President: All basic freedoms in Azerbaijan are provided, including freedom of press

Baku. 24 January. REPORT.AZ/ President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has said the country has ensured all the fundamental freedoms. “If you look at the substance all the basic freedoms in Azerbaijan are provided, including freedom of press, which is absolutely free. 80 percent of the population of Azerbaijan are internet users, and when internet is free without any censorship, and absolute majority of population are using internet, it's difficult to talk about restriction of press”.

Report informs, the head of state told a session of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He said Azerbaijan is a country, “which is implementing an independent policy, policy based on our national interests. We do not join any adventure, which is risky and which can create complications for our country. As I said before, we do not have internal risks, we have a stable political and economic situation. All the potential risks, which we may face, may come from outside”.

President Ilham Aliyev emphasized that there have been a lot of attempts to drag Azerbaijan into kind of campaigns against some countries. “We were always very neutral, we do not play against anyone, and we are not part of any campaign, which is risky and which is not in line with our national interests. Therefore, the main reason for attacks is that some may consider Azerbaijan to be too independent for not a very big country and these kind of ratings of some NGOs aim to discredit our reputation, to damage our reputation, to present Azerbaijan as a non-democratic country, which is not true.”