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Azerbaijani journalists who report from areas near front lines facing Armenian forces are to be subject to new restrictions, reads the article published on the site of British IWPR.

According to the article, the government says this is because reporters are getting things wrong and giving away state secrets, but critics of the move say it will silence attempts to find out what is going on in under-reported parts of Azerbaijan.

The article tells that plans for stricter regulation of the press were announced by President Ilham Aliyev in August, with an order to prevent confidential information on defence matters being published in the media, including the internet. He also called for the prosecution of anyone engaged in leaking state secrets.

Afgan Mukhtarli is a journalist who regularly reports from front-line areas, and he points out that if security precautions are so poor that a reporter is able to spot arms’ shipment on the move in Azerbaijan, the Armenians can probably find out about it anyway.
Furthermore, he said, that the defence ministry conceals information on the deaths of soldiers both in combat and in non-combat situations as it believes it is not in the national interest for that to get out. “But the reverse is true – the ministry should be giving the public accurate information,” Mukhtarli notes.

Mukhtarli fears that tighter regulations will leave journalists reliant on whatever the defence ministry and other security service choose to make public.

Azad Isazade, who headed the defence ministry’s press department during the Karabakh war, and is now a defence analyst, believes it is essential for officials to work constructively with journalists and provide them with information.

“Journalist need sources,” he said. “If they don’t have them, it is inevitable that erroneous information will get out.”
For people who live in front-line villages, curbs on journalists visiting them will make it harder for them to get their voices heard.

"We aren’t heard anyway – we don’t get sensible coverage in the media. And now comes this ban,” said Ilgar Mustafayev, a villager from the northwest Qazakh district close to Armenia. “The authorities just want to ensure that our countless problems don’t get out. Frontier and front-line villages aren’t secret installations for journalists to be banned from going there and gathering material unhindered.”