New York, August 29, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the savage beating of Ilgar Nasibov, an independent journalist and human rights defender based in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (NAR)–a mountainous exclave of Azerbaijan where the practice of journalism is severely restricted.
New York, August 8, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Azerbaijani authorities to stop harassing the Baku-based media freedom group Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety. Detectives with Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office raided the IRFS premises today, the local press reported. A journalist who was at the raid told CPJ that the detectives confiscated…
New York, May 15, 2014–The eight-year prison term given today to a journalist in Azerbaijan is a breach of the country’s declared commitments to press freedom, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Parviz Hashimli is the editor of the independent news website Moderator and a reporter for the independent newspaper Bizim Yol.
On Wednesday, Azerbaijan will assume chairmanship of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers. The chairmanship process is automatic; the position is rotated every six months among all of the council’s members, in alphabetical order. But Azerbaijan’s chairmanship has proven more problematic than most, as it comes at a time when the country’s fulfillment of…
On World Press Freedom Day, CPJ calls for the release of all jailed journalists By Shazdeh Omari/CPJ News Editor New York, April 29, 2014—Uzbek editor Muhammad Bekjanov has been in jail for 15 years, one of the longest imprisonments of journalists worldwide. Prominent Iranian journalist Siamak Ghaderi was imprisoned in 2010 and has been beaten…
New York, April 21, 2014–A court in Baku today ordered journalist Rauf Mirkadyrov, Turkey correspondent for the independent Azerbaijani newspaper Zerkalo, to jail for three months pending trial on espionage charges after he was deported from Turkey, news reports said.
New York, March 17, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a five-year jail term given today to Tofiq Yaqublu, an Azerbaijani journalist with the opposition daily Yeni Musavat, and calls on authorities to overturn the verdict on appeal. Yaqublu, who was convicted of “organizing mass disorder,” was arrested in January 2013 in connection with anti-government…
New York, February 21, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned by the official harassment of investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, who is being criminally investigated in Baku in apparent retaliation for her reporting on government corruption. Ismayilova works for the Azerbaijani service of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
As Azerbaijan prepared to assume the 2014 chairmanship of the Council of Europe—the largest European intergovernmental human rights and democracy organization—the authoritarian regime of President Ilham Aliyev shamelessly trampled on press freedom at home. The authorities continued to stifle critical voices, target free expression on the Web, and sentence reporters to lengthy prison terms. A…