AZERBAIJAN: JOURNALISTS, BEWARE
ISN, Switzerland
May 25 2007
A series of arrests and prison sentences for charges that include
terrorism have journalists in Azerbaijan wondering if there is any
sort of future for a free press.
Increasingly bad news for freedom of expression has recently come
out of Azerbaijan, the US’ oil-rich ally in the Caspian Sea region,
where five journalists have been sentenced to harsh prison sentences
in the last few weeks in what critics say is a government campaign
to stifle free speech.
Rafiq Tagi, a journalist with the independent newspaper Senet was
sentenced on 3 May in Baku, the capital, to a four-year term for
"inciting religious hatred," while his editor Samir Sadagatoglu
received a three-year sentence.
The prison terms and prosecution came as a result of a commentary
written last November by Tagi entitled "Europe and Us," which according
to press reports compared Muslim societies such as Azerbaijan with
historically Christian Europe and concluded that Islam had, on the
whole, hindered social and political development.
While this sort of reflective social commentary might be the norm in
the West, the outcry from some quarters in secular, Shi’ite Azerbaijan
was shrill, with ultra-conservative Muslims in the village of Nadaran
calling for the two men’s deaths and the public prosecutor bringing
criminal charges against them.
In neighboring Iran, Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani has issued a
fatwa calling for the execution of Tagi and his editor, saying on his
website that "it is necessary for every individual who has an access
to him to kill him. The person in charge of the […] newspaper,
who published such thoughts and beliefs consciously and knowingly,
should be dealt with in the same manner." Another cleric who lives
in the city of Tabriz has reportedly offered his house as a reward
for anyone who kills the two men.
The sentence was handed down despite protests from Azerbaijan’s
embattled journalistic community, a number of non-governmental
organizations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE).
What emerges from the trials, convictions and physical attacks over
the years is an apparent pattern of coordinated assaults against
freedom of speech in Azerbaijan. On 27 April, independent journalist
Eynulla Fatullayev was convicted of "criminal libel" and "insult"
and sentenced to 30 months in prison for allegations he purportedly
made having to do with events surrounding the massacre of civilians in
the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly during the 1992-1994 Nagorno-Karabakh
war. Fatullayev’s original article evidently attached some blame for
the tragedy to the failure of Azerbaijani military forces to protect
the town. But in the furor that followed the article, Fatullayev was
charged with libeling the residents of Khojaly.
Fatullayev, perhaps Azerbaijan’s best-known opposition journalist,
denies having made libelous comments, but his conviction – and the
physical attack on the same day against his colleague Uzeir Jafarov
– reminds critics of the government of the price they may be forced
to pay when they stray too far from what is acceptable, to both the
government and the conservative Shi’ite establishment.
Journalism in Azerbaijan was a high-risk endeavor even before the 2005
murder of Elmar Huseynov, editor of the independent Monitor newspaper,
and a friend of Fatullayev’s. It clearly remains a high-risk endeavor.
In October last year, well-known poet and opposition journalist
Sakit Zahidov was convicted on charges of illegal possession and
use of drugs. The charges were widely believed to be politically
oriented, with the arrest coming only three days after Ali Akhmedov,
the executive secretary of Azerbaijan’s ruling New Azerbaijan Party,
called for Zahidov’s arrest for his alleged "slanders" against
government officials.
Zahidov’s brother Ganimat happens to be the chief editor of the
opposition newspaper Azadlig, which has been a thorn in the side of
the government for years and was ejected from its office space in
2006 along with the Turan News Agency and the Popular Front Party.
Last week, Rovshan Karbili – the editor of opposition newspaper
Mukhalifat – and reporter Yashar Agazade were sentenced to two and
a half years in prison (identical to Fatulayev’s sentence) for libel
in connection with an article that accused Jalal Aliyev, an uncle of
President Ilham Aliyev, of corruption.
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklos Haraszti expressed
"shock" over the sentence in a statement to the press.
"Azerbaijan’s relentless persecution of journalists annihilates the
security of journalism, a major OSCE commitment," said Haraszti.
The conviction and sentence came less than three weeks after a
meeting between Haraszti and President Aliyev, during which the
OSCE representative asked the president to halt the persecution of
journalists, reminding Aliyev that "Azerbaijan today is the country in
the OSCE region with the highest number of journalists in prison […]"
The US embassy in Baku issued a statement after the most recent
convictions, saying that the imprisonment of seven journalists in toto
in Azerbaijan "is part of a trend of pressure – including violence,
threats and libel cases – that runs counter to Azerbaijan’s stated
commitment to media freedom. Journalists in democratic countries
are not imprisoned for exercising freedom of expression. We urge the
Azerbaijani government to remove libel from the criminal code and to
take steps to create the necessary conditions for media freedom."
In 2005, Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that monitors
democratic development, downgraded Azerbaijan from "partly free" to
"not free."
Finally, on 21 May, authorities closed down the offices of Fatullayev’s
newspaper Real Azerbaijan as well as another opposition paper,
the Azerbaijan Daily, two of the most popular newspapers in the
country. While the government says the closure was due to maintenance
and fire safety issues, no other tenants in the building were
evicted. And as of 23 May, Fatullayev faces additional charges of
"making a terrorist threat," a development that could extend his
prison term for many years.
The independent media are being all but shut down in Azerbaijan. The
terrorism charges against Fatullayev and the stiff sentences handed out
for a harmless editorial and criticism of a member of the president’s
family send a message to the press that the confines for freedom of
expression in Azerbaijan are becoming more circumscribed.
It is hard to imagine that the remaining opposition newspapers
such as Azadlig will tone down their editorial coverage, although
independent television network ANS is perceived by many to have done
just that since it was allowed back on the air last year after a brief
closure. The atmosphere in the country has certainly chilled in over
the course of the past couple of weeks, and the government now will
have to decide if it has communicated the new rules with sufficient
clarity or whether more arrests are in the offing.
Karl Rahder has taught US foreign policy and international history
at colleges and universities in the US and Azerbaijan. In 2004, he
was a Visiting Faculty Fellow in Azerbaijan with the Civic Education
Project, an academic program funded by the Soros Foundations and the
US Department of State. He is currently based in Chicago.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only,
not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).