Reporters without borders (press release), France
June 8 2007

Appeal court confirms 30-month jail term for detained newspaper
editor

Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm today at an appeal court’s
decision on 6 June to uphold a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence
for Eynulla Fatullayev, founder and editor of the daily newspapers
Realny Azerbaijan and Gundelik Azerbaijan, for defaming and insulting
Azerbaijanis under article 147.2 of the criminal code. He has been
held ever since the sentence was passed on 20 April.

`This decision confirms an exceptionally disproportionate sentence,’
the press freedom organisation said. `At the same time, Fatullayev
has been notified of new, terrorism-related charges against him,
without being given any details of these charges. The two newspapers
he edited have been closed illegally and his conditions of detention
are cause for concern about his health and safety.’

Reporters Without Borders added: `We support Fatullayev’s appeal to
the authorities to guarantee his safety and provide him with
acceptable conditions of detention.’

Fatullayev has reported that guards threatened him and pointed a gun
at his head when he was transferred on 29 May from Bail prison to the
national security ministry detention centre. Since the transfer, he
has been given hardly any food and water and has been forced to sleep
on his bed’s metal frame, with no mattress or blanket. He has written
several letters to national security minister Eldar Mahmudov to
demand normal conditions of detention, without getting a reply.

Fatullayev was convicted over online posts attributed to him that
said the Azerbaijani armed forces shared responsibility with their
Armenian counterparts for the deaths of hundreds of civilians during
an attack by Armenian troops in 1992 on the village of Khojali in the
disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

A respected journalist, Fatullayev used to work for the Monitor,
whose editor, Elmar Huseynov, was murdered in March 2005. With a
daily print run of 30,000 copies, Realny Azerbaijan is well-known for
criticising the government.

Serious fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the
Nagorno-Karabakh region in 1992. A cease-fire has been in effect
since 1994 but no peace accord has ever been reached.