icles/eav022509a.shtml

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

EurasiaNet
CIVIL SOCIETY

AZERBAIJAN: WEBSITE REMAINS MISSING IN ACTION AFTER LINKING RUSSIA’S
PUTIN TO GAZPROM FUNNY BUSINESS

Mina Muradova 2/25/09

The mysterious closure of Azerbaijan’s Day.az web news portal has
ignited a new controversy about press freedom in the energy-rich
Caucasus state. Some observers believe the website’s shutdown is
related to the posting of an article containing allegations that
Russia’s paramount leader, Vladimir Putin, has "economic interests" in
the state-controlled energy giant Gazprom. Officials in Baku deny
taking action to muzzle Day.az.

Launched in 2003, the Russian-language Day.az, and its
English-language version Today.az, provided a broad range of news,
often including interviews with political insiders on sensitive
topics. The site, which claimed a daily audience of about 25,000
users, belonged to parliamentarian Anar Mammadkhanov, a member of the
governing Yeni Azerbaijan Party. The web portal enjoyed a reputation
inside Azerbaijan for offering viewpoints that did not always adhere
to the official line of President Ilham Aliyev’s administration.

A message posted on the site on February 18 announced that Day.az had
"closed for technical reasons and would resume operating on February
25."

But by mid-afternoon on February 25 the portal had not resumed
operations. In a February 24 interview with the APA news agency,
editor-in-chief Elnur Baimov stated that the website had been sold,
but declined to give details. In a later interview with the opposition
newspaper Yeni Musavat, former Day.az owner Mammadkhanov confirmed the
sale of the site and added that a public statement would be
forthcoming.

Day.az employees who started to return to work on February 24 told
EurasiaNet that they had been told nothing about the portal’s sale, or
the site’s future.

Meanwhile, other Azerbaijani journalists and one watchdog group find
Day.az’s silence significant.

Mehman Aliyev, director of the pro-opposition Turan news agency,
believes that the unanswered phone calls to the portal’s offices and
the lack of clear explanations for the site’s shutdown show that the
Day.az managers "were really scared."

"The situation again shows that the authorities have instruments for
putting strong influence on the mass media here, ranging from pressure
to threats to close their operations," said Mehman Aliyev.

Azerbaijan in recent months has been wracked by freedom-of-information
controversies over the cancellation of FM broadcasts from Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of America and the British Broadcasting
Corporation. The switch-off followed months of growing concern among
international organizations about limitations on independent media
outlets in the country. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive]. icles/eav011609d.shtml

Government officials have so far limited their comments about the
closure. In a February 19 interview with ANS TV, Ali Hasanov, the
influential chief of the presidential administration’s Political and
Public Affairs Department, denied that the authorities had pressured
Day.az to close. "I have no information about reasons for the closure
of this website. Anyhow, its owners know them better," Hasanov said in
reference to reasons for the shutdown. "How can the Azerbaijani
government close an Internet site?"

One Day.az employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, told
EurasiaNet that most editorial employees believe that that the
portal’s shutdown is related to an interview with Russian dissident
oligarch Boris Berezovsky that was posted on February 16. Although the
Azerbaijani government’s relations with Moscow have lately soured,
many Azerbaijanis believe that Baku remains wary of inciting the
Kremlin’s anger. Berezovksy, a Russian oligarch who now lives in
exile, sits high atop the Kremlin’s "enemies list."

In the interview, Berezovsky claimed that Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin has financial interests in Gazprom’s recent gas dispute
with Ukraine, and repeated the now-familiar charge that Russia had
delivered arms to Armenia to scuttle a resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive]. icles/eav012709d.shtml
"That Vladimir Putin has economic interests in Gazprom, I can tell you
with 100 percent certainty," said Berezovsky, who was an instrumental
figure in Putin’s rise to power.

In his comments, Hasanov said nothing to squash the spreading
assumption that the Berezovksy interview was connected to the
shutdown. "We are a friendly state with Russia and cannot be
indifferent to information related to its heads of state and
government," he said. "But I do not think that any site can be closed
because of such information."

The Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety states that Day.az has
not approached them about any problems related to alleged government
pressure to sell the site or to change content. "They [site
representatives] have said there’s no pressure on them," said Emin
Huseynov, the organization’s chairman.

Former owner Mammadkhanov has denied that the Berezovsky interview had
any link to the site’s shutdown. Other experts suggest that Day.az was
simply too independent a news outlet for the government’s taste, and
so officials simply forced it to close.

What the future holds for Day.az remains uncertain. Turan’s Aliyev
argues that the portal could become "more pro-governmental, less
balanced and less objective."

The Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety’s Huseynov, however,
says that he does not expect the portal’s information to change.
"Day.az was . . . always controllable due to the fact that its owner
was member of the ruling party. They just handed over the website from
one person to another one inside the government," he speculated.

In his February 21 interview with Yeni Musavat, former owner
Mammadkhanov rejected the notion that Day.az was under the
government’s thumb. "Some people considered that we support royal rule
[a reference to President Aliyev]. Now the same people say that we are
allegedly opposition. We have never excluded anybody and have always
spoken freely."

Editor’s Note: Mina Muradova is a freelance reporter in Baku.