04 Aug 14 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, News and features
(Photo: National Endowment for Democracy)
Azerbaijani human rights activist Rasul Jafarov has been charged with tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship and power abuse and sentenced to three months of pre-trial detention. Jafarov’s detention follows the arrest last week of Leyla Yunus and the disappearance of the print edition of Azadliq from the streets of Baku. Arif Yunus was put under a three month pretrial detention on 5 Aug.
Jafarov, an Index contributor, is a prominent campaigner and critic of Azerbaijan’s government, led by President Ilham Aliyev. He has worked on putting together a detailed list of the country’s some 140 political prisoners and was one of the organisers behind the Sing for Democracy campaign, in connection with the 2012 Eurovision final in Baku. He was charged with three articles of the Penal Code by Rasul Nasimi district court in the capital Baku, following interrogation at the Prosecutor General’s office. Last week he was handed down a travel ban.
His arrest comes days after fellow human rights defenders Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif were charged with crimes including high treason. Last week, Azadliq, of the country’s few remaining independent newspapers, was also forced to suspend publication of its print edition due to financial troubles. The charges against Jafarov are the same as those that in May saw Anar Mammadli, another prominent human rights defender, sentenced to 5.5 years in prison.
The Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS), an Azerbaijani press freedom organisation, said Jafarov’s arrest is “part of a dedicated campaign aimed at suspension of activities of unregistered NGOs in Azerbaijan”. Registering NGOs in Azerbaijan is difficult — Jafarov has reportedly attempted to register his organisation Human Rights Club a number of times without success. As a result, many groups operate without a licence.
There has recently been an escalation in the targeting of opposition voices in Azerbaijan, according to IRFS, who say this crackdown has included state-controlled media smear campaign, raids on NGO offices, confiscation of equipment, suspension of NGO bank accounts, and intimidation and legal pursuit of NGO workers.
In May, Azerbaijan assumed chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, whose tasks include “ensure[ing] that member states comply with the judgments and certain decisions of the European Court of Human Rights”.
“Further deterioration of the situation with fundamental rights and freedoms, as well as repressions against the civil society is incompatible with Azerbaijan’s international commitments, especially in light of its current presidency in the Council of Europe,” said the Civic Solidarity Platform, a network of 60 human rights NGOs of the OSCE region, in a statement.
“We know that the charges against those brave human rights defenders are politically motivated. The authorities want to silence those holding the country to its international obligations and commitments, including within the Council of Europe” said Maria Dahle, Executive Director of the Human Rights House Network.
Index Reports: Locking up free expression: Azerbaijan silences critical voices (Oct 2013) | Running Scared: Azerbaijan’s silenced voices (Mar 2012)
An earlier version of this article stated that Arif Yunus had been arrested last week. This was incorrect. Yunus was arrested on 5 Aug and sentenced to a three month pretrial detention.
This article was posted on August 4, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
04 Aug 14 | Awards, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, News and features
Index Award winning Azadliq newspaper was forced into cancelling its print run last week with little hope of restoring its publication.
It is not that easy to get to the editorial office of Azadliq in Baku. Once you enter the building of Azerbaijan Publishing House, a police officer, who sits close to a statue of Heydar Aliyev, the late “father of the nation” and the actual father of the incumbent president Ilham Aliyev, asks you to call the office of the newspaper to get someone to pick you up downstairs. “Everyone in Baku knows their number,” an old lady in the phone room says as she tells me how to reach Azadliq.
Rahim Haciyev, an acting editor of the daily, smiles as he greets me, and leads to the top floor of the building that looks like a shattered remnant of the Soviet past. We pass a dark and neglected corridor that seems to be last painted around 1989 – the year Azadliq was launched.
The last day of July 2014 can become the end of what was the last independent daily in Azerbaijan as it was forced into suspension of publication.
“We owe 20,000 manat (about £15,000) to the publishing house, and they refuse to print our newspaper unless we pay the debt. But we are not able to, because we don’t get money for the newspaper sales. Gasid, the state-owned press distribution company, owes us 70,000 manat (about £53,000), which should be enough to cover our debts and operation costs. Its general manager is an MP and a member of the ruling party – and they just won’t pay us,” says Rahim Haciyev.
The authorities of Azerbaijan have used economic pressure to silence one of the last critical voices in the country. Last year the newspaper was a target of defamation suits that have resulted in £52,000 in fines, which were followed by bans against selling the paper at tube stations and on the streets of Baku. Thus, Azadliq lost sales of 3,500 copies daily – and with the official distribution network refusing to pay for the copies they sell, it has resulted in a complete blockade of any revenue streams. The State Press Support Fund refused to support the paper as well.
“The authorities have tried to stifle us for a long time, and it looks like they have finally succeeded. I don’t see them letting us go back to print. The only chance is strong pressure from the West, but I don’t expect this to happen. The Western democracies are now preoccupied with weakening the influence of Russia in the region, so it is unlikely they are going to put too much pressure on its neighbouring countries,” says Haciyev.
Azadliq’s editor also sees pressuring of the paper as a part of a wider campaign of the Azerbaijani authorities aimed at silencing of the country’s civil society. Two well-known human rights defenders, Leyla Yunus and Rasul Jafarov, were arrested last week; they will be detained pending trial for three months each.
“At the moment, when repressions against the civil society and human rights activists are getting tougher, the last thing they need is a critical newspaper that spreads the word about their clampdown. And we were the last daily that reported on those cases,” Haciyev points out.
Azadliq’s editorial team keeps working, although they have not been paid for two and a half months. The paper’s website, which is one of the most popular news source online in Azerbaijan, is still updated, but nobody knows for how long.
“Azadliq” means “freedom” is Azerbaijani. There is less and less freedom in the country that looks set to take a sad lead on the number of closed down media outlets and human rights activists in jail.
This article was posted on August 4, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
07 Nov 12 | Awards, Awards year slider
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” css_animation=”fadeIn” css=”.vc_custom_1485788783247{padding-top: 250px !important;padding-bottom: 250px !important;background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/awards2012_1460x490.jpg?id=81042) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1472525914065{margin-top: -150px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”middle”][vc_column_inner el_class=”awards-inside-desc” width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARDS 2012″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards exist to celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world.
- Awards were offered in four categories: Arts, Campaigning, Journalism and Innovation
- There was a special award to mark Index’s 40th anniversary
- Winners were honoured at a gala celebration in London at the St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/v/-dL6eCTwUi4″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1472608310682{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”WINNERS” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1477036676595{margin-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Idrak Abbasov” title=”The Guardian Journalism Award” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”81047″]Idrak Abbasov is an Azerbaijani journalist whose investigative work has put his life in danger. Abbasov reports for the newspaper Ayna-Zerkalo and for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, which aims to give voice to people at the front line of conflict and crisis. On 9 September 2011, after Abbasov investigated the activities of a local oil company, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) sent bulldozers to his family’s home. SOCAR claimed ownership of the site as part of a project to develop local oil resources with Global Energy Azerbaijan Ltd. His parents and brother were hospitalised after being attacked by the company’s security service during the incident. No eviction notice had been lodged in a court, as is required by law, and no neighbouring residences (including that of the parliamentary speaker) were disturbed. It is believed that bulldozers targeted the journalist’s home because of his work monitoring human rights. The violence, threats, and harassment of Abbasov and his family continues. Later that month, his parents were again attacked at their home. The perpetrators arrived in a car bearing government licence plates. One reportedly said: “Tell Idrak to get smarter, or we will cut off his ears.” The Azerbaijanii government is notorious for using legal loopholes to threaten its opponents. Last year the home of human rights activist Leyla Yunus, the founder of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, was bulldozed on 11 August 2011 on a similar pretext. As attention focuses on Azerbaijan in 2012, with the country hosting the Eurovision Song Contest and the Internet
Goverance Forum, human rights violations show no sign of stopping.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Nabeel Rajab, Bahrain Center for Human Rights” title=”Advocacy” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”81050″]The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) has played a crucial role in documenting human rights violations, political repression and torture in the gulf kingdom. Despite efforts to silence and discredit it, the BCHR has kept international attention on the brutal government crackdown that began last February. It has prevented the Bahrain government from whitewashing its international image, and at times when news media were severely restricted and foreign journalists barred, it acted as a crucial source of alternative news. Former BCHR president Abdulhady Al Khawaja is one of eight activists serving life sentences for peacefully protesting at the now-demolished Pearl Roundabout. Like many other activists he claims he has been tortured in prison. It is widely reported that BCHR employees regularly experience threats, violence and harassment. In January 2012, BCHR president Nabeel Rajab was severely beaten by security forces while peacefully protesting.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Ali Ferzat” title=”Arts Award” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”81049″]Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat has been called “an icon of freedom in the Arab world”. He has spent decades ridiculing dictators in more than 15,000 caricatures. His depictions of President Assad and the police state have helped galvanise revolt in Syria. In August 2011, Ferzat was wrenched from his vehicle in central Damascus by pro-Assad masked gunmen who beat him badly and broke his hands. Passers-by found Ferzat dumped at the side of a road; his briefcase and the drawings inside it had been confiscated by his attackers. The BBC’s Sebastian Usher described the attack as a sign of Syria’s “zero tolerance” for dissent; a month earlier the dissident composer Ibrahim Al Qashoush was found dead, his vocal chords removed. Ferzat earned regional and international recognition in the 1980s with stinging cartoons of officials, autocrats and dictators including Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. Hussein called for Ferzat’s death in 1989 after an unfavourable portrait of him was exhibited in Paris, and Ferzat’s cartoons are banned in Libya and Jordan. In 2000, he launched the publication Al Domari; Syrian authorities forced its closure three years later. Ferzat is undergoing rehabiliation in Kuwait in order to regain the use of his fingers.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Freedom Fone” title=”The Google Innovation Award” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”81048″]Kubatana is an NGO based in Harare, set up by Brenda Burrell, Bev Clark and Amanda Atwood. It encourages ordinary Zimbabweans to use information communication technology (ICT) to advocate, mobilise and lobby. One of their main focuses has been the development of local technologies on the principle that development work should strengthen the potential application of pre-existent resources, rather than innovating solely in high-tech gadgetry for a Western audience. For this reason, Kubatana developed Freedom Fone. A free software, Freedom Fone is a basic, easy to use interactive voice response system that can deliver audio information in any language over mobile phones and landlines. All you need is a telephone (landline, mobile, Skype or similar) and Freedom Fone software on a computer. The software is aimed at organisations or individuals wishing to set up interactive news services for users where the free flow of information may be being denied for political, technological or other reasons. Freedom Fone is designed help bridge the digital divide, to reach out to the 90% of Zimbabweans who do not have internet access. On top of giving people access to information, Freedom Fone can be a tool for circumventing censorship. This is because automated telephone information systems do not require a broadcasting licence. In addition, this type of digital content is not currently subject to censorship.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Memorial Archive of St Petersburg” title=”40th Anniversary Award” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”81051″]Index singles out The Research and Information Centre Memorial, which logs the brutal repression suffered by millions in former Soviet countries, for their continued dedication to guaranteeing freedom of information. The centre has demonstrated a fierce commitment to protecting human rights. It not only chronicles the crimes of the Stalinist period, but monitors current threats against those who speak out against injustice. Memorial’s remarkable archive includes letters, diaries, transcripts, photographs, and sound files. Individuals with first-hand experience of Stalin’s terror and the Soviet gulag have donated documentation they had hidden during this brutal period.
The centre is a living tribute to the survivors of Soviet Russia, preserving documentation that many have tried to bury, and continue to conduct their work despite constant threats. In December 2009, a group of men from the Investigative Committee of the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office raided Memorial’s offices, confiscating hard drives and CDs containing its entire archive. The attack was condemned by activists and historians across the globe, and eventually all of the material was returned after a battle in local courts. Memorial’s work is a vivid reminder of the vital and very real risk taken by those who speak out against repression. The award is particularly pertinent in Index’s 40th year. As we explore our own archive and its role in exposing international human rights violations, we are conscious of the often undervalued work of historians and archivists in keeping the memory of these violations alive.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”JUDGING” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_row_inner el_class=”mw700″][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]
Criteria – Anyone involved in tackling free expression threats – either through journalism, campaigning, the arts or using digital techniques – is eligible for nomination.
Any individual, group or NGO can nominate or self-nominate. There is no cost to apply.
Judges look for courage, creativity and resilience. We shortlist on the basis of those who are deemed to be making the greatest impact in tackling censorship in their chosen area, with a particular focus on topics that are little covered or tackled by others.
Nominees must have had a recognisable impact in the past 12 months.
Where a judge comes from a nominee’s country, or where there is any other potential conflict of interest, the judge will abstain from voting in that category.
Panel – Each year Index recruits an independent panel of judges – leading world voices with diverse expertise across campaigning, journalism, the arts and human rights.
The judges for 2012 were:
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Mishal Husain” title=”Broadcaster and journalist” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”80218″]Mishal Husain is a British news presenter for the BBC, who appears on Today, BBC World News and BBC Weekend News. She was previously a presenter on HARDtalk and BBC Breakfast.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Peter Oborne” title=”Chief political commentator” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”80219″]Peter Alan Oborne is a British journalist. He is the associate editor of the Spectator and former chief political commentator of the Daily Telegraph, from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of The Rise of Political Lying and The Triumph of the Political Class, and, with Frances Weaver, the pamphlet Guilty Men.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Sami Ben Gharbia” title=”Advocacy director” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”80217″]Sami Ben Gharbia is a Tunisian human rights campaigner, blogger, writer and freedom of expression advocate. He was a political refugee living in the Netherlands between 1998 and 2011. Sami is the author of the e-book Borj Erroumi XL.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Jeremy Browne MP” title=”Minister for State” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”80216″]Jeremy Richard Browne is a British Liberal Democrat politician who was the Member of Parliament for Taunton Deane from 2005 to 2015. He was previously a Foreign Office and Home Office Minister.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Sigrid Rausing” title=”Publisher” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”80220″]Sigrid Maria Elisabet Rausing is a Swedish philanthropist, anthropologist and publisher. She is the founder of the Sigrid Rausing Trust, one of the United Kingdom’s largest philanthropic foundations, and owner of Granta magazine and Granta Books.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1473325552363{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 15px !important;}”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1473325567468{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][awards_gallery_slider name=”GALLERY” images_url=”80387,80412,80411,80410,80409,80408,80407,80406,80405,80404,80403,80402,80401,80400,80399,80398,80397,80396,80395,80394,80393,80392,80391,80390,80389,80388,81051,81050,81049,81048,81047″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
18 Sep 15 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, News and features
Shamsi Badalbayli Street, Baku, 2 April 2012. A resident is forcibly evicted from the area where the Winter Garden will be constructed. Approximately 300 complaints have been sent to the European Court of Human Rights related to forced evictions from this area. This photograph by Ahmed Mukhtar appeared in the autumn 2013 issue of Index on Censorship magazine and was featured at a 2013 exhibition at the ICA.
Freelance journalist Ahmed Mukhtar, a contributor to Index on Censorship magazine, was detained at 7pm Friday 18 September in Azerbaijan, according to Contact.az.
Mukhtar’s brother, Elnur, works with Berlin-based Meydan.TV. His detention is the latest in a string of arrests of family members of contributors to Meydan.tv
“Ahmed Mukhtar is an extremely talented and courageous Azerbaijani photojournalist, whom I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with through the Art for Democracy campaign. He is one of very few left in the country willing to capture risky subject matter like human rights abuses. His detention comes just one day after the detention of another young journalist, Abbas Shirin, also known for his photography, including his coverage of the recent trials of human rights defenders Leyla and Arif Yunus and journalist Khadija Ismayilova. Now it seems that even photographing people the Azerbaijani authorities have previously targeted is enough to land someone in jail”, said Rebecca Vincent, coordinator of the Sport for Rights campaign and former advocacy director of Art for Democracy, a creative campaign that ceased operations in August 2014 when authorities arrested its coordinator, human rights defender Rasul Jafarov.
Mukhtar was later released, according to a tweet from Vincent.
Over the weekend, founder of Meydan.TV Emin Milli reported that three more journalists were detained and questioned before being released.
On Thursday 17 September, Meydan.tv contributor Shirin Abbasov was sentenced to 30 days in jail “for disobeying the police after nearly thirty hours in custody,” according to Meydan.tv.
The Sport for Rights Coalition condemned Azerbaijan’s moves against journalists and independent media.
This article was updated on 21 September.
