European organizations demand action against killer of Azeri journalist
AP Worldstream
Mar 03, 2005
European organizations expressed outrage Thursday over the murder of a
prominent Azeri journalist and urged authorities in Azerbaijan to
bring his killers to justice.
“I am shocked by the brutal murder of Elmar Huseinov, which bears the
marks of a contract killing, and condemn it in the strongest terms,”
said Terry Davis, secretary general of the Council of Europe.
“This is an attack on freedom of expression in Azerbaijan,” Davis said
in a statement released from Council of Europe headquarters in
Strasbourg, France.
Huseinov, founder and editor of the opposition magazine Monitor, was
shot to death in Azerbaijan on Wednesday.
Reacting to the killing, European Union spokeswoman Emma Udwin said
the EU wanted to underline “the wish to see freedom of expression,
freedom of the press in Azerbaijan.”
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, based in
Vienna, Austria, said it would closely follow the investigation.
“The OSCE community expects the investigation to find out whether the
murder is linked in any way with Mr. Huseinov’s work, as his
colleagues suspect, or with other recently reported cases of
harassment of journalists in Azerbaijan,” said Miklos Haraszti, the
OSCE’s representative on freedom of the media.
Davis also called “on the Azeri authorities to carry out a thorough
and public investigation and bring those responsible for this crime to
justice.”
The European Union has been researching and designing action plans for
various countries in Europe, Asia, and North Africa to strengthen
economic, trade, and security ties with the European bloc.