Your trusted source

Journalists in Azerbaijan saw little to celebrate on World Press Freedom Day, after a year in which colleagues had been harassed, arrested or attacked and an international report labeled the president a “predator” of press freedom, Shahla Sultanova writes in an article published at IWPR.

The author notes that Seymur Hezi, who runs the political section of the opposition Azadliq newspaper, has been threatened, kidnapped and beaten since writing a series of articles about President Ilham Aliyev and Ramiz Mehdiyev, the head of the presidential administration. “Being a journalist in Azerbaijan is like walking into a minefield to save someone else. It is like being unarmed and facing someone armed. Our profession is like a bomb attached to our bodies. It can blow up at any time and kill us,” he said.