Appeal to the President of the Bundestag and the parliamentary groups

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has written a letter to the President of the German Bundestag, with which the human rights organization calls on Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble to prevent any lobbying for dictatorships in the German Bundestag in the future. "Again and again, there have been media reports about the lobbying of members of parliament for the unjust regime in Azerbaijan. Only half a year ago, Azerbaijan's army invaded Nagorno-Karabakh with the support of Turkey's Islamist-influenced government," stated Dr. Kamal Sido, the STP's Middle East expert. "For this, Turkey was also able to rely on Islamist mercenaries from northern Syria. It should not be possible for members of the Bundestag to publicly justify these actions."

Following the pattern of Turkey's conquest of the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin, Azerbaijani forces and their Islamist allies occupied almost two-thirds of the territory that was once under Armenian control. According to Sido, the Azerbaijani forces and their Islamist allies specifically targeted the Christian Armenian population of Afrin. Shootings and mass expulsions were the result.

Even before this attack, the regime of Azerbaijani ruler Aliyev had been under criticism for numerous human rights violations. "In order to mitigate this criticism and to be able to export oil and gas to Europe undisturbed, the country has been investing large sums of money in Germany for years," Sido explained. For example, funds flowed to sports clubs, to the former mayor of Oppenheim, SPD member of parliament Marcus Held, the Frankfurt CDU, and to CSU politician Eduard Lintner. In 2017, the recently deceased Bundestag member Karin Strenz (CDU), chairwoman of the South Caucasus Parliamentary Group, had been banned for life from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe because of her work for the regime.

"Many are disappointed about the restraint of German politics in the face of the wars of aggression and the ruthless actions of the authoritarian regimes in Baku and Ankara," Sido stated. "It would be fatal if it had to be assumed that this restraint was bought by donations to members of the German Bundestag or other German politicians."