July 16, 2009
Yashar Aliev
Azerbaijan Ambassador to the United States
2741 34th Street
Washington D.C. 20008
Honorable Sir,
Please cease your prosecution of Adnan Hajizada and Emin Milli.
If an article in the July 15 "The New York Times," is any indication of their true situation, it would appear your government is upset for having been mocked by them on one, or various, Web sites.
You have to admit, if your procurement people overpaid for the importation of donkeys, the government does look somewhat the horse's ass.
It's nothing personal. Our government often assumes the same aspect and we, as Americans, delight in pointing it out.
We are led by an Azeri government spokesman, Ali Hassanov, to believe that, "Those sites in Azeri society have no sympathizers, and arouse little interest, at least none that we have observed. I honestly had never heard of these young people."
Well, now you have. And as someone who pines to have "The New York Times" review one of his books I can assure you, so has everybody else.
The government claims it is trying these youthful scamps for "hooliganism" in relation to a restaurant altercation. The timing, you must admit, is a little fishy.
"The Times," which is usually pretty good about these things, notes that press freedoms have dwindled in your country where the media is under centralized government control and Web sites with foreign servers are the only source of anti-government arguments.
I'm posting this letter on one such site, and also plan to Twitter and e-mail it around the world with a charming photo of the evil donkey-mockers included.
The world is watching, Mr. Aliev. as someone who writes for a Web site that arouses little interest or sympathy I plead with you: Please do the right thing.
Yours truly,
the highway scribe
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