Mekhman karimov attorney5/28/2023 There are no independent television channels left, either,” reporter Aynur Imranova told IWPR. “The majority of independent print outlets have either closed down or have been co-opted by the authorities. In the case of Ayna-Zerkalo, Shikhli says the newspaper was undermined by even more indirect means – “the advertising market became monopolised” by powerful interests. The Media Forum, for instance, was a project run by media development organisation Internews, which has had its accounts frozen as part of a drive to stop foreign donors funding organisations in Azerbaijan. In an attempt to obscure the real reasons for such actions, prosecutors commonly bring allegations of financial wrongdoing. He then created a page called BASTA, which had 155,000 subscribers, and was also administrator of the Musavat party’s website.Īyna-Zerkalo is only one of several important media outlets forced to shut down their operations over the last years, including the Media Forum website, the web-based Obyektiv TV, and the Baku office of RFE/RL radio (on which see Azerbaijan Turns on US-Funded Broadcaster.)Ī criminal investigation against RFE/RL is ongoing, and its staff are either out of work or abroad. “They are both members of the Musavat party, which is why their family has always had problems from the government,” their lawyer Nemat Karimli said.įaraj Karimov ran ISTEFA (“Resign”), the largest Azeri-language page on Facebook with had 300,000 subscribers before it was closed down in July 2013. Social media activist Faraj Karimov was detained in July last year and charged with possession of drugs, as was his brother Siraj. Now we are being purged by a system created by KGB general Heydar Aliyev ,” Hezi said in court.” His legal team said he was attacked by a man and hit back in self-defence. He was arrested last August and charged with disorderly conduct. Hezi writes for the Azadliq newspaper and presented Azerbaijan Hour, carried on a Turkish TV channel. In January 2015, a court sentenced journalist Seymur Hezi to five years in prison. His lawyer said Mirqadirov regarded the charges as absurd. In April 2014, Rauf Mirqadirov was detained in Turkey and sent to Azerbaijan, where he was accused of passing secret information to Armenia. Independent journalists, human rights defenders and opposition members are commonly accused of financial misdemeanours or disorderly behaviour, both to deflect attention from their criticism of government and to smear their reputations. Ismayil reports for the Prague-based radio station RFE/RL and has conducted in-depth probes into financial wrongdoing by top Azerbaijan leaders. Among them are leading investigative reporter Khadija Ismayil, arrested in early December and now facing new charges including embezzlement and tax evasion, after prosecutors found it difficult to stand up the original allegation of “pressuring someone to commit suicide”. (See also IWPR’s report on 2014: Grim Year for Press Freedom.)Īround 12 journalists and bloggers have been arrested in as many months. Journalists and bloggers faced fabricated charges and arbitrary detention, and at least eight remained in prison at year’s end, making Azerbaijan the worst jailer of journalists in Eurasia.” Last year, the report said, “the government unleashed a major crackdown on independent media, employing threats, raids, restrictive laws, and prosecutions. The same thing is happening now,” he said.Īhead of the May 3 date, the Washington-based watchdog group Freedom House issued its annual report, Press Freedom in 2014, which ranked Azerbaijan’s media as “not free” and awarded it 188 th place on a downward scale that ends with North Korea at 199. “In Soviet times… no one could stick their neck out and get out of line. Shikhli is editor-in-chief of the Ayna-Zerkalo paper, which was forced to stop publishing in May 2014. That’s how fast independent media are being destroyed,” newspaper editor Elchin Shikhli told IWPR. “I fear that if I get asked about free media in Azerbaijan next year, I’ll have nothing to say. Over the last year, journalists have been arrested and jailed, and the space for independent media has been squeezed to almost nothing. Azerbaijan heads towards World Press Freedom Day with a fast-deteriorating record on media rights and free speech.
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