EcoLur
The member of the Board of Directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Evren Dilekli, who is also the Country Director on Turkey, Romania, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyz Republic demonstratively left the hall, where the meeting of the EBRD Directors with public representatives was taking place. The reason for such an action is the public representatives’ act of protecting political prisoners in Azerbaijan. The meeting was held in the frames of the EBRD annual meeting in Tbilisi.
CEE Bankwatch Network made speech in the support of political prisoner in Azerbaijan three times - at the special session dedicated to mining, at the meeting with the Board of Directors and the meeting with EBRD President Suma Chakrabarti and called for the EBRD to refrain from funding projects, which support the authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan. “Azerbaijan has over 80 political prisoners, which is twice as many as in Russia and Belarus…We think that the bank can’t support the projects which promote authoritarian regime…The projects are closed, nobody dares to speak about the risks, as people are afraid…We think the Bank should apply the same procedures it did for Belarus and Turkmenistan,” CEE Bankwatch Network representative said.
While the representative of CEE Bankwatch Network Fidanka Bacheva McCrath was reading the text of call to the Board of Directors, activists wearing T-shirts with the names of the political prisoners were standing in silence. When she finished reading the text, Evren Dilekli, the Country Director on Turkey, Romania, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyz Republic, claimed he thinks it’s impossible to take part in the meeting with the public in such a format and left the hall demonstratively.
May 19, 2015 at 14:34