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One has to try hard to think of a less suitable candidate for the award "Friend of Journalists" than Ilham Aliyev, reported HRW senior researcher for the South Caucasus Giorgi Gogia on the Human Rights Watch site, commenting on the reward of President of Azerbaijan of "Friend of Journalists" award by the Azerbaijani organization RUH.

“I had to check the calendar to make sure that it was not April Fool’s day, when I saw news reports that Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev was presented,” organization representative reported.

He explained that Azerbaijan has a long record of state antagonism toward independent and opposition media. Senior government officials have used criminal and civil defamation and a range of other criminal charges against journalists and human rights defenders criticizing the authorities. In the past six years, dozens of journalists have been prosecuted, imprisoned, or fined on charges that are either bogus or are libel charges brought by government officials. Attacks with impunity against the journalists have also been recorded.
“Just this year, Human Rights Watch documented at least seven journalists who have been detained or convicted and sent to prison on spurious charges in apparent retaliation for critical and investigative journalism,” Giorgi Gogia reports.

The article also notes that defamation and libel remain criminal offenses in Azerbaijan even though the government’s 2012 national action plan for human rights included a commitment to decriminalize them. Furthermore, in May 2013, the Azerbaijani parliament expanded the definition of slander and insult to specifically include content published on the Internet. Many journalists in Azerbaijan resort to self-censorship, particularly when writing about the powerful government officials and businesses linked to the presidential clan.

“President Aliyev has to do much more than just receive an award to prove he is a true friend to journalists. Releasing those who are in prison on spurious criminal charges would be a good start,” concluded the Senior Researcher of HRW.