Portal:Azerbaijan
IntroductionAzerbaijan (/æzərbaɪˈdʒɑːn/ ( The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence in 1918 and became the first democratic state in the Muslim-oriented world. The country was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920 as the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, prior to the official dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. In September 1991, the Armenian majority of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region seceded to form the Republic of Artsakh. The region and seven adjacent districts outside it became de facto independent with the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994. These regions are internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan pending a solution to the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh, found through negotiations facilitated by the OSCE. The sovereign state of Azerbaijan is a unitary semi-presidential republic. It's a member state of the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. It is one of six independent Turkic states and an active member of the Turkic Council and the TÜRKSOY community. Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 158 countries and holds membership in 38 international organizations. It is one of the founding members of GUAM, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. A member of the United Nations since 1992 after its independence, Azerbaijan was elected to membership in the newly established Human Rights Council by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 May 2006. Its term of office began on 19 June 2006. Azerbaijan is also a member state of the Non-Aligned Movement, holds observer status in World Trade Organization, and is a correspondent at the International Telecommunication Union. The Constitution of Azerbaijan does not declare an official religion and all major political forces in the country are secularist. However, the majority of the population are of Muslim background. More than 89% of the population is Shia. Most Azerbaijanis, however, do not actively practice any religion, with 53% stating religion has little to no importance in their lives, according to Pew Research Center and Gallup polls. Alcohol and non-Islamic places[clarify] are also permitted. Azerbaijan has a high level of human development which ranks on par with most Eastern European countries. It has a high rate of economic development and literacy, as well as a low rate of unemployment. However, the ruling party, the New Azerbaijan Party, has been accused of authoritarianism and human rights abuses. Featured articleThe Azerbaijanis (/ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒɑːni/; Azerbaijani: Azərbaycanlılar) are an ethnic group mainly found in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijanis, commonly referred to as Azeris, live in a wider area from the Caucasus to the Iranian plateau. The Azeris are typically at least nominally Muslim and have a mixed cultural heritage of Turkic, Iranian, and Caucasian elements. Despite living on both sides of an international border, the Azeris form a single group. However, northerners and southerners differ due to nearly two centuries of separate social evolution in Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan.
Selected imageThe Oil Rocks, a full town on the Caspian Sea was created in 1947 and was the pearl of Soviet and Azeri ambition in the 1950s. Selected article
In 2007 Gobustan was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site considered to be of "outstanding universal value" for the quality and density of its rock art engravings, for the substantial evidence the collection of rock art images presents for hunting, fauna, flora and lifestyles in pre-historic times and for the cultural continuity between prehistoric and medieval times that the site reflects.
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Selected biographyChingiz Mustafayev (Azerbaijani: Çingiz Fuad oğlu Mustafayev); 1960 - 1992) was one of the most noted independent Azerbaijani journalists, granted the state order of the National Hero of Azerbaijan posthumously. Although the corpus of his journalistic work spans slightly over a year, with no formal journalistic training, Chingiz created a video anthology of the early stages of Nagorno-Karabakh War, documented from the front lines ultimately at a cost of his own life. He was the man behind the TV camera, who filmed the scene of Khojaly Massacre in 1992. To make the footage Chingiz had to travel on an army helicopter, and despite coming under fire he managed to film the evidence of the Khojaly Genocide showing hundreds of dead bodies strewn across snow-covered fields. The pictures are accompanied by the sound of Chingiz’ – no stranger to the sight of corpses – sobbing uncontrollably as he filmed. His film was the irrefutable evidence that there had been a full-scale massacre, with the perpetration of which Human Rights Watch and Russian Memorial society blamed the Armenian forces. In the course of eight months, Chingiz shot 18 documentaries about the war in Karabakh, leaving behind a substantial historical archive. Chingiz was known for his patriotic work and was considered to have risked everything to expose the truth.
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