AZERBAIJAN GOVERNMENT DENIES CRACKDOWN ON NEWS MEDIA

Voice of America
May 23 2007

Government officials in Azerbaijan are denying any intention to crack
down on media freedom in the country.

Presidential aides made the statement a day after authorities
searched the home of Eynulla Fatullayev, the founder of two popular
opposition newspapers. A Baku court sentenced him in April to a term of
two-and-a-half years in prison on charges of defaming the armed forces.

Azerbaijan officials say Fatullayev is now facing an additional charge
of making a terrorist threat.

The government closed the offices of his two newspapers, Real
Azerbaijan and Gyundelyk Azerbaijan, on Monday, citing fire code
violations.

Azerbaijan officials say the government is not putting pressure on
the media. They say the two newspapers were not shut down but evicted
for the state of their offices.

An editor of Real Azerbaijan, Uzeir Jafarov, insists the government
action was a response to critical articles that appeared in the
publications.

He announced plans for court action to overturn the eviction, which
he called groundless.

The charges against Fatullayev were based on his interview with an
ethnic Armenian leader from the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region,
who accused Azerbaijani forces of responsibility for a 1992 massacre
of civilians in the town of Khojali.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.