AZERBAIJAN: FIFTEEN JOURNALISTS SEEK ASYLUM IN PROTEST AGAINST PRESS CLOSURES

Reporters Sans Frontieres press release, Paris
29 May 07

Text of press release by Paris-based organization Reporters Sans
Frontieres (RSF) on 29 May

Reporters Without Borders today condemned constant government
harassment of the opposition media, which has led 14 journalists
working for two dailies, the Azerbaijani-language Gundelik Azerbaijan
and the Russian-language Realny Azerbaijan, to seek political asylum
in the past four days after their newspapers were closed last week.

The editor of the newspaper Nota Bene has also requested asylum
because he fears for his safety.

"First the offices of Gundelik Azerbaijan and Realny Azerbaijan were
shut down for alleged fire safety violations then, on 26 May, the
owner of their premises suddenly rescinded their lease and they had
to vacate immediately," Reporters Without Borders said. "They would
have us believe this is just a coincidence. These are the methods of
an authoritarian regime."

The press freedom organization added: "If President Ilham Aliyev
wants to protect the press, he should help these two dailies find
new premises. The 41 employees and contributors to these newspapers
are now without any source of income, some of them feel threatened
and the country’s press is all the poorer."

The 14 Gundelik Azerbaijan and Realny Azerbaijan journalists submitted
their political asylum requests to the US, German, British and
Norwegian embassies and the office of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). They include Gundelik Azerbaijan
editor Uzeir Jafarov, who said they were seeking asylum because of
persecution, and because arrests and attacks made it impossible for
them to work as journalists.

Jafarov was attacked and beaten on 20 April after given evidence at
the trial of Eynulla Fatullaev, the founder of Gundelik Azerbaijan
and Realny Azerbaijan, who received a 30-month prison sentence the
same day for "defaming" and "insulting" Azerbaijanis in an article
about Armenia.

The satirical website , whose editor Habib Muntezir
is based in Germany, has meanwhile been inaccessible again since 21
May because of a hacker attack on the Site5 server that hosts it.

Muntezir is convinced the attack was deliberately targeted. It is
not the first time that the site has been attacked.