elmar-huseynov

October 2008

In Azerbaijan, an editor is jailed after investigating the unsolved murder of a colleague. The case has opened a window into widespread abuses in this tightly controlled nation on the Caspian Sea.

June 2008
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

Ignoring international opinion, the authoritarian government of President Ilham Aliyev clamped down on opposition and independent media and became the world’s fifth-leading jailer of journalists, with nine reporters and editors behind bars when CPJ conducted its annual census on December 1. On May 3, World Press Freedom Day, CPJ ranked the oil-rich Caspian Sea state as one of the world’s worst backsliders on press freedom.

New York, January 16, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an Azerbaijani appellate court’s decision today to uphold the 2007 conviction of Eynulla Fatullayev, editor of the independent Russian-language weekly Realny Azerbaijan and the Azeri-language daily Gündalik Azarbaycan.

Fatullayev was convicted in October 2007 on charges of terrorism, incitement of ethnic hatred, and tax evasion, and he was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. CPJ research shows that the government’s charges were not substantiated and were instead motivated by his reporting. A well-known government critic, Fatullayev had recently questioned the integrity of the state’s investigation into the 2005 murder of another Azerbaijani editor.

New York, December 28, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes today’s pardon of five journalists imprisoned in Azerbaijan, but it calls on President Ilham Aliyev to free the three journalists who remain unjustly jailed.

Samir Sadagatoglu, Rafiq Tagi, Faramaz Novruzoglu, Rovshan Kebirli, and Yashar Agazadeh were among 114 prisoners pardoned by presidential decree. The five had been jailed in 2006 and 2007 on charges of defamation and inciting religious hatred. The Baku-based Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety said the pardoned journalists should be freed by early next week.

CPJ: One in 6 jailed journalists held without charge Census shows an overall decline; China remains the leading jailer

New York, October 30, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists denounces a lengthy prison sentence handed down today by an Azerbaijani court to independent editor Eynulla Fatullayev. Fatullayev is already serving a two-and-a-half-year prison term for allegedly defaming Azerbaijanis in an Internet posting he says he did not write, and has been sentenced to another eight-and-a-half years.

 
New York, September 6, 2007—Azerbaijani authorities must stop the persecution of Eynulla Fatullayev, an imprisoned editor who has been hit with a series of politically inspired criminal charges since he began investigating alleged government wrongdoing, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

New York, August 24, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists denounces the continued imprisonment of Eynulla Fatullayev, editor of the now-shuttered Russian-language weekly Realny Azerbaijan and the Azeri-language daily Gündalik Azarbaycan.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan upheld Fatullayev’s 30-month prison sentence on charges of defaming Azerbaijanis in an article. Fatullayev has been held in the Ministry of National Security isolation ward since his April 20 conviction by the Yasamal District Court in Baku. His family has been denied visitation rights, said Uzeir Jafarov, editor after Fatullayev of Gündalik Azarbaycan and Fatullayev’s trustee.