The government of Azerbaijan has stepped up its campaign to silence independent media and free expression in the country, according to a new report by Amnesty International.
In the report, called “The spring that never blossomed: Freedoms suppressed in Azerbaijan,” Amnesty details a worsening human rights situation in the oil-rich former Soviet republic. The group says that the authoritarian government of President Ilham Aliyev launched a fierce clampdown on dissent after protesters inspired by popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa took to the streets of Baku earlier this year to demand democratic reforms.
Amnesty points in particular to increasing attacks against independent journalists and media outlets critical of the government. The report details multiple instances in which journalists covering the Baku protests were abducted, beaten, or threatened and details a series of legal restrictions on media freedoms in the country, including a vaguely defined provision that allows the closure of news outlets for “distributing information that threatens the state”. A 2008 law banned foreign broadcasters from using Azerbaijani frequencies, forcing the BBC, Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to cease FM transmission.
Troublingly, the government has begun to target online media and social networks, among the few remaining sources of critical, independent content in the country. The report noted that a proposed new legal framework for online media includes an amendment that would make spreading ‘misinformation’ over the Web a crime. The government has harassed, detained, and imprisoned several bloggers and social network organisers, including Elnur Majidli, who was charged with ‘inciting hatred’ for creating a Facebook page that called for protests in March.
Natalie Nozadze, Amnesty’s researcher in Azerbaijan, said: “The cumulative effect of these practices, together with the long-standing impunity of the authorities for such actions, has instilled a climate of fear and self-censorship in Azerbaijani society, which is stalling, indeed reversing, the country’s transition to a stable democracy.”
The report says that while fewer prison sentences for defamation were issued in 2010, this trend seems to be at least partly due to an increase in self-censorship on the part of journalists. Still, Amnesty notes that 31 criminal defamation cases were brought against media representatives last year, 17 of which were decided in favor of the government.
Amnesty’s findings came just months after the government pardoned Eyunlla Fatulayev, a well-known editor who had been sentenced to eight years in prison on trumped-up charges. Fatullayev was released on 26 May after sustained pressure from international press freedom groups, including the International Press Institute (IPI). Since then, IPI has reported on the assault by Azerbaijani security forces on American journalist Amanda Erickson and British human-rights worker Celia Davies Carys as well as on the recent detention of an opposition newspaper editor, Avaz Zeynalli.
A delegation from IPI visited Azerbaijan in February to discuss steps to improve press freedom in the country and urge the government to release Fatullayev.
