Hebib Müntezir is an Azerbaijani blogger andsocial media manager of the non-profit Meydan TV. Müntezir is one of Azerbaijan’s most famous online activists, and in a country where social media is the final platform on which journalists are able to report, his influence has made him a significant annoyance to the Azerbaijani authorities. His YouTube videos have now been watched upwards of 27 million times, and his Facebook page is followed by over 22,000 people.
The organisation Müntezir has aligned forces with, Meydan TV, launched in 2013, and is one of the few news sites critical of the Azerbaijani government and its policies. The site is published in Azerbaijani, English, and Russian.
2015 saw a huge media crackdown in Azerbaijan, with government critics sentenced to long prison terms, and journalists facing harassment and prosecution. The crackdown intensified when Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, hosted the first European Games – at a significant economic cost to a country already suffering from plummeting oil prices. The clampdown by the ruling New Azerbaijan party, re-elected in 2015 to serve another five years on their 20-year-run, showed their nervousness about the Games, and the international scrutiny that came with them.
With little coverage by traditional media, Azerbaijanis looked online for information, says Müntezir. “During the European Games in Baku in June 2015, our social media content reached over 1.5 million people in a population of less than 10 million,” Müntezir told Index.
Meydan TV’s powerful online presence and outspoken journalists have made them repeated targets during the authorities’ crackdown.
On 16 September 2015, freelance Meydan TV reporter Aytaj Ahmadova and a Meydan TV intern were stopped by police and taken to the organised crime unit. They were released after several hours in which Ahmadova says she was threatened and told to stop doing “opposition work”.
The same day a former Meydan employee Aysel Umudova was summoned by the prosecution service and questioned about her past work.
Then a couple of days later, Shirin Abbasov, a reporter for Meydan, was imprisoned, and authorities searched the home of another Meydan reporter.
The following day three Meydan journalists were detained after flying into Baku airport and questioned for several hours about Meydan. They were summoned by police again on 22 September and told off for speaking to the press after their earlier detention.
Emin Milli, Meydan’s director who is living in exile,told the media that Azerbaijani authorities had also threatened to punish him. According Milli, a threatening note allegedly sent by Azerbaijan’s sports minister read: “We will get you wherever you are and the state will punish you for this smear-campaign against the state that you have organized. You will get punished for this. You will not be able to walk freely in Berlin or anywhere else.”
During this crackdown, social media has been hailed as the only way journalists can freely report on otherwise censored issues in Azerbaijan. “Our social media strategy has been the driving force of our success in terms of audience outreach and engagement,” said Milli.
“Many people in Azerbaijan are afraid to talk to independent media,” said Müntezir. “But citizens still reach out to me to share content and offer support.”
Azerbaijani writer Akram Aylisli, who has had his books burned by authorities, sent the following statement to Index on Censorship regarding his detention on 30 March 2016:
On 30 March, I, accompanied by my son, planned to travel to Venice via Frankfurt to participate in the Incroci di Civilta literature festival as a guest speaker.
When I arrived at Baku’s Heydar Aliyev International Airport, around 4am local time, the border service said I could not travel, but provided no reason for the denial and detained me for five hours, well after the plane departed at 5.11am.
My bags, which had already been checked in, were taken off the plane and searched. At around 9:30am I was transferred into the custody of airport police and falsely accused of creating a public disturbance, hindering the work of border guards and harassing other passengers. I was held in police custody for over 10 hours and interrogated.
Later in the evening, the head of shift of the border service, an athletically built young man, made a new absurd accusation that I, a 78-year-old writer in poor health and suffering from a heart condition, punched him in the chest with such great strength that it caused a hematoma. This supposedly happened in a small room with no surveillance cameras during a personal search while my son was briefly outside.
I have been told that a criminal case against me was opened by the airport police under Criminal Code Article 222.1 “hooliganism”.
Absurdly and illogically, this alleged incident of punching a border guard happened well after the plane departed and was later used by the border service as an explanation for denying the border crossing before the plane had left!
I was released from police custody at around 8pm local time. My foreign passport was retained by police and only returned on the next day.
Recently-released Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova was due to mark her 40th birthday in prison on Friday 27 May 2016, but she was released two days prior during her appeal. However, several charges against her remain.
Arrested in December 2014, Khadija was serving a seven-and-a-half year prison sentence in Azerbaijan on politically motivated charges of tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship and abuse of power.
The real reason for Ismayilova’s imprisonment, however, was her investigative journalism. For many years, Ismayilova has been one of very few journalists in Azerbaijan willing to explore risky topics like human rights abuses and corruption among Azerbaijan’s ruling elite. Her reporting shed light on many truths the Azerbaijani authorities would prefer to keep hidden, and she is paying a high price for her courageous work.
To mark Ismayilova’s birthday, call for all charges against her to be quashed and for the immediate release of all political prisoners in Azerbaijan, the Sport for Rights campaign is collaborating with other networks to coordinate a series of parallel protests in cities around the world. The campaign is aiming for the symbolic number of 40 protests but will need your help.
If you are concerned by Ismayilova’s case and want to take a stand for human rights in Azerbaijan, please consider organising a peaceful protest in your city. The action can be large or small, traditional or creative, in any legally permissible spot you choose. Please get in touch through the event page or email [email protected] to discuss details. Sport for Rights will share details on the various actions by city closer to the date.
We, the undersigned members of the Sport for Rights coalition, express our relief over the release of 15 political prisoners in Azerbaijan. Human rights defender Rasul Jafarov, the founder of the Sport for Rights campaign, stepped out from Baku’s Prison Number 10 into freedom on 17 March after spending 593 days unjustly jailed. The same day, the European Court of Human Rights issued a judgment in Jafarov’s case, acknowledging that his arrest and detention were politically motivated.
Jafarov was one of 14 political prisoners included in a presidential pardon decree signed on 17 March. The other political prisoners pardoned through that decree included journalists Parviz Hashimli, Hilal Mammadov, and Tofig Yagublu; human rights defenders Taleh Khasmammadov and Anar Mammadli; NIDA civic movement activists Rashadat Akhundov, Mahammad Azizov and Rashad Hasanov; bloggers Siraj Karimli and Omar Mammadov; former government official Akif Muradverdiyev; chairman of the National Statehood party Nemat Penahli; and Musavat party activist Yadigar Sadigov.
A further political prisoner, journalist Rauf Mirkadirov, was released on 17 March by the Baku Court of Appeals, which commuted his six-year prison sentence into a suspended five-year sentence. Mirkadirov had been unjustly jailed since April 2014 on politically motivated treason charges.
“We are incredibly relieved for those released yesterday, including Rasul Jafarov, who was arrested in August 2014 after launching our campaign to draw attention to human rights abuses taking place in Azerbaijan. But none of these 15 people ever should have been arrested in the first place, and dozens more remain unjustly jailed now, neglected by this pardon decree. They must be released, and this vicious cycle of politically motivated arrests must end”, said Rebecca Vincent, coordinator of the Sport for Rights campaign.
While the release of these political prisoners was the right step, we note that they never should have spent a single day in jail. Further, dozens of other political prisoners remain in Azerbaijani jails, including journalists Khadija Ismayilova and Seymur Hezi, human rights lawyer Intigam Aliyev, youth activist Ilkin Rustemzade, and opposition REAL movement leader Ilgar Mammadov, whose release has been ordered by the European Court of Human Rights.
We reiterate our call for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, and for an end to the cycle of politically motivated arrests in Azerbaijan. We urge the international community to continue to press for the release of the remaining political prisoners as a matter of urgent priority, and for further concrete reforms to improve the country’s dire human rights situation.
