"First of all, because now there are more understanding in the European institutions and this perception about the problems with human rights and media freedom are exaggerated. Because in Azerbaijan, there is no restrictions of media. We have free internet, no censorship, and we have now I think more than 80 percent of Azerbaijani population are internet users. You cannot restrict media and have free internet," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper on Dec. 15, Report informs via Azertag.
"The same way there are some human rights issues. Also human rights are protected and Azerbaijan is not facing the criticism it faced many years ago. Because first, we managed to persuade our European partners that the information was mainly based on wrong scenario and second, we implemented a large-scale of political and economical reforms. And second, if you look to the substance you will see that in Armenia the human rights and political freedoms are brutally violated. As an example, many political representatives of political parties are in prison. There are criminal cases against leaders of main politicians, political parties. There is a huge public discontent with respect to repressions in Armenia. And these are all facts which are absolutely clear, but Armenia has a kind of a permanent umbrella, no matter what happened there, this is considered to be a democracy. So, a kind of double standards again," the head of state said.