Global Voices Online

Hikmat Hajizade, father of detained video blogger Adnan Hajizade, speaks about his son while the Frontline Club looks at his own past as a successful academic and diplomat.

Writing on my Frontline Club blog, I also post a video interview and photo report with regional blogger Arzu Geybullayeva on our recent visit to an ethnic Azeri village in the regions of the Republic of Georgia.

Marking International Day of Peace, letzi83 notes that Armenia also celebrates its independence from the former Soviet Union on the same day and says her mind automatically makes a connection between the two events. unzippedblog also weighs in and says that despite sounding naive, maybe there's room for hope and welcomes the coincidence. My own Twitter feed notes that both events also come as Azerbaijan marks the end of Ramadan.

Following the detention and prosecution of youth activists in two of the three countries making up the South Caucasus, Thoughts on the Road reports that there is at least some good news for a change. Even if the trial of video bloggers Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli is set to continue next week, Parviz Azimov, a student expelled from his university earlier this year, has won his battle against the decision in the courts. The blog says the strategy of combing protest demonstrations with legal action was successful and concludes that there is still hope for Hajizade and Milli.

A day before posting, Scary Azeri tweeted that she needed to sleep on today's entry for the anniversary of 9/11. To mark the tragic event, the blogger takes a look at perceptions towards Islam in Azerbaijan and the U.K.

In the time of butterflies, a new English-language blog from Azerbaijan, contemplates the importance of life after an incident with an abandoned kitten. The blogger says that the battle she witnessed as the kitten struggled to escape death made her realize why the sanctity of life is more important than anything.

My Frontline Club blog looks at the emergence of socially and politically conscious rap in Azerbaijan in support of democracy and freedom in the country as well for detained video blogger youth activists Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli who face trial this week in Baku.

With most bloggers located in the capitals of the three South Caucasus republics, U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) have been indispensible in posting entries from the regions of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. However, with old PCVs being replaced by new ones when their service ends, it's often been difficult to keep track of their blogs. Thanks to Twitter, however, that is now a thing of the past with @pcjarmenia, @pcjazerbaijan, and @pcjgeorgia.

Melissa_Ys tweets that a protest demonstration in support of detained video bloggers Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli is set to take place outside the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Washington DC tomorrow at 4pm. The two youth activists have so far spent 51 days in pre-trial detention and now face an additional charge in what many consider to be a politically motivated attempt to silence their voices.