My personal blog, my thoughts.
In recent years, there have been no profound changes in the context of the media environment and the situation of journalists in Azerbaijan. The situation, the environment was already bad, and it remains so.
Read more “New PACE rapporteur for Azerbaijan: “Bad legislation, practice should be changed””
В Азербайджане выдвижение новых обвинений в отношении политзаключенных, срок ареста которых вот-вот завершится, и продление тюремного заключения уже превратилось в тенденцию, считают представители общественности. Особенно резонансным стал случай с находящимся под арестом молодым блогером Мехманом Гусейновым, но это далеко не единственный подобный случай. Мейдан ТВ вспоминает, скольким политзаключенным за последние годы были продлены сроки ареста на основе новых обвинений.
19 января в Баку запланирован митинг оппозиционных сил в знак поддержки блогера Мехмана Гусейнова, против которого были выдвинуты новые обвинения за пару месяцев до истечения срока заключения, и других политзаключенных. Митинг согласован с бакинской мэрией.
Read more “Новая форма давления на политзаключенных”
Mehman Huseynov, who was imprisoned in 2017 after posting incriminating photographs of properties he claimed were owned by government officials, was set to be released in March of 2019. However, new charges have been brought against him which carry a five to seven year prison sentence if found guilty.
The former deputy of the Milli Majlis, the former head of the Press Service of the Ministry of Defense of the Azerbaijan Republic, Eldar Sabiroglu, published his Facebook status on his son’s page. He told how his son is being tortured in custody. His son Rufat Safarov has been deprived of his freedom for the third year. At the end of 2015, the investigator of the Zardab district prosecutor’s office, R.Safarov, made a bold and sensational statement about corruption and lawlessness in law enforcement, then resigned and was soon arrested, of course. The authorities do not forgive such statements.
Read more “Boomerang law. After all, life does not end tomorrow”
Opposition leader Ali Karimli, who was detained together with more than 50 other people for participating in what authorities have criticized as an unauthorized rally, was released again on Monday, 19 November, after having been fined ₼2,500 ($1,470).
Read more “Ali Karimli and other activists fined and released, three sentenced to prison”
Azad Hasanov, Musavat party member and political exile living in Lithuania, has been arrested during a short return to his home country and charged with drug trafficking.
According to his lawyer, Osman Kazimov, the Khatai District Court sentenced him to four months in detention on drug-related charges. Under Article 234.4.3 (illegal manufacturing, purchase, storage, transportation, transfer or selling of sale of drugs), Hasanov faces between five and twelve years in prison.
What else you can expect from such government?
On 3 October, Azerbaijani journalist Aytaj Ahmadova was detained while filming a protest in Zabrat, a settlement close to Baku.
A group of citizens had been protesting against their desolate living conditions, demanding that the government renovated their unsafe homes which are in danger of collapsing.
Read more “Journalist Aytaj Ahmadova detained and physically pressured”
The number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan remains approximately the same from year to year. The president regularly signs pardon decrees but the “vacancies” on bunk beds in prisons are quickly occupied by newly-arrived opponents of the political elite of Azerbaijan.
The following is a Meydan TV report about how the possibility of pardon is used to manipulate political prisoners and how the prisoners themselves have become bargaining chips in the Azerbaijani government’s foreign policy.
Azerbaijani society has never been tolerant toward sexual minorities, but no one expected the cruel and large-scale violence that occurred last year. At least a hundred people were humiliated, beaten and raped. People who were suspected of being gay were blackmailed and warned not to walk in the central streets of Baku. Meydan TV investigated the possible reasons for the police violence immediately after it happened last year and we now return to this topic to find out what has changed in Azerbaijan over the past year.
In a $170 million settlement paid to the US government for bribery cases in six countries, Rolls-Royce has admitted that it paid $7.8 million in bribes to SOCAR, the Azerbaijan state-owned oil and gas company.
The bribes were paid by the company’s American affiliate Rolls-Royce Energy Systems (RRESI) in order to ensure large orders of turbines in Azerbaijan. The US Justice Department filed the suit because an American company was involved and because it considered SOCAR to be “controlled by the Azeri government and performed government functions for Azerbaijan.”