Azerbaijan considers Amal Clooney Armenia’s “secret weapon”
Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney’s April 26 remarks to the BBC have hit a raw nerve in Azerbaijan, where her client, investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova is kept prisoner, reports EurasiaNet.
According to the source, after Clooney described the political reasons for Ismayilova’s arrests, the Azerbaijani government apparently did what it always does when pressed on its human rights record, ‘claimed a global Armenian conspiracy’.
“No matter if Clooney’s case at the European Court for Human Rights involves an Azerbaijani journalist’s struggle against the Azerbaijan state. Azerbaijan’s state propaganda will find an Armenian connection even if there is none,” writes EurasiaNet citing Day.az claiming that; ‘Turns out that Armenia indeed has a weapon that we could not even dream of… the ‘deadly weapon’ that Armenia is using against Azerbaijan is the quite well-known, failure-of-a-lawyer Amal Clooney, née Alamuddin’.
According to source, for that reason, in Baku's thinking, Clooney's past role as a legal advocate for the Armenian government before the European Court of Human Rights make her highly suspect. Her support and that of her husband George Clooney, for recognition of Ottoman Turkey's slaughter of ethnic Armenians as genocide only add to the suspicions. Turkey ranks as Azerbaijan's closest ally. When Clooney said she was taking up Ismayilova’s case, Azerbaijani media claimed that the British lawyer was of Armenian descent.
“Clooney, who scoffed at the charges, is, in fact, of Lebanese extraction, but Lebanon houses a large Armenian Diaspora. So, for Baku, it all comes together.
Azerbaijan’s pro-government media seemed particularly incensed with Clooney’s recent attempt to rally support for Ismayilova’s case in Washington. Clooney told the BBC that she believes international pressure can help free the journalist,” writes EurasiaNet.
According to the source, Azerbaijan’s National Academy of Science researcher Huseynov wrote in the pro-Aliyev News.az website that the Armenians paid Clooney to go to Washington and set the White House and Capitol Hill against Azerbaijan.
“How far Azerbaijan’s pro-government hacks will go with this theme of an international Armenian conspiracy remains to be seen,” EurasiaNet writes.