Azerbaijan

2017

  
Journalists and protesters hold placards outside an Istanbul court on October 31, 2017, calling for the release of jailed colleagues, including Turkish reporter Ahmet Şık. Turkey is the worst jailer of journalists in 2017. (AP/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Record number of journalists jailed as Turkey, China, Egypt pay scant price for repression

For the second year in a row, the number of journalists imprisoned for their work hit a historical high, as the U.S. and other Western powers failed to pressure the world’s worst jailers–Turkey, China, and Egypt–into improving the bleak climate for press freedom. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser

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Russia and former Soviet states emboldened by declining press freedom in US, Europe

Receding media freedom in established European democracies and in the United States has emboldened authoritarian governments in Russia and other former Soviet countries to crack down on independent voices at home. I am sharing this information today with the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe-known as the Helsinki Commission-and the House Freedom of…

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French journalists Elise Lucet, right, and Laurent Richard answer reporters' questions outside a courtroom in a Paris suburb on September 5. Azerbaijan's government brought criminal defamation charges against the two journalists for calling the country a "dictatorship." (AP/Francois Mori)

Journalists on trial in France after calling Azerbaijan a dictatorship

New York, September 7, 2017–The French justice ministry should dismiss criminal defamation charges the government of Azerbaijan brought against journalists Elise Lucet and Laurent Richard, and allow the pair to continue their work without obstruction, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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The old city walls in downtown Baku. Azerbaijani authorities in the capital have detained the head of the Turan news agency. (AP/Sergey Ponomarev)

Azerbaijan detains head of Turan news agency

New York, August 24, 2017–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Azerbaijani authorities today to immediately release Mehman Aliyev, head of the country’s only independent news agency, Turan. Azerbaijan’s Tax Ministry today ordered Aliyev to be detained as part of an investigation launched against Turan last week into allegations of tax evasion, according to media…

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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, shown here watching a parade before a Formula 1 race in Baku, June 25, 2017, has maintained strict control over the media over the course of his 14-year rule. (Reuters/David Mdzinarishvili)

Azerbaijani news agency’s office raided

New York, August 17, 2017–Azerbaijani authorities should stop harassing Turan, the country’s only independent news agency, and should allow it to work without fear of reprisal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (right) stands with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (left), and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an energy summit in Istanbul, October 10, 2016. (Reuters/Murad Sezer)

Newspaper financial director jailed in Azerbaijan

New York, July 24, 2017–An Azerbaijani court’s sentencing of Faiq Amirov, financial director of the independent newspaper Azadliq, is a further serious blow to press freedom in the country, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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Aleksandr Lapshin is escorted through Baku airport in February after being extradited from Belarus. An Azerbaijan court has jailed the blogger for three years. (AFP/Tofik Babayev)

Azerbaijan court sentences blogger to three years in jail

New York, July 20, 2017–A Baku court today convicted Russian-Israeli blogger Aleksandr Lapshin to three years in jail for illegally crossing the state border, international and Azerbaijani media reported. The charges are related to three trips that Lapshin made between April 2011 and June 2016 to the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan and Armenia…

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A man sits on a parapet in Baku in June 2016. A court in the Azerbaijani capital sentenced a journalist to seven years in jail. (Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)

Azerbaijan sentences journalist to seven years in prison

New York, June 20, 2017–Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release Fikret Faramazoglu, chief editor of the news website Journalistic Research Center, from prison and investigate the journalist’s claims that he was severely beaten in custody, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Faramazoglu was sentenced on June 14 to seven years in prison for extortion and…

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Leyla Mustafayeva holds her husband's passport at a May 29 rally in Tbilisi to protest the detention of Afgan Mukhtarli, who was abducted and forcibly taken to Azerbaijan. (AP/Shakh Aivazov)

CPJ joins call for Georgia to investigate case of exiled journalist forcibly taken back to Azerbaijan

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 22 international rights organizations in calling on Georgia’s Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili to ensure that the case of Afgan Mukhtarli, an Azerbaijani journalist living in exile in Tbilisi who is now in custody in the country’s capital, Baku, is fully investigated. CPJ documented last month how Mukhtarli was abducted…

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A general view of the old city in Tbilisi, Georgia. Freelance journalist Afgan Mukhtarli, who was living in exile in the country, is detained in Azerbaijan after being abducted in Georgia. (AFP/Vano Shlamov)

Exiled journalist abducted in Georgia to face prosecution in Azerbaijan

New York, May 30, 2017–Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release freelance journalist Afgan Mukhtarli and allow him to return to neighboring Georgia, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Mukhtarli, whose wife reported him missing from their home in Tbilisi, Georgia, last night, is being held at a detention center in Baku, Azerbaijan, regional and local…

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2017