CoE HR Commissioner calls on French President to raise Azerbaijani political prisoners’ cases in his visit to Baku
Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, expressed a hope in his microblog in Twitter that the French President François Hollande will raise LeylaYunus' and other human rights defenders' cases to the Azerbaijani leadership in his next visit to Baku.
The international organization for media protection Reporters without Borders also calls on France to condition its presence at the opening of the first European Olympic Games on the release of all journalists detained in Azerbaijan.
As the statement of the organization reads, after visiting Yerevan for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, President François Hollande will meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart in Baku on April 25. Reporters Without Borders urges him to use the opportunity to clearly request the release of imprisoned journalists and an end to harassment of the government’s critics.
Reporters without Borders also inform that Azerbaijan is ranked 162nd out of 180 countries in the organization’s press freedom index 2015. Virtually all of its independent journalists and outspoken bloggers have been silenced, thrown into prison or driven into exile.
“After eliminating all media pluralism, the Azerbaijani authorities are systematically suppressing the few remaining sources of criticism,” Reporters Without Borders program director Lucie Morillon said.
In the run-up to the first European Olympic Games, the continent’s leaders have a special duty to condemn the unprecedented crackdown being orchestrated by Baku, the statement reads. The international organization also calls on François Hollande to make the release of imprisoned journalists a condition for the presence of a French delegation at the opening ceremony of these games.
As the statement reads, eight journalists and four online activists are still being held on trumped-up charges because of their reporting. They include Khadija Ismayilova, the country’s most famous investigative journalist, who has been held since December 2014. In all, Azerbaijan has around 100 political prisoners, including human rights defenders Rasul Jafarov and Intigam Aliyev, who were given jail sentences of six and a half years and seven and a half years respectively last week.
One by one, the last independent media outlets are being silenced as a result of various forms of pressure by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s regime. The Baku bureau of Radio Azadliq – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Azerbaijani service – was forcibly closed last December. The independent newspaper Zerkalo stopped publishing in May 2014. The last opposition daily, Azadlig, is collapsing under the impact of astronomical damages awards and political persecution. The government controls the entire broadcast sector. The main NGOs that support the media and defend freedom of information have also had to shut down. Emin Huseynov, the head of the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety, has been holed up in the Swiss embassy since August, 2014, the RWB statement reads.
“The climate of intimidation is reinforced by physical attacks that usually go unpunished, blackmail attempts and inflammatory verbal attacks on government critics, who are decried as ‘traitors’ or ‘foreign agents’,” RWB says.
Related:
EurasiaNet.org: European Games visitors to Azerbaijan to have what government orders for breakfast
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