ATTACKS ON MEDIA HURT CONFLICT RESOLUTION
International Crisis Group, Belgium
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Nov 27 2006
Brussels, 27 November 2006: The Azerbaijani government’s aggressive
moves to silence independent media and the leading opposition party
last week not only raise obvious human rights problems but will have a
detrimental effect on efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
On 24 November, the authorities took the country’s first, biggest and
most professional independent TV and radio broadcaster, ANS, off the
air. The same day, police forcibly evicted the key opposition party,
the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party, two opposition dailies Azadlig
and Bizim Yol and the Turan information agency from their Baku offices.
The hasty government actions were taken after proceedings that lacked
transparency and political neutrality. The parties were unable to
appeal before the decisions were implemented. Following a pattern
of harassment of Azerbaijan’s independent journalists since 2003,
Friday’s events once again put into question Azerbaijan’s commitment
to protecting freedom of speech and upholding the rule of law.
To facilitate the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the
International Crisis Group has called for the opening of a genuine
popular debate on the conflict. ANS has tended to take a hard line
on Nagorno-Karabakh, but it was open to a range of opinions and kept
popular opinion informed of developments related to the issue. The
closure of ANS will stifle the public discussion and information
sharing that is so essential to acceptance by Azerbaijani society of
any resolution to the conflict.
Azerbaijan’s international partners – the EU and its member states,
the U.S., the OSCE, the Council of Europe and others – should in
unequivocal terms call on the Government of President Ilham Aliev to
restore media freedoms protected in the Azerbaijani Constitution and
in commitments made as a member of the OSCE and the Council of Europe,
and as a recent signatory of an EU Neighborhood Action Plan.