Reporters Without Borders today condemned constant government harassment of the opposition media, which has led 14 journalists working for two dailies, the Azerbaijani-language Gundelik Azerbaijan and the Russian-language Realny Azerbaijan, to seek political asylum in the past four days after their newspapers were closed last week. The editor of the newspaper Nota Bene has also requested asylum because he fears for his safety.
“First the offices of Gundelik Azerbaijan and Realny Azerbaijan were shut down for alleged fire safety violations then, on 26 May, the owner of their premises suddenly rescinded their lease and they had to vacate immediately,” Reporters Without Borders said. “They would have us believe this is just a coincidence. These are the methods of an authoritarian regime.”
The press freedom organisation added: “If President Ilham Aliev wants to protect the press, he should help these two dailies find new premises. The 41 employees and contributors to these newspapers are now without any source of income, some of them feel threatened and the country’s press is all the poorer.”
The 14 Gundelik Azerbaijan and Realny Azerbaijan journalists submitted their political asylum requests to the US, German, British and Norwegian embassies and the office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). They include Gundelik Azerbaijan editor Uzeir Jafarov, who said they were seeking asylum because of persecution, and because arrests and attacks made it impossible for them to work as journalists.
Jafarov was attacked and beaten on 20 April after given evidence at the trial of Eynulla Fatullaev, the founder of Gundelik Azerbaijan and Realny Azerbaijan, who received a 30-month prison sentence the same day for “defaming” and “insulting” Azerbaijanis in an article about Armenia.
The satirical website www.tinsohbeti.com, whose editor, Habib Muntezir is based in Germany, has meanwhile been inaccessible again since 21 May because of a hacker attack on the Site5 server that hosts it. Muntezir is convinced the attack was deliberately targeted. It is not the first time that the site has been attacked.
