BT Sport will broadcast coverage of the inaugural European Games from Baku, Azerbaijan. The European Games will be the continent’s first ever major multi-sport event as 50 nations compete across 20 sports over 17 days from June 12-28. Team GB will be competing in 13 disciplines at Baku 2015, with 10 of these taking on extra significance as they offer opportunities to qualify for World Championships -- which then, in turn, offer the chance for athletes to secure places at the Rio Olympics in '16 (BT). In London, Owen Gibson wrote the British Olympic Association named a 153-strong squad for the inaugural European Games and BT Sport announced that "it will televise the event." However, the announcements "come against a backdrop of growing concern over an intensifying clampdown on freedom of speech and human rights by the regime" led by Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev. In the past week alone "two respected human rights activists have been imprisoned on what are widely deemed to be trumped-up charges linked to the event." Amnesty Int'l, which has identified at least 20 prisoners of conscience in Azerbaijan, said that the charges were "spurious." Critics are concerned that, far from forcing Azerbaijan to engage on issues of human rights and freedom of expression, "the staging of the event is accelerating its determination to intimidate and silence independent journalists, activists, lawyers and opposition politicians" (GUARDIAN, 4/23).
