Your trusted source

Azerbaijan celebrates National Press Day on July 22 every year. Yet, in spite of the formal celebrations and congratulations, it is far from being a holiday for all the media workers in Azerbaijan because in this country, the expression of the opinions has consequences, Azerbaijani service of RFE/RL writes.

According to RFE/RL, in the early 1990s, after the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party came to power led by Abulfaz Elchibey, a law about the freedom of speech and freedom of media was adopted. However, in 1993, this very Elchibey adopted a provision on military censorship. The reason for doing this was the sharp criticism that targeted the Azerbaijan authorities because of the defeats in Karabakh war.

In October 1993, Heydar Aliyev came to power with even tougher media policy. He rose the prices of paper (by six times) and of printing services. The press’ struggle for their rights, for the stabilization of the political situation and the economic growth following the signing of the “Contract of the Century” forced the authorities to make financial concessions. The media business was becoming profitable, however, the critical publications, especially those targeting the president and his clan, were not allowed to print.

Under the international community’s pressure, the institute of the political censorship was abolished in Azerbaijan in 1998. One would think it was to become a salvation for the journalists and politicians, but it made the situation even direr – now courts and penalties were used to control them. The number of the media outlets, especially the independent ones, reduced increasingly. International organizations tried to influence the situation in the country, but all in vain, RFE/RL writes.

“After Heydar Aliyev’s death and his son Ilham Aliyev’s taking the office, the most dramatic period of the development of the press gradually commenced (especially since 2005) and is still on. That period has been marked by the administrative shuttering of a number of newspapers, confiscation of their property and offices, systematic arrests and physical violence against journalists, including the murder (to my mind ordered) of the well-known journalist Elmar Huseynov, long-term verdicts against the popular outlet editors, Eynulla Fatullayev and Ganimat Zahidov, blocking RadioAzadlyg, Voice of America, BBC radio stations’ broadcast from national frequencies, arrests of bloggers, attempts to toughen control of the Internet, and legislative, political and economic restrictions of the independent press activities,” the author of the article writes.

Being under the executive power’s unspoken political control in Azerbaijan, the courts came up with huge-penalty verdicts against the ‘disobedient’ media, actually bringing them to the edge of bankruptcy en masse. The articles of the Criminal Code about “slander” and protection of “honor and dignity” have been and are generally used for that purpose. Of the dozens of trials, not a single one has ended in favor of the press. Practically, all the opposition newspapers have been sentenced to judicial penalties of tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and their bank accounts have been blocked in different times.

Several private firms that distributed press were closed down. Practically, the monopoly of newspaper distribution passed on to the hands of the state, and the prices for press delivery rose groundlessly, as well as those of the printing services. As a result, the circulation rate of the newspapers fell by 8-10 times. The independent media is actually deprived of advertisement as a main source of income. The companies, which give advertisements to independent, and especially to the opposition newspapers, are persecuted. Thanks to those measures, the Azerbaijani authorities managed to take the overwhelming portion of the information space in the country under total control, RFE/RL points.

The preparatory meeting for the journalist Khadija Ismaylova’s case was scheduled on July 22. The appointing of the trial on the National Press Day was perceived by the Azerbaijani public as the authorities’ mocking at the freedom of speech and press. The authorities decided to move it to July 24.

The preparatory meeting for the case of the Azerbaijani human rights defenders Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus took place in Baku court on July 15. Leyla Yunus was not given a chance to speak during the trial. She sent a letter from prison where she writes that the authorities of Azerbaijan have planned their death in tortures so that it becomes a lesson for everyone.

The arrest of the cousins and the brother of Gamimat Zahid, an opposition journalist and political emigrant living in France, came as another demonstration of the absence of free speech in Azerbaijan. The journalist thinks that the authorities decided to press on his family because of the program “Azerbaijani hour” meant to tell the truth to the people.