Your trusted source

Baku viciously cracked down on domestic dissent as it hosted two major international events, the Eurovision 2012 song contest and the Internet Governance Forum, the report of the CPJ titled “Attacks on the Press” reads.

Authorities imprisoned at least nine critical journalists on a variety of retaliatory charges, including hooliganism, drug possession, and extortion.

CPJ concluded that the charges were fabricated. International human rights groups, including CPJ, criticized the Eurovision organizer, the European Broadcasting Union, for standing by passively as President Ilham Aliyev’s government jailed and intimidated detractors.

“The broadcasting union, while expressing concern about the abuses, said the contest was an “apolitical” event. Several independent journalists, including award-winning reporter Idrak Abbasov, were brutally assaulted on assignment, but the assailants, believed to have included police and security officers, enjoyed impunity,” the document says.

It says that investigative journalist Khadija Ismailova was subjected to a contemptible intimidation campaign after reporting on the ruling family’s extensive business interests. State media smeared her reputation, and anonymous individuals circulated intimate videos and photos.

“Parliament responded to Ismailova’s coverage by passing legislation giving the president broad immunity from prosecution and barring corporations from disclosing a wide range of financial information. Aliyev signed the bills into law in July,” the organization says.

CPJ documented a pattern of cases in which Azerbaijani authorities filed unsubstantiated charges of drug possession, hooliganism, and extortion against journalists whose coverage was at odds with official views. All nine journalists jailed on December 1, 2012, had been subjected to such charges.

“CPJ’s worldwide census found that imprisonments jumped in 2012. Baku appeared determined to silence critical voices in a year in which it took the international stage,” the report says.

In November of the last year, Azerbaijan, along with Turkey, was among the ten worst press jailing countries of the world according to the report of CPJ.