JOURNALISTS’ RIGHTS WORSEN IN AZERBAIJAN: NGO

Agence France Presse — English
April 27, 2007 Friday 10:43 AM GMT

Press freedom is deteriorating in Azerbaijan with five journalists
jailed in the past 10 months, Human Rights Watch warned, citing a
new case of an editor jailed for libel and "insult."

"The steady rise of politically motivated defamation charges and
violent attacks against critical journalists is clearly aimed at
silencing critical voices in Azerbaijan," said Holly Cartner, the
group’s director for Europe and Central Asia, in a statement Thursday.

A court in Baku on April 20 jailed Eynulla Fatullayev, editor of the
independent newspapers Realni Azerbaijan and Gundelik Azerbaijan,
for "criminal libel" and "insult," the New York-based group (HRW) said.

Fatullayev denied the charges, which were based on an Internet
posting in which he was alleged to have blamed Azerbaijanis for a
1992 massacre in a village in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region disputed by
Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The two countries fought a war over the territory in the early 1990s
that claimed an estimated 35,000 lives and caused about a million
people on both sides to flee their homes.

The person bringing the charges "alleged that the statement defamed
the village’s residents."

"Fatullayev’s prosecution was politically motivated, and he should be
immediately released from custody," Cartner said. The journalist is
known for his criticism of Azeri officials and for exposing government
corruption.

According to official Azerbaijani statistics, more than 600 people
were killed in February 1992 when ethnic Armenian forces stormed the
predominantly Azeri village of Khojali.

Fatullayev is the fifth journalist to be imprisoned in Azerbaijan in
the last 10 months, HRW said. Unknown assailants also attacked and
seriously injured one of his colleagues.

A fellow editor and friend was murdered in March 2005, and kidnappers
last year seized his father and threatened to kill him and Fatullayev
if he continued publishing newspapers.

High-ranking officials have also brought defamation charges against
him and other independent journalists.

"If this crackdown on the media continues, it will be nearly impossible
for Azerbaijan to hold free and fair presidential elections next year,"
Cartner said.

The European Union’s special representative to Armenia, Azerbaijan
and Georgia, Peter Semneby, said this week in Baku: "The provisions
on libel should be removed from Azerbaijan’s criminal code to help
solve the problem of pressure being put on journalists."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress