule, and a man who quite simply does not allow opposition of any sort. Re-elected in 2013, there will not be any need for Comrade Putin to plan anything against Azerbaijan for some time yet as the nation's loyalty to Russia is unequivocal.
 

In a sense, this is all there is to say about Azerbaijan; but of course, one cannot insult the Azeris by giving them just six lines, and the last of those barely a quarter of a line. So I have surfed the Internet to find out more, and TripAdvisor has shown me some lovely hotels in Baku, ResponsibleVacation has taken me along the old Silk Road (no, not the one that requires a Tor Browser; that has been taken down for the crime of stealing cyberfire from the gods and giving it anonymously to Humankind) to the Caspian Sea and the Greater Caucasus mountains (isn't that where Prometheus was bound, and the eagles sent to feed upon his liver? I wonder if he's still there). It all sounds terribly charming and splendid and inviting; until I come upon 

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/azerbaijan

and read an update on investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, whose fears for his arrest were first published on this site in October 2014, and who has indeed now been arrested, while his lawyer has had his license revoked. No further word on Ilgar Nasibov, the human rights activist who was beaten by the police in August 2014, nor on Leyla Yunu, who suffered the same brutality in September 2014, nor Murad Adilov, nor Faraj Karimov or his brother Siraj Karimov; but, as I say, TripAdvisor can show you some lovely hotels in Baku, and ResponsibleVacation will arrange a hiking weekend in the very hills where presumably Prometheus must have got himself unbound, escaped, gone into hiding, or perhaps he's wherever Ilgar Nasibov and Murad Adilov are, because he isn't there.


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