Since Azerbaijan’s rigged presidential elections in October 2013, Ilham Aliyev’s regime has been on a rampage against any and all perceived enemies — foreign and domestic, the article by the former US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Kauzlarich and President of Freedom House David Kramer wrote reads.

According to them, opposition figures, journalists, and civil society activists are slandered, investigated, and treated as enemies of the state.

The authors name the numerous victims of Aliyev’s regime who were persecuted and thrown to prisons.

They also remind of Rasim Aliyev, who died in a Baku hospital after being brutally beaten. Even those who have left Azerbaijan, still continue receiving threats.

Besides, the authors refer to the verdict against Arif and Leyla Yunuses, noting that the international community immediately reacted, labeling the verict as “shocking and frankly shameful.” However, according to them, the U.S. State Department, in contrast to human rights organizations, issued “a far weaker statement”, saying the United States was “deeply troubled” by the prison sentences.  The United States was also “deeply troubled” by Ismailova’s sentencing.

“Instead of condemning these developments in the strongest terms, the U.S. recently sent three envoys — Special Envoy Amos Hochstein, Deputy Assistant Secretary Richard Hoagland, and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas — to Baku to discuss energy, Trans-Caspian, and security issues, respectively. Even as the human rights situation gets worse by the day, Farkas reportedly declared Azerbaijan a “strategic partner” of the United States,” the authors write.

But according to the authors, quiet diplomacy does not work and the statements on “being deeply troubled” have no effect. “Visits by senior U.S. officials are spun as indications of U.S. support for the regime, whereas those who call out human rights abuses are denigrated as anti-Azerbaijani, or worse. This sad impasse must be reversed and fast. Azerbaijani officials engaged in gross human rights abuses should be sanctioned. Investigations should be launched into the massive corruption that is central to the Azerbaijani regime. And political prisoners must be released. Together, the U.S. and the EU must move beyond words, to actions,” they conclude.