⚠️ HRF CBDC ⛓️🪙 alert from HRF for Azerbaijan (27-DEC-2023)

🗝️ℹ️ (Key Information)

CBDC Status: Research

CBDC Launch: n/a

CBDC Model: n/a

CBDC Issued: n/a

Inflation Rate: 13.85%

One-Sentence Summary:

Azerbaijan's exploration of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) raises concerns over civil liberties violation amidst pre-existing issues of discrimination, corruption, and stifling dissent.

✅ 🇦🇿 is in the research process to develop its own CBDC - the digital manat, as a step towards a cashless payment environment, says Central Bank official Rashad Gasimov.

✅ Freedom House's 2023 report placed 🇦🇿 with a lowly 9 out of 100 due to issues with corruption, discrimination, and restrictions on opposition. Introduction of a CBDC could potentially escalate these problems.

✅ CBDCs could be used to control and monitor discriminated groups such as women and minority communities like Talysh and Lezgin - a pre-existing issue that Freedom House highlighted.

✅ The profound corruption, lack of free press, and independent judiciary in 🇦🇿 spell concerns for the adoption of CBDCs. Promises to limit surveillance and control could be hollow and policies could favor political biases.

✅ Freedom House reports violations of press freedom in 🇦🇿 with incidents of journalist detentions, false charges, travel bans, and surveillance. CBDCs could be used as a tool by the government to exert control over opposition by freezing or seizing their money.

✅ More details about violations of human rights and civil liberties in 🇦🇿 can be found in reports by Amnesty International, Financial Tyranny Index, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, Privacy International, and the U.S. Department of State.

✅ Risks of CBDCs have been discussed in the Cato Institute's reports. For further information about metrics used, visit the methodology page.

#CentralBankDigitalCurrency #Azerbaijan #CivilLiberties #FreedomHouse #HumanRights

What could be the socio-economic implications for the marginalized groups, if an authoritarian regime like 🇦🇿 were to roll out a Central Bank Digital Currency? Let's spark a thoughtful discussion here!

Disclaimer: This is an AI-generated summary of the original text from HRF, forigve fuck-ups plox. If you find it useful, ⚡ the Tracker Bot because the AI and Cloud bits are not free to run.

Source of data: https://cbdctracker.hrf.org/home (npub1zhqcda52mrvcc0vkwegwsp5xtpk6l6x5kqx85f06tu9lw5h6xx0scch0dw)

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