The week of July 4-8 saw the decrease of silk cocoons and worms, revision of veterans’ disability statuses and Alizamin Salayev arrested
Silk cocoons have non-expected low productivity in 2022
In some regions of Azerbaijan, this year’s harvesting of silk cocoons and worms is about to end, and in others, it is already finished. The government media presents this field as a business with high income chances, mentioning that it is possible to earn 400-500 AZN in one day. However, this year the production has decreased significantly.
Specialized farmers blame the excess of rain this year, which affected the fertility of the worms. The weather also influences negatively working and living conditions. In addition, producers complain about late payments and lack of support of public authorities.
In recent years, one of the agrarian fields that have been tried to be revived in the non-oil sector in Azerbaijan is cocooning. As a result of the implementation of the State Program for the development of cocooning and sericulture for 2018-2025, it was planned to increase the volume of wet cocoon production to 600 thousand tons by 2025. So far, the program has been unsatisfactory.
Ministry will review disability certificates previously denied to war veterans
In the first week of June, a group of participants of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War held a protest in front of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection. They complained about the the refusal of the public authorities to give disability certificates without further examination.
As a result, Ulvi Huseynov, deputy director of the Disability Policy Department of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, announced that a Working Group has been established in the Ministry to review disability statuses of veterans who received a previous refusal on it.
In Azerbaijan, it is necessary for a person to have a disability status in order to receive pensions and benefits related to any impairment. This is a sensible topic especially regarding veterans of the Fall 2020 War, who barely got any support from the government when returning home from war.
Activist stages an action and is arrested
Alizamin Salayev, an activist member of the Azerbaijan People’s Front Party (APPF), who held an one-man protest, received a 30-day arrest warrant for disobeying a legal request of the police.
Salayev started a live broadcast from his Facebook account while holding a protest in the central park of the districit of Salyan on July 7. During the transmission, police officers approached him, and then took him to the police department, where an administrative protocol was drawn up.
The activist’s family believe the arrest was unfounded and politically motivated. Alizamin Salayev has been administratively arrested many times on the charge of resisting the police. On April 2020, he was sentenced to two years in prison for allegedly getting into an argument with a police officer.
