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On Sunday, the Investigation Department for Grave Crimes questioned about 20 employees of the Baku Office of the Azerbaijani service of Radio Liberty. All of them were released after they signed breach of confidence of investigation, Azerbaijani news agency Turan reports.

As the article notes, in general, reporters were asked questions related to their professional activities. At the same time the lawyer Yalchin Imanov was suspended from defending the rights of the employees of Radio Liberty. By the decision of the First Deputy General Prosecutor Rustam Usubov, Imanov is held as a witness and therefore he has been excluded from the defense. “I regard this as an attempt to leave the Baku Office without defense,” Imanov told Turan.

As it is noted in the article, the lawyer said the search operations around Radio Liberty have no legal relation with the criminal case against the NGOs. "Actions against Radio Liberty are aimed at having pressure on the radio station for its independent, balanced and impartial coverage of events. The very process of searching, sealing the office, not allowing the staff to work, removal of the lawyer, and questioning the employees without defenders is a pressure campaign on Radio Liberty," said Imanov.

On its turn the "Caucasian Knot" writes that according to the chief editor of the Baku Office "Radio Liberty" Zeynal Mammadov, despite the agreement on summoning the staff for questioning by the prosecutor's office reached on December 27, last night and on Sunday morning the police compulsorily took them for investigation.

Meanwhile, the CoE Commissioner Nils Muzhnieks made a statement in connection with a police raid and closure of the office of radio "Azadlig". The statement was published on the official website of the Commission in the social network Facebook. "I anxiously watched the police raid on the office of Radio" Liberty" in Baku. This an unacceptable act was the latest in a series of numerous cases of repression and suppression of critical voices in Azerbaijan in recent years, and demonstrates how serious is the threat to journalists, human rights activists, and others who do not agree with the authorities," said the Commissioner, urging the authorities to once and for all stop the suppression of freedom of expression and media and to fulfill their commitments in the field of human rights protection.
A statement was also made by the US State Department spokesman, stressing that the State Department is extremely concerned about the fact that the General Prosecutor's Office of Azerbaijan sealed the office of "Radio Liberty" in Baku, reported "Turan" referring to the statement by "Agence France-Presse," stated on December 27 in Washington. According to the US State Department representative, there is also information according to which there are several journalists in the Azerbaijani capital that are detained and questioned. "The grounds for questioning and searches are unclear," he said.

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Press Dunja Mijatovic, as reported on the "Radio Liberty" website, called the police raid at the radio office an unacceptable one, noting that Azerbaijan continues attacks on freedom of speech.