ARCHIVES: Azerbaijan
The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed outrage at the the police beating of Emin Huseynov, head of the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS), in Baku, Azerbaijan, on June 14. Huseynov was covering an event for the 80th birthday of slain Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara. Policed raided the event and took Huseynov to a police station where he was isolated, interrogated, threatened, and beaten. He was hospitalised after losing consciousness from having been repeatedly... MORE
The Azerbaijan police Saturday raided an event organised by the "Che Guevera Fan Club" to mark the 80th birthday of Che Guevera, according to the Institute for Reporter Freedom and Safety (IRFS). Of the 25 people present, 20 were detained by police and taken to Nasimi District Police Department #22. Among those detained were IRFS Chairman Emin Huseynov and IRFS researchers Rasim Aliyev and Mirrehim Hasanov. The three were there to monitor the event. At the police department, Huseynov protested... MORE
Prison authorities have seized the 300-page manuscript of a book Azadlig newspaper editor-in-chief Ganimat Zahid was trying to write while in Bayil prison #1, where he remains a prisoner, the Baku-based Institute for Reporter Freedom and Safety (IRFS) has reported. The public relations coordinator of the Justice Ministry's Penitentiary Service, Mehman Sadigov, claims the confiscation is legal. "I can't say anything about what or whom the book was written about. But if the leadership of the... MORE
Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has accused the judicial authorities of a “crude manipulation” in the case of reporter Agil Khalil’s stabbing on March 13. A Sergey Strekalin appeared before a Baku court Thursday on charges of stabbing Khalil and consuming drugs. “Despite international criticism, the Azerbaijani authorities are still trying to discredit Khalil by turning this stabbing into a vice case,” RSF said Saturday. “Khalil blames interior ministry officials for the stabbing but the... MORE
Azerbaijani prosecutors have failed to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the brazen assaults against Azadlyg reporter Agil Khalil. In the last three months, Khalil has been beaten, stabbed, and pushed onto train tracks. He has also escaped a kidnapping attempt. "Yet despite abundant evidence as to who committed the crimes, there has been no progress in these cases. If anything, prosecutors have made a concerted effort to impede the investigation: They have falsified... MORE
Agil Khalil, a reporter for the Azerbaijani opposition daily Azadlyg has been assaulted several times in the past three months. Authorities have taken no measures to guarantee his protection, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On May 10, Khalil tried to fly to Istanbul to visit his relatives, but border guards at the airport in Baku stopped him, citing an order by the Prosecutor-General’s Office, the Baku-based Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS) reported... MORE
A journalist with a leading Azerbaijani newspaper who had to be hospitalised last week after being stabbed in the chest by a miscreant, has been released. acording to Arif Aliyev, chairman of the Editors Association Yeni Nasil, Four unidentified assailants encircled Agil Khalil, a reporter with the opposition daily Azadlig (Freedom), as he was leaving his office in the evening of March 13. One stabbed him in the chest, according to the Baku-based Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (... MORE
The editor of an opposition daily in Azerbaijan has been sentenced to a four-year prison term on charges of hooliganism and inflicting minor bodily harm in November. He has been in custody ever since. Acording to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Genimet Zakhidov, editor the daily Azadlyg (Freedom), was secretly brought to the Yasamal District Court in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, at around 11am on March 7. Judge Sudaba Mamedova announced her verdict in an empty... MORE
An Azeri court sentenced a journalist on Tuesday to 8-1/2 years in prison on terrorism charges and for inciting racial hatred, quadrupling his present jail sentence. A lengthy prison sentence handed down Tuesday by an Azerbaijani court to independent editor Eynulla Fatullayev. Fatullayev is already serving a two-and-a-half-year prison term for allegedly defaming Azerbaijanis in an Internet posting he says he did not write, and has been sentenced to another eight-and-a-half years. Judge Mekhdi... MORE
The working condition of journalists in Azerbaijan is changing for the worse, where they are being targeted by the State to set an example against free expression. The country, ironically, scooped up a Freedom of Expression prize this year, given jointly by the Norwegian Freedom of Expression Foundation (Fritt Ord) and German ZEIT Foundation. RSF has said, “If President Ilham Aliev wants to protect the press, he should help these two daily newspapers find new premises. The 41 employees and... MORE
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