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Committee to Protect Journalists called on the Azerbaijani authorities to stop the repressions on the press and urged the international community to respond to the deteriorating conditions of media freedom in Azerbaijan, reported Azerbaijani news agency "Turan".

Executive Director Joel Simon of the Committee in an interview with "Turan" noted that Azerbaijan has become the largest prison of journalists in Europe. According to him, the Azerbaijani government is constantly striving to international legitimacy, and at the same time continues to suppress internal dissent, but the international community cannot allow this, and Baku should pay for it.

Joel Simon said that Azerbaijan has a long tradition of intolerance for critical media and criticism in general, and as for the last raid and closure of the office of "Radio Liberty" in Baku, the logic of the authorities is difficult to understand. "They speak about tolerance, about the open view of world, but factually carry out repressions in the country. However, this hypocrisy is so brazen that nobody believes it," he noted.

Chairman of the Union of Journalists of Azerbaijan, editor of the "Zerkalo" newspaper Elchin Shikhli believes that the situation with media freedom in the country is extremely poor. As "Turan" reported in an interview with "Voice of America" summing up the past year, Elchin Shikhli recalled the arrest of the columnist of "Mirror" Rauf Mirkadyrov, as well as the financial problems of this newspaper, after which it was forced to close. According to him, in Azerbaijan there are still small islands that support the freedom of speech, but they melt gradually. There are many journalists in custody and now they struggle for their liberation, for their lives, not the freedom of speech.

As stated in the article, according to Shikhli, international organizations believe that the situation in Azerbaijan with freedom of speech is deplorable, while the authorities say the opposite. According to the international organizations, Baku violates all possible paragraphs, articles and international conventions on freedom of speech and press. “Unfortunately, in Azerbaijan the public opinion is at a very low level. Most people who can raise their voices and express their opinion are subjected to pressure and threats. This is the reality in the country today," said Elchin Shikhli.

In addition, as "Turan" reports, another letter of Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova who is detained in Kurdakhani prison, is revealed. In the letter, she thanked her friends for their support. " I was delighted seeing you on the steps of the court at a glance. I'm glad that you are there for me! The thievish regime is doomed to failure, while we're standing on foot. And we still remain winners even as political prisoners, while you're there," Ismayilova writes.

However, she states that she is proud and happy that is with such people like Leyla Yunus, Intigam Aliyev, Seymour Hazy, Rasul Jafarov, Anar Mammadly, Bashir Suleymanli, “Nida” activists. Ismayilova said the Aliyev regime, realizing its defeat, wants to fill this helplessness by tightening of regime, by the arrests of many more people. And this helplessness takes it into even greater quagmire.

In his turn, Elchin Gambarov, the lawyer of Azerbaijani arrested human rights activist Leyla Yunus, issued a statement refuting the claims for improving her condition, "Turan" reports. "The statement disseminated by Azer Taj about allegedly good health of Leyla Yunus with reference to the German physician K. Witt, is not true. In the close future he will submit his conclusion to the European Court," the statement read.