Authorities in Azerbaijan should thoroughly investigate a blogger’s accusations that police officers abducted and tortured him, rather than investigating the blogger for allegedly slandering police, the International Press Institute (IPI) said today. The country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said yesterday that it had complained to prosecutors after blogger and activist Mehman Huseynov claimed that men […]

Last week’s arrest in Azerbaijan of Mehman Aliyev, head of the independent Turan Information Agency, and the criminal charges his news outlet faces have renewed concerns about deteriorating media freedom in the country, where at least 11 other journalists are currently behind bars. Aliyev, who has headed the news agency since its founding in 1990, […]

The International Press Institute (IPI) today marked 11 years since the murder of Azerbaijani journalist Elmar Huseynov with a call on the country’s government to end impunity for attacks on journalists and to release those imprisoned in connection with their work. Huseynov, the editor-in-chief of Russian language magazine Monitor was gunned down on March 2, […]

The International Press Institute (IPI) today welcomed news that Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova has been ordered freed after spending nearly 18 months behind bars on charges of tax evasion and embezzlement that supporters say were politically motivated. Ismayilova was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison in September, but Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court today reduced that […]