The U.S Ambassador at the Free Thought University (bakupost.wordpress.com)

U.S ambassador Mr. Matthew Bryza with translator.

by Sabina Vagif

Today the U.S ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew J. Bryza met with more than 100 young people at Free Thought University (Azad Fikir Universiteti-AFU). The topic of the discussion was “Azerbaijan-U.S.A relationships”.

The meeting was not open to everyone, moreover, there was limited place. Most of the participants were invited with the most active members of the audience from AFU. The audience also included well-known young people, bloggers, journalists, etc.  Mr.Bryza talked about free society, democracy, education and health care issues in Azerbaijan. He said that education is crutual and especially women be afforded the right to get a proper education. He mentioned that there should not be suppressions on freedom of speech if there is no ethnic, or religious discrimination. His attitude about protesters on 11 March is that they should be released: “Before or during last week detainees should be released quickly following Azerbaijani law. Othervise it is hard to understand how the authorities maintain their commitment under the international law.  The aim of these protests is to get more open and democratical country here”. 

The ambassador mentioned that Azerbaijan should not choose authoritarian and extremist Islam way: “Azerbaijan can emerge the third way between authoritarian and extremist Islam way. Firstly there should be open discussions, Azerbaijan citizens have the right under the article 49 of the Constitution to freedom of assembly. If ideas cannot be exchanged, argued openly in debate like this it will be somewhere else in the shadows”.

Mr.Bryza mentioned at the end of his speech that he would like to get some information from the audience about access to the internet in Azerbaijan. He add that the U.S embassy’s observation on that issue was was that no restrictions on internet or on some social networks like Facebook have occurred. The young actives in the meeting shared their opinions about the internet with the ambassador. They complained about high price and low quality of the internet connection, also some restriction from the authority to some oppositional websites. In the meeting there were several questions and opinions shared to the ambassador about corruption in education and in other governmental branches, Nagorni Karabagh conflict, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, democracy, etc.