New York, December
30, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a new criminal charge
filed against imprisoned Azerbaijani editor Eynulla Fatullayev,
a 2009
recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award. Based on Fatullayev’s
account and the government’s long record of persecuting the editor, CPJ
believes the charge to be fabricated.
On Tuesday, guards at Prison Colony No. 12 in Baku claimed to have searched
Fatullayev’s cell and discovered 0.22 grams of heroin in a jacket, according to
press reports and CPJ sources. Fatullayev categorically denied possessing the
drug and said it was planted on him, defense lawyer Isakhan Ashurov told CPJ. Ashurov,
who met with his client today, said Fatullayev had been placed in solitary confinement and was questioned
today for four hours.
Baku
police charged Fatullayev with narcotics possession, which is punishable by three years in prison. He is
already serving an eight-and-a-half-year prison term on politically motivated charges
of defamation, incitement of ethnic hatred, terrorism, and tax evasion. The
government began prosecuting Fatullayev after his reporting on the 2005
murder of colleague Elmar Huseynov had found a government cover-up in the unsolved
slaying.
“We call
on authorities with the Azerbaijani Penitentiary Service and the Garadag
District Police to drop this new, farcical charge against our colleague Eynulla
Fatullayev and to investigate those who planted the drugs on him,” said CPJ
Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina
Ognianova. “Azerbaijani authorities have a record of planting
narcotics to silence critics. This shameful practice must be stopped at once.”
The
timing of the new charge points to government fabrication, Ashurov said. The
charge was filed as the European Court of Human Rights deliberates a case
brought by Fatullayev against the government of Azerbaijan, which alleges unjust
prosecution. The journalist’s father, Emin Fatullayev, told the Azerbaijani
service of the U.S.
government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the new charge would
ensure his son would remain in jail no matter what the European Court found. The court,
based in Strasbourg, France, has authority to review the
actions of domestic courts, issue rulings, and levy sanctions. As a member of
the Council of Europe and a signer of the European Convention on Human Rights, Azerbaijan
is bound by the court's decision.
CPJ research also shows that Azerbaijani authorities have a
history of planting drugs to silence critical journalists. In June 2006, Baku police arrested Sakit
Zakhidov, a prominent reporter, poet, and satirist with the pro-opposition
newspaper Azadlyg, on heroin charges.
Zakhidov denied the charge and said a police officer placed the drug in his
pocket during a staged arrest. Three days prior to the arrest, Executive
Secretary Ali Akhmedov of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party had publicly urged
authorities to silence Zakhidov. "No government official or member of
parliament has avoided his slanders. Someone should put an end to it," the
regional news Web site EurasiaNet quoted Akhmedov as saying. A Baku court sentenced
Zakhidov to three years in prison in October 2006. He was released
in April, having served all but two and a half months of his term.
The government has also been a persistent jailer of
journalists throughout the past decade, CPJ research shows. With six writers
and editors now in prison, Azerbaijan
is the seventh worst jailer of journalists in the world.
The new charge against
Fatullayev is the latest instance of the government’s years-long persecution of
the editor. His two newspapers, the Russian-language weekly Realny
Azerbaijan and the Azeri-language daily Gündalik Azarbaycan, both
of which reported critically about the government, are now closed.
The
government began targeting Fatullayev in early 2007, shortly after he
wrote an article to mark the second anniversary of the murder of his one-time editor
and mentor Huseynov. The piece, published in Realny Azerbaijan and headlined “Lead and Roses,” accused
Azerbaijani authorities of deliberately obstructing the investigation into
Huseynov’s killing and ignoring evidence that could lead to the masterminds.
Four days after the piece ran, on March
6, 2007, Fatullayev’s mother received an anonymous phone call. As a
"wise woman," the caller said, she should "talk sense" into
her son or "we will send him to Elmar." Fatullayev reported the
threat to the police, but it was he who came under intense investigation.
In April
2007, a Yasamal District Court judge convicted Fatullayev of defaming
Azerbaijanis in an Internet posting that was falsely attributed to the
journalist. The posting, published on several Web sites, said Azerbaijanis bore
some responsibility for the 1992 killings of residents of the restive
Nagorno-Karabakh region, according to local news reports. Fatullayev was
sentenced to a 30-month term and was jailed immediately. After he was taken
into custody, authorities proceeded to evict his two newspapers from their Baku offices, citing
purported fire safety and building code violations.
More charges against the editor followed. In October
2007, a judge in the Azerbaijani Court of Serious Crimes found Fatullayev
guilty of terrorism, incitement to ethnic hatred, and tax evasion. Fatullayev’s
sentences were consolidated, and he was ordered to serve eight years and six
months in prison in all.
The terrorism and incitement charges stemmed from a Realny
Azerbaijan commentary headlined “The Aliyevs Go to War,” which analyzed
possible consequences for Azerbaijan
if the United States were to
wage war with Iran.
The piece sharply criticized the Azerbaijani government’s foreign policy. The tax
case was filed after Fatullayev was jailed on other charges and his newspapers
had been ousted from their offices, making it impossible to collect the records
needed to mount a defense.
